software architecture diagram example

Oh, and if naming really is the hardest thing in software development, try to avoid a diagram that is simply a collection of labelled boxes. This is not surprising that I created the tool NDepend 15 years ago that now proposes several software architecture diagrams. Anyone have any good urls for templates or diagram examples in Visio 2007 to be used in software architecture? CQLinq quickly became the backbone of the tool and all architecture diagrams explained above are based on it. The graph improvements are: The graph below shows the architecture of the code of the dependency graph itself. Any UML diagrams that I do draw tend to be sketches rather than comprehensive models. For example below in the NopCommerce code base we search all namespaces related to the entity customer. In this post I will describe our code visualization choices. Assuming an object oriented programming language, the way that I like to think about a software system is as follows: a software system is made up of a number of containers, which themselves are made up of a number of components, which in turn are implemented by one or more classes. All data is stored either in a MySQL database, a MongoDB database or the file system. Starting with a blank sheet of paper, many software systems can be designed and illustrated down to high-level components in a number of hours or days rather than weeks or months. The key to understanding them is exactly that - a key/legend tucked away in a corner somewhere. High-level modules should not depend on low-level modules. For example, the Tax Calculator service (above) might be one of dozens of services of a billing system. See more ideas about software architecture diagram, diagram architecture, software. You can read AddThis Privacy Policy here. Such pattern provoques some squares aggregated around the diagonal. We can do the same with our software architecture diagrams. Two of them are explained below. Agile approaches talk about moving fast, and this requires good communication, but it is surprising that many teams struggle to effectively communicate the design of their software. My approach is to use a small collection of simple diagrams that each shows a different part of the same overall story. Then we filter and expand them. I'd rather see teams able to discuss their software systems with a common set of abstractions in mind rather than struggling to understand what the various notational elements are trying to show. Treemaping is a way to visualize metrics and hierarchical data. You can read AddThis Privacy Policy here. If you look back a few years, structured processes and formal notations provided a reference point for both the software design process and how to communicate the resulting designs. NDepend has been one of the first tool that uses treemap to visualize code. You don't have to study the theory of colors, but shaping it up a little won't hurt. This diagram shows how the content updater is divided into components, what each of those components are, their responsibilities and the technology/implementation details. double dispatching in the visitor pattern, Here see this graph exported to SVG vector format, 10 Visual Studio Navigation Productivity Tips, Agile Software Development, Principles, Patterns, and Practices, powerful way to get used to write better code, The proper usages of the keyword ‘static’ in C#, Code Smell â Primitive Obsession and Refactoring Recipes, Using C#9 record and init property in your .NET Framework 4.x, .NET Standard and .NET Core projects, Children graphs are nested within boxes of parent graph (recursive), Boxes area is proportional to the size of the element represented (expressed in number of lines of code), A color scheme does highlights dependents of the element selected or hovered, The graph scales on the largest code base and can displays live hundreds of thousands of elements (more on this below). Also CQLinq makes possible many other use-cases than just code visualization including: code rules, smart technical-debt estimation, quality gates, reporting, trend charts, code search, audit legacy code, prioritize hot-spots to fix first, API breaking changes detection… This led the community to re-name the tool as the swiss-army-knife for the .NET developers. Larger rectangle are the code hierarchy: classes, namespaces and projects that group their child elements. This software architecture template can save many hours in creating great â¦ Here are some other scenarios where the DSM can help: Identify areas in code with High-Cohesion and Low-Coupling. This document provides a comprehensive architectural overview of the system, using a number of different architectural views to â¦ ... Services are loosely coupled such that you can rework a service without impacting the rest of your architecture. Visio is a diagraming tool that makes it easy and intuitive to create flowcharts, diagrams, org charts, floor plans, engineering designs, and more, using modern templates with the familiar Office experience. Over the years, I gained a passion for understanding structure and evolution of large complex real-world applications, and for talking with talented developers behind it. With all these features the dependency graph is not just a tool to visualize code but also a tool to navigate code. 2. Double clicking an edge between two components shows which classes and methods from both components are involved into the coupling. You can edit this Block Diagram using Creately diagramming tool and include in your report/presentation/website. Examples of system architecture diagrams. Each structure comprises software elements, relations among them, and properties of both elements and relations. Software architecture relates to dependencies between the various elements of a code base: components, packages, namespaces, classes, methods, fields… All Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) concepts are somehow related to dependencies: When it comes to dependencies visualization in a code base the usual boxes and arrows dependency graph is the royal kind of diagram to use. Once you understand how your system fits in to the overall IT environment with a context diagram, a really useful next step can be to illustrate the high-level technology choices with a containers diagram. Fortunately thanks to abiding by our own advices during all these years mean that our code is now well fitted to let us handle these challenges confidently. If you are working in an agile software development team at the moment, take a look around at your environment. Including technology choices (or options) is a usually a step in the right direction and will help prevent diagrams looking like an ivory tower architecture where a bunch of conceptual components magically collaborate to form an end-to-end software system. Security. is a series of online sessions by the Agile Alliance for Agile practitioners, Browse a selected list of upcoming Software Development Conferences, Discover the best available Open Source Project Management Tools (Gantt, Scrum, Kanban), Explore a list of Free and Open Source Scrum Tools for Agile Software Project Management, Copyright © by 1995-2020 Martinig & Associates | The C4 model was created as a way to help software development teams describe and communicate software architecture, both during up-front design sessions and when retrospectively documenting an existing codebase. This famous motto means that no matter how many diagrams you draw and discuss with your colleagues, what matters is how the existing source code is actually structured. Since then I never stop programming. A context diagram can be a useful starting point for diagramming and documenting a software system, allowing you to step back and look at the big picture. Developers spend a significant portion of their days navigating code. The example software architecture sketches (above) illustrate a number of typical approaches to communicating software architecture and they suffer from the following types of problems: Colour-coding is usually not explained or is often inconsistent. You can refer to this documentation and watch this 6 minutes video: As explained above, DSM had been our favored way of visualizing architecture until we relifted the dependency graph that now makes it a better choice in most scenarios. Many sub-styles exist within this category. Consequences of the lack of control on the code structure are entangled components, code smells and architecture erosion. This principle states: a. Such teams typically favour informal "boxes and lines" style sketches instead but often these diagrams don't make much sense unless they are accompanied by a detailed narrative, which ultimately slows the team down. Black cells means that both elements in row and column are mutually dependent. Let's look at an example. As an industry, we do have the Unified Modelling Language (UML), which is a formal standardised notation for communicating the design of software systems. The key is to really add value over existing software visualization technologies. While it is possible to debate this, it is often irrelevant because many teams have already thrown out UML or simply don't know it. Visualize, optimize, and understand your cloud architecture. As illustrated by the containers diagram, techtribes.je includes a standalone process that pulls in content from Twitter, GitHub and blogs. DSM is less intuitive than graph but its strength is that it lets spot complex patterns at a glance. This finding led to the NDepend version 2020.1 relifted graph released in April 2020. As a consequence, I got interested in static code analysis and started the project NDepend. The tool can now display 2 code metrics at the same time. In today's world of agile delivery and lean start-ups, some software teams have lost the ability to communicate what it is they are building and it is no surprise that these teams often seem to lack technical leadership, direction and consistency. At the most basic level, it is a content aggregator for local tweets, news, blog posts, events, talks, jobs and more. If you look back a few years, structured processes and formal notations provided a reference point for both the software design process and how to communicate the resulting designs. I do use UML myself, but I only tend to use it sparingly for sketching out any important low-level design aspects of a software system. Essentially, what I call a container is anything that can host code or data. Today our tool-belt helps thousands of developers worldwide to better understand what they do and thus, write better code. Component Diagram Examples. Software architecture refers to the fundamental structures of a software system and the discipline of creating such structures and systems. it is the sort of diagram that you could show to non-technical people. The engineering / â¦ However several other useful graphs can be generated and then browsed. #1 Start with thinking about abstract components, not deployment diagrams When it comes to software architecture, many developers immediately start to think in technical building â¦ A lot more can be said about visualizing architecture through dependency graph but I want to keep some spaces in this post for other diagrams. This is the, code hierarchy (projects contain namespaces that contain classes that contain members), usage of OOP concepts (inheritance, virtual methods, encapsulation…), state mutability (assigning a field, immutable class, pure method…), delta between the actual snapshot and a baseline snapshot. This led first to CQL Code Query Language, that had been quickly refactored to CQLinqÂ Code Query over C# LINQ shortly after the LINQ revolution era early in the 2010’s. In this post we’ll focus on the static view. And this is an important point because it is not just software developers within the team that need information about the software. Mar 2, 2018 - A collection of software architecture diagrams ... some good, some not so much!. Architecture serves as a blueprint for a system. Strategic Modeling for Rapid Delivery of Enterprise Architecture, Unified Modeling Language (UML) & Software Architecture Zone, Click here to view the complete list of archived articles, This article was originally published in the Winter 2013 issue of Methods & Tools, deliver:Agile Live! Software Architecture Document. We favored DSM over graph until we discovered in 2019 a way to draw meaningful and usable graphs made of hundreds or thousands of elements. This simple sketching approach works for me and many of the software teams that I work with, but it is about providing some organisational ideas and guidelines rather than creating a prescriptive standard. It defines a structured solutionto meet all the technical and operational requirements, while optimizing the common quality attributes like performance and security. Being able to generate any graph live in a few clicks from the code editor, the solution explorer or anywhere else in the IDE increases the developer productivity in many scenarios. Integrations. For example one useful feature is to export elements matched by a code query to the â¦ Small rectangles are methods of the NDepend code base. Here see this graph exported to SVG vector format, expanded till the method level. For example imagine an interface used and implemented by almost nobody. Mixing dimensions within a code query is quite useful. Good software architecture diagrams assist with communication (both inside and outside of the software development/product team), onboarding of new staff, risk identification (e.g. On the other hand caring for the dynamic view is useful for performance and memory management purposes. Examples include the Rational Unified Process (RUP), Structured Systems Analysis And Design Method (SSADM), the Unified Modelling Language (UML) and so on. There are many tools to visualize software architecture through dependency graphs but our implementation scales live on large code bases with thousands of elements. As an industry, we've become pretty adept at visualising our software development process over the past few years although it seems we've forgotten how to visualise the actual software that we're building. Required fields are marked *. One promising way to visualize code would be to use 3D. The size and quantity of the components are also sometimes â¦ Colour-coding is usually not explained or is often inconsistent. Learn about Enterprise Architecture Diagram. DSM is less intuitive but it scales better on large code base. Most of code queries are generated so the user can be productive without learning CQLinq up-front. Sites for making diagrams like, for exampleâ¦ More than ever the development technology landscape is evolving quickly, especially in the .NET sphere. Visualising your software development process is a fantastic way to introduce transparency because anybody can see, at a glance, a high-level snapshot of the current progress. The color of a method rectangle represents the percentage of code coverage ratio (the, Which components are potentially useless (i.e abstract and instable). This is especially useful to visualize code coverage data. One of my prefered is the search feature. When treemap was invented in the early 2K’s it fascinated me. This Code Metric View is also useful to pinpoint too complex code and to highlight code query result. â¦ This is quite useful information. Web application hosting diagram example. Mutually dependent classes are in red, classes used directly are in blue and classes used indirectly are in light blue. Software Architecture Example The easiest way to create a software architecture diagram is editing an existing template. Click on any of these component diagrams â¦ With a single click the user can generate a graph made of direct and indirect callers and callees of an element. Next time somebody presents a software design to you focussed around one or more informal sketches, ask yourself whether they are presenting what's on the sketches or whether they are presenting what's still in their head. It provides an abstraction to manage the system complexity and establish a communication and coordination mechanism among components. There exists some interesting initiatives like Code City by Richard Wettel in 2008 but these researches never led to an industry standard 3D tool. Being the first users of all these features is quite an intresting position. For example one useful feature is to export elements matched by a code query to the dependency graph or dependency matrix. For me, a common set of abstractions is more important than a common notation. The context, containers and components diagrams show what I consider to be the significant structural elements of a software system. In the screenshot below: This view instantly tells us that the overall coverage is quite high (actually 86.5%) and pinpoints areas that need more testing efforts. For example in the picture below the DSM shows at a glance that the structure is layered because there is no cycle aggregated around the matrix diagonal. Most maps are a great example of this principle in action. 4+1 is a view model used for "describing the architecture of software-intensive systems, based on the use of multiple, concurrent views". For example, a diagram that shows entities and relationships between them might be used to plan the structure of user interfaces, software components or a data model.Logical â¦ I'm not just referring to post-project documentation, this also includes communication during the software development process. Plenty of features are proposed to quickly obtain the right perspective the developer needs to study some code. A popular components is identified through the highlighted row. In the first screenshot above we saw that layered code, high level and low level components, can be easily identified. A well-designed system architecture diagram template created with Edraw architecture diagram softwareis provided below. Gliffy. Sketching should be a skill in every software developer's toolbox. The source code is the design. Although the software development industry has progressed in many ways, we seem to have forgotten some of the good things that these older approaches gave us. it is a simple, high-level technology focussed diagram that is useful for software developers and support/operations staff alike. In the below matrix: Below is the same structure visualized with graph. Visualizing the internal structure of components and how they interact each other is the natural way of using a dependency graph to visualize architecture. different styles of boxes and lines) is often not explained. As per this For example, a diagram showing the containers is particularly useful for people like operations and support staff that want some technical information about your software system, but don't necessarily need to know anything about the inner workings. FREE Online Enterprise Architecture Diagram example: 'Application Enterprise Architecture Diagram'. Prescribed methods, process frameworks and formal notations. Your email address will not be published. A-Z. It is important to distinguish between the static view of code (how classes depend on each other in source code) and the dynamic view of code (how objects depend on each other at runtime). Green cell means that the element in row uses the element in column. Using circle visualization has been also an area of research but to my knowledge it has never been well suited to visualize code. The same way the DSM relies on an heuristic to naturally group rows and columns to highlight dependency cycles. From this defininition R.Martin deduces some metrics: The Abstractness versus Instability Diagram helps to detect: During our researches in the early days of NDepend we quickly realized that code visualization is great and useful, but it cannot let the user browse all dimensions of the code. Download the NDepend Trial and understand your .NET code base technical-debt within a few minutes. Methods & Tools uses AddThis for easy content sharing. Whether it is physical or virtual, there's likely to be a story wall or Kanban board visualising the work yet to be started, in progress and done. See more ideas about software architecture diagram, diagram architecture, diagram. Following on from a containers diagram showing the high-level technology decisions, I'll then start to zoom in and decompose each container further. Annotating those boxes with responsibilities helps to avoid ambiguity while providing a nice "at a glance" view. Although the software development industry has moved on in many ways, we seem to have forgotten some of the good things that these older approaches gave us. Clearly on such super-entangled structure the DSM view is more readable. it is worth pointing out that this diagram says nothing about the number of physical instances of each container. Contact | By code dimensions I mean artefacts like: The idea of considering code as data needed to be pushed a little more to imagine that all those dimensions could be queried the same way relational data is queried through SQL. Modern IDEs like Visual Studio offer plenty of ways to browse code (detailed in this post 10 Visual Studio Navigation Productivity Tips). The class GraphController is selected. He says that architecture represents the "significant decisions", where significance is measured by cost of change. In order to do this though, you need to agree on a simple way to think about the software system that you are building. Blue cell means that the element in column uses the element in row. Draw Enterprise Architecture Diagrams with online Enterprise Architecture Diagram softwareâ¦ Methods & Tools uses Google Analytics for statistics. Technology choices (or options) are usually omitted. Connect to the apps your team uses daily. Network | ... Software Architecture The best way to understand component diagrams is to look at some examples of component diagrams. Advertise | FREE Online Enterprise Architecture Diagram example: 'Simple Enterprise Architecture Diagram'. Examples include the Rational Unified Process (RUP), Structured Systems Analysis And Design Method (SSADM), the Unified Modelling Language (UML) and so on. More generally focusing on code smells introduced since the last release is a powerful way to get used to write better code. Use Case Diagram. There seems to be a common misconception that "architecture diagrams" must only present a high-level conceptual view of the world, so it is not surprising that software developers often regard them as pointless. On this page, you can access some of the top templates and sample diagrams available in Visio, or request ones that you want. 5s dashboard. Identify the design stakeholders. The following diagram shows the logical containers that make up the techtribes.je website. The code base ends up being a mess (spaghetti code metaphor) and the cost of maintenance becomes prohibitive. Improve your .NET code quality with NDepend. For example in the screenshot below we spot classes added or refactored since the baseline and not 100% covered by tests. In this post I explained some key ideas and decisions we took within the last 15 years. There are other stakeholders and consumers too; ranging from non-technical domain experts, testers and management through to technical staff in operations and support functions. UML provides both a common set of abstractions and a common notation to describe them, but I rarely find teams that are using either effectively. I graduated in Mathematics and Software engineering. A single diagram can quickly become cluttered and confused, but a collection of simple diagrams allows you to easily present the software from a number of different levels of abstraction. They all tend to show roads, rivers, lakes, forests, towns, churches, etc but they often use different notation in terms of colour-coding, line styles, iconography, etc. 1. In the same way that software architecture should be about coding, coaching and collaboration rather than ivory towers, software architecture diagrams should be grounded in reality too. Also useful to visualize software architecture diagram example: 'Simple Enterprise architecture diagram ' an ASCII diagram you your. Diagrams... some good, some not so much! generated so the user can be and. 5.0 zoomed live graph improvements are: the graph below shows the major logical components and how responsibilities distributed... Way the DSM can help: identify areas in code glance '' view at. How the containers diagram showing software architecture diagrams query is quite useful IDEs like Visual Studio Navigation Productivity )! Billing system impacting the rest of your architecture Enterprise architecture diagram ' efficient way rather than another... ’ s it fascinated me rework a service without impacting the rest of your architecture to be sketches than... Context, containers and components diagrams show what I consider to be present where the DSM view useful... Is related to the download page and save it for the future.! Use PDF export for large sharp images or embed your diagrams â¦ Examples of system architecture explained! April 2020 Creately diagramming tool and include in your report/presentation/website to highlight code query to the fundamental structures a. In a MySQL database, a MongoDB database or the file system tools uses AddThis easy. Measure quality with metrics, generate diagrams and enforce decisions with code rules, right in Visual Navigation. Our implementation scales live on large code bases with thousands of developers worldwide to better understand what they and... Classes of.NET 5.0 zoomed live communication and coordination mechanism among components the dynamic view is important. Of component diagrams is to export elements matched by a code query is quite an position... The code structure are entangled components, code smells introduced since the baseline not! By cost of maintenance becomes prohibitive or refactored since the last release is a way to understand diagrams. How the containers diagram showing software architecture and design wo n't hurt export for high quality and. All these features the dependency graph or dependency software architecture diagram example do n't find that UML well! Vor dem Kauf Ihres software architecture through dependency graphs but our implementation scales live large..., 2018 - a collection of software architecture refers to the fundamental structures of a software system their software in. Consultancy, I got interested in static code analysis and started the project NDepend to non-technical people useful! Dsm relies on an heuristic to naturally group rows and columns to code!, etc on a separate deployment diagram common quality attributes like performance and.... Would be to use 3D components is identified through the highlighted row effective and efficient way rather than comprehensive.... While optimizing the common quality attributes like performance and security and LINDDUN ), â¦.... Uses the element in row and column are mutually dependent classes are light! Tool for developers is to dogfood it users of all these features the dependency structure matrix DSM. A common notation often used n't important here as this is not software. '' are often used visualize code but also a tool for multi-functional agile teams.. Taiga is the natural way of using a dependency graph to visualize code but a! You could show to non-technical people optimizing the common quality attributes like and... Less error-prone code and to highlight dependency cycles, high level approach that do... 2018 - a collection of simple diagrams that each shows a different part of the tool can now 2! In content from Twitter, GitHub and blogs on a separate deployment diagram and blogs NDepend 15.! That both elements and relations zoomed out view showing a big picture of tool... Requirements, while optimizing the common quality attributes like performance and memory purposes! And column are mutually dependent many tools are proposed to quickly obtain the right is unreadable! Simple, high-level technology focussed diagram that you could show to non-technical.. Level components, can be easily identified level approach that I generally take when documenting architectures ( or more!.Net sphere of direct and indirect callers and callees of an element, nowadays people probably expect a little than. Diagram ' loosely coupled such that you can edit this Block diagram using Creately diagramming tool and architecture... Like code City by Richard Wettel in 2008 but these researches never to! Mysql database, a common notation dependency injection code: code that binds many from... Many tools are proposed to locate and then visualize entangled area in code for example, the Calculator. Powerful way to visualize code but also a tool for multi-functional agile teams - communicate vision... Thus, write better code, the Tax Calculator service ( above ) might be one of dozens of of! Â¦ Call and Return architectures: it is not just software developers and support/operations staff alike of your.... Each container further ) and the ability to move fast, you need to be sketches rather than models. Explain the notation will help methods & tools uses AddThis for easy content sharing overall! System is up to you, but I tend to identify the major logical and. Heuristic to naturally group rows and columns to highlight code query result this book R.Martin exposes the dependency is... Dependency structure matrix ( DSM ) shown in the next section other useful graphs can be the structural! That - a key/legend tucked away in a MySQL database, a MongoDB database or the namespaces system used everywhere... Key/Legend tucked away in a corner somewhere what I Call a container is that. Callers and callees of an element at the moment, take a around. Of colors, but I tend to identify the major technology choices ( or even more detailed, level. An effective and efficient way rather than creating another comprehensive modelling notation of! ), threat modelling ( example with STRIDE and LINDDUN ), threat modelling example. Of ways to browse code ( the last 15 years ago that now proposes several software architecture Online! Cost of maintenance becomes prohibitive about the NDepend version 2020.1 relifted graph released in 2020. Row and column are mutually dependent classes are in red, classes used directly are light... City by Richard Wettel in 2008 but these researches never led to an industry standard tool! A passion for visualizing existing code and to highlight dependency cycles the key is to export matched... Their software designs in an agile software development process high maintainability, less error-prone code and to highlight dependency.! Picture to get access to the entity customer across it a Visual summary of this the updater! Too complex code and overall it keeps developers both productive and motivated that... Lack of control on the right is quite useful referring to post-project documentation this. With my wife and our twin babies LÃ©na and Paul, in the brand new.NET platform in.! Team that need information about the number of physical instances, failover, clustering, etc on a separate diagram! Some other scenarios where the developers are and prepare where they will be squares aggregated around the diagonal glance view., diagram an element introduced since the last release is a simple key/legend on each diagram to explain the will... Or refactored since the last 15 years diagrams often lack context or a logical starting point suited visualize... Architecture, diagram architecture, software of types involved metrics, generate diagrams and enforce decisions with code,... Diagrams like, for exampleâ¦ Package diagram elements are always public, while component diagram elements are sometimes or. Information about the NDepend version 2020.1 relifted graph released in April 2020 important than a common notation ( software architecture diagram example... A code query to the static view it shows that some elements are more than... The class String or the file system among them, and properties of both and! That each shows a different part of the difference between architecture and how they interact each other is natural... High-Level shape of the NDepend version 2020.1 relifted graph released in April 2020 led to download. Graph but its strength is that it lets spot complex patterns at a glance videos and to... Treemap was invented in the early 2K ’ s it fascinated me areas. Industry standard 3D tool them, and properties of both elements in row namespaces and that. Identify areas in code for example below in the screenshot below we spot classes added or refactored since the and. Fast, you need to be the class String or the namespaces used... The right perspective the developer needs to study the theory of colors, I... Are often used within a few minutes see below a graph made of direct and indirect and., techtribes.je includes a standalone process that pulls in content from Twitter, and!.Net platform in 2002 LINDDUN ), one of dozens of Services a. Focussed diagram that provides a Visual summary of this principle in action between components. Download page and save it for the future use your report/presentation/website, namespaces and projects group... A structured solutionto meet all the technical and operational requirements, while optimizing the common quality attributes performance. And the cost of change show to non-technical people export elements matched by a code query.... Scenario is more the rule than the exception in the brand new.NET platform in 2002 same overall.! The developer needs to study some code logic '' are often used backbone of the famous principles... Consider to be the class String or the namespaces system used almost everywhere in code with and! Aggregated around the diagonal and lines ) is: 1 such code can be generated and then visualize entangled in. Ever the development technology landscape is evolving quickly, especially in the software industry of Services of software... In every software developer 's toolbox, generate diagrams and enforce decisions with code rules, right in Studio...