Software Architecture Resources

This page contains selected resources on software architecture and the role of the architect, primarily gathered to support a presentation. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list, rather, it is a list of resources I have found useful.

General Architecture Sites

Bredemeyer Resources for Software Architects	This is an excellent site with lots of links and resources on the process of creating architecture and the role of the architect. I attended their workshops on Software Architecture and Role of the Architect and definitely recommend their training. It gave me an entirely new perspective on architecture and the role of the architect.
Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute (SEI)	References on architecture from a more classic perspective (not as agile). They also offer training.
InfoQ Architecture	InfoQ has a number of communities, including an Architecture community. The site has frequent articles relating to architecture.

Microsoft

ARCast	The Microsoft Channel 9 show hosted by Ron Jacobs that discusses topics of interest to architects.
Architect Types Video	Entertaining video form Microsoft on the three different types of architects.

Agile

Who Needs an Architect?	Martin Fowler article discussing archtecture and the role of teh architect.
Agile Architecture	Scott Ambler's take on architecture as part of an agile process.
Making Agile Methods and Enterprise Architecture Play Nice	InfoQ article on a report from the Cutter Consortium which discusses whether Enterprise Architecture and Agile methods are compatible. The entire report is available for free from the Cutter Consortium.

Role of the Architect

What would you say you do here?	Jeremy Miller writing on job titles, especially the architectural ones.
Hard Questions About Architects	Ted Neward's blog post reacting to an email he received from a blog reader on an experience interviewing for an architect position.

Associations

International Association of Software Architects (IASA)

Seems to be the most active organization of software architects. IASA is creating a library documents with the skills required of architects.

Books

	Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture This is the first patterns book I would recommend for business developers. Unlike the original Gang of Four patterns, these patterns are one you will likely recognize as part of your business software development. It provides a great catalog of these patterns and will help you think about your current development in new ways. Highly recommended.
	Enterprise Integration Patterns: Designing, Building, and Deploying Messaging Solutions (The Addison-Wesley Signature Series) With SOA everywhere now, it's important to understand interaction patterns of software components exchanging messages. This is an excellent reference on these topics. It includes many examples using C# and MSMQ.
	Software Architecture in Practice (2nd Edition) (The SEI Series in Software Engineering) This is more of a textbook reference from the people at the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute. It contains many case studies demonstrating the principles and practices they identify at work.
	Software Systems Architecture: Working With Stakeholders Using Viewpoints and Perspectives This is also a textbook type reference, but is written from the perspective of working architects. It seems more applicable to the real world than Software Architecture in Practice. It describes a method of describing architecture using views and perspectives. By their definition, a view is "a representation of one or more structural aspects of an architecture that illustrates how the architecture addresses one or more concerns held by one or more of its stakeholders." A perspective is "a collection of activities, tactics, and guidelines that are used to ensure that a system exhibits a particular set of related quality properties that require consideration across a number of the system's architectural views." The Software Systems Architecture web site can be viewed here.

Tags: Architecture