The Role Of Software Architecture In A Software Project

INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this essay is about using a real example to show the role of software architecture in a software project, also describing its role in the project and finally evaluating if the software architect played his or her role effectively.
Firstly what is software architecture and who is a software architect? There have been numerous defined of what software architecture is but as defined by Mary Garlan and David Shaw (1993) as a level of design that involves four(4) major component which are the description of elements from which the system was built, the interaction among those element, also the pattern that guides the system composition and finally the constraint on these pattern.

Software architecture is a list

Architecture can provide basis of throwaway prototype. Architecture enables a system’s driving quality attributes.
Architecture is responsible for defining constraints on subsequent implementation.
With the above list of important it shows how and why software architecture is important in carrying out a project
Before beginning the designing of a software system, an architects needs to get the key requirement that affect the important structure of the system. The architectural drivers have great influence on the early design decisions the architect makes. In software architecture there are five major drivers which are as follows: the design purpose, quality attributes, primary functionality, architectural concerns and lastly, constraints. The various drivers listed above have been taken into consideration because the roles are critical to the success of the system being designed.
Design purpose:
Firstly, system developers need to clearly know the purpose of the design that they want to achieve. Developers need to ask questions like, when and why they are doing the architecture design and also the major business goals of the organisation at that point in

These abilities play vital role in other to put a working system to use (Bass, Clements, & Kazman, 2012). When designing software architecture, primary functionality need to be put into consideration because it is a functionality that is critical to achieve the business objective which inspires the development of the system. Primary functionality indicate high level of technicality, which without an architect been present, users cannot use the system. In designing an architecture, thoughts of functionality allocation amongst element of the system is very important because this increases reusability and modifiability. Moving on, INSTAGRAM will be used as an example to show the role of software architecture in completing this project. Instagram is an easy to use mobile application which was formerly just a web application that is used to capture, upload and edit pictures and videos either with tablet computers or smart phones. Users can share their creation on both Instagram and other various social media websites such as Facebook (which are currently the parent company of Instagram) Facebook bought Instagram since April 2012 and they still retain its attributes (Ochs,