1. Purpose and scope
Architecture is where requirements become structure. The system architecture identifies the elements of the system, their interfaces and behaviour, and allocates each system requirement to the elements that will implement it. The software architecture then breaks software into components with defined interfaces, describes how they behave together over time and states the resource budgets, such as memory, processing time and communication load, that each must respect. Hardware design, at board or chip level, follows the same pattern for the hardware elements.
Assessors look for three things that are often weak. First, dynamic behaviour: a structure diagram alone does not show how components interact, in what order and under what timing. Second, evaluated alternatives: architecture is a series of choices, and the model expects them to be recorded with the criteria used and the options rejected. Third, consistency: the architecture must agree with the requirements it implements and with the code that later implements it, and the traceability matrix should be extended to architecture elements and interfaces.
In scope: the system architecture description, interface specifications, the software architecture description, the hardware design description, the cybersecurity architecture where the plug-in applies, design decision records, the final verification strategy and the extension of traceability. Out of scope: the detailed design of software units, which belongs to Detailed Design, Units & Unit Verification.
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