Is my architecture sustainable?

There are many ways to design and build a technical architecture for a product or a large, complex application. At agileSEQUENT, we believe that the primary role of technical architecture is to remain unchanged for as long as possible, i.e. serve as a stable platform for many functional evolutions without risks of refactoring, while balancing complexity and extensibility. It's a moving train: functional evolutions reflect ever changing market and customer requirements.

Our Architecture Alignment engagement focuses on aligning business drivers with architecture foundation elements (for example: scalability) and metrics (0 to 10,000 concurrent users). If the initial architectural “blueprint” has already been developed, Architecture Development engagement focuses on ensuring that the current or proposed technical architecture will clearly reflect and incorporate previously defined architecture foundation elements.

How agileSEQUENT can help

Architecture Development engagement is typically conducted in three phases. The third phase is optional but highly effective, where agileSEQUENT helps you to develop a fully functional architectural prototype which demonstrates functional behavior of one major Use Case and connects all architectural layers.

Overview of the Architecture Development phases: 

• Phase 1 – Review Requirements: working closely with your lead architects, we will review major requirements which have the greatest influence on the architecture, review proposed technical architecture (logical tiers, run-time deployment model, user experience rendering, security / identity management, transaction and content management, session / thread management model)
  
  
• Phase 2 – Provide Feedback: we will provide direct and straightforward assessment. Where applicable, we will also provide additional architectural options 
  
  
• Phase 3 – Build Architecture Prototype: working closely with selected members of your team, we will identify a major Use Case and build one or more layers of the proposed architecture. At the end of this phase, the prototype will reflect a working building block of the architecture ready to be embedded in the larger architectural “blueprint”.

Some agileSEQUENT clients asked us to build the architecture in multiple iterations, repeating Phase 3 activities until all architectural layers and elements are built and tested.

We typically train the client’s team to use agile development techniques first and then help you built a sustainable, stable architectural platform.

We also would like to share a comment from one of our clients.  “Architecture is always present – you will get it even without asking for it. If you ask about it, chances are you will get something reasonable. If you don’t, you will still get architecture. It will simply be the wrong one”.    

For more information

Please contact sales@agilesequent.com for more information about our Architecture Development consulting services.