Architecture Viewpoint Library

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This is the future home of the Architecture Viewpoint Library. In the meantime, folks involved in the repository design should start here [Design Notes].

About

One important aspect of ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 (IEEE 1471:2000) is the notion of architecture viewpoint.

An explicit goal of IEEE 1471:2000 was to encourage the establishment of a library of reusable architecture viewpoints to be shared by practitioners. There are already many successful viewpoints. (Until we set up a listing here, see the links on the left, or look at the 42010 bibliography.)

Reusable Viewpoints

The goal of the Library is to provide a place for practitioners and researchers in software, system and enterprise architecture to publish, share and collaborate on architecture viewpoints documented in the style of ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010.

Viewpoints are one form of reusable architecture knowledge. A viewpoint codifies a way of addressing some architectural concerns in terms of notations, kinds of models or other forms. The idea of viewpoints dates back to the 1970s Doug Ross' Structured Analysis and Design Technique (SADT). Anthony Finkelstein and colleagues further refined the concept in the field of Requirements Engineering. Early work in software architecture codified a number of architecture viewpoints (such as Kruchten's 4+1 view model). IEEE 1471:2000 formalized the notion of a viewpoint as a first-class entity. The international revision of that standard, ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 is further refining it and introduces a "conformance point" for architecture viewpoints, so that users of the standard may document and "put on the shelf" viewpoints for general use.

An architecture viewpoint is characterized by:

• a set of concerns to be addressed
• a set of stakeholders interested in how they are addressed
• one or more model kinds
• the conventions: concepts, notations, rules, patterns, styles and semantics to be invoked in creating, interpreting and using models of each kind;
• correspondence rules linking the models together.

The Library

The Library will archive viewpoints, collect references and related resources and facilitate collaboration among those who wish to use and development viewpoints.

A small team will be designing the basics of the Library over the next few months of 2010, and then opening it to the public.