Global analysis

Global analysis is a systematic approach to designing a software architecture that satisfies its desired quality attributes. It works by examining the factors that bear on a system from outside its own boundaries, such as organizational structure, the technologies mandated by the business, and the system’s operating environment, and tracing how each one constrains the architecture, before any structural design decisions are made.

The method was developed and documented by Christine Hofmeister and colleagues at Siemens Corporate Research, as part of a broader architecture design method that also includes conceptual and module-level design steps. Within this framework, global analysis is the step responsible for surfacing constraints early, so that later design decisions are made with the full set of quality attributes and external pressures already in view.

References

• Hofmeister, C, Nord, R, and Soni, D (2000). Applied Software Architecture. Addison-Wesley.