Reusability of prior designs is critical when creating best-practice solutions i

Question

Reusability of prior designs is critical when creating best-practice solutions in the enterprise. Capturing such designs provides useful guidance for Enterprise Architects. However, cataloguing such blueprints for reuse is a daunting task, and processes to perform cataloguing have yet to be formalized and standardized. Large corporations typically invest in developing and standardizing such processes internally, which typically results in a variety of possible cataloguing approaches that are specific to the industry or enterprise. For this Discussion, post a cohesive response that addresses the following: Propose a “use case” scenario for reusing architectural models and blueprints.

Explanation / Answer

Solution:-

Reusability of existing architecture and blueprints is done due to the legacy and reliability of existing architecture models. There are benefits and harms exists of reusing the architecture models and blueprints of existing system. Here we discuss the need of reusability and it's use case to understand it.

We focus on architecture reuse rather than the well trodden area of reuse of implementations, components or software. Since we realize that these subjects are related we try to emphasize architecture reuse. In enterprise architectures the use of architecture principles is encouraged, which is a high level form of architecture reuse. The proliferation of architecture frameworks and the popularity of Enterprise Architectures raise the expectations of architecture reuse.

Most participating companies actively strive for asset reuse. In practice this translates in reusing existing components or subsystems. Sometimes components or subsystems are reused “as is”, but often the existing part evolves further to fit better in the new system. These reused assets implement an architecture and may or may not have an explicitly documented architecture. In many cases the architecture reuse is a consequence of reusing assets rather than a driving force.

Interfaces, communication infrastructure, and synchronization mechanisms are very typical

elements of architectures that are reused when the focus has been on asset reuse. These elements appeared in all the presentations of the participants about their architecture reuse. We observe a use case scenario for reusing the architecture and blueprints.

Nokia produces a wide variety of cell phones in multiple product families. All these products share the same overall architecture, with varying implementations of subsystems and components in both hardware and software.For example, most products are configured by selecting the appropriate implementation for the core chip set (CPU, DSP, modem), memory, imaging and video capture, display, connectivity (Bluetooth, WiFi), (Symbian) OS, Middleware, applications, modem stack, and HW drivers and adaptation layer. Interface management is critical in configuring different products from available and evolving components. Many products share the exact same interfaces and versions. Most products maintain the same logical interfaces, even across their later versions.The discussion of the cases triggered the observation that different parts of the system change at different time-scales. E.g. software and digital electronics technologies change rapidly (and hence the hardware/software architecture might evolve fast). Algorithms and concepts tend to change slower, and the human and physics context changes even more slowly. Another observation was that systems over time collect an ever increasing legacy. At the one hand this means a high degree of (implementation) reuse, at the other hand the question is whether the architecture stays healthy with such amount of legacy.

The rationale for architecture reuse follows the typical rationale for asset reuse: e.g. improved quality based on proven performance, improved time to market, reduced development cost or protection of past investments, reduced operational costs, risk reduction, branding, and competence sharing. Facilitating an ecosystem is more specific for architecture reuse, although this argument was mentioned as a positive (facilitating) and negative (constraining).

Potential disadvantages also follow the disadvantages of asset reuse:

1) Potentially limiting innovations

2) Lock-in of legacy realizations and concepts

3)Might be inappropriate in changing business environment vendors, features, customer expectations or needs, cost or business models

4) Potentially limiting technology changes

5) All benefits mentioned before might turn out to be the opposite for cost reduction the architecture sharing might induce a cost increase

During the discussion, the role of the developers was emphasized. It was remarked that “Reuse mostly happens through humans”. Humans carry knowledge and have the skills to apply the knowledge. Architecture reuse is an attempt to capture this knowledge in repositories such that the knowledge can be reused elsewhere. There is a clear tension between the idea to capture knowledge in documents or artifacts in repositories and the observation that humans carry knowledge and have the reuse capability.

The approach to qualities, such as reliability, safety, and performance, may serve as a starting point for future architectures. The relevance of qualities is that these system level properties are the result of the integration of all contributing parts.

This is a discussion on the reuse of architecture model and blueprints of existing system. There are more use cases to study the topic. Here the use case scenario is discussed for Nokia company. So we learned about reusability of architecture model and blueprints of existing system.

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