System Architecture Concerns: A Stakeholders’ Perspective

This article is based on a research on identifying different stakeholders’ concerns for system architecture and design. It explores if the different stakeholders’ need for system architecture information is related to their concerns. It addresses two important research questions on system architecture descriptions, namely, 1) Do all stakeholders have different needs for information on system architecture concerns? and 2) How much of similarities and differences exist between the stakeholders' need for such information. The authors analyze if the system architecture information needs of the stakeholders’ can be addressed by providing different views to different stakeholders. Based on the findings of their research, the authors propose a two-view architecture framework, Summary view and In-Depth view, which can help development projects that are required to generate stakeholder specific architecture views. The findings of the study suggest that the information needs of different groups of stakeholders for system architecture are driven by their own need to get their tasks of system realization completed.