Is the process of defining a structured solution that meets all of the technical and operational requirements, while optimizing common quality attributes such as performance, security, and manageability. It involves a series of decisions based on a wide range of factors, and each of these decisions can have considerable impact on the quality, performance, maintainability, and overall success of the application.
Importance:
The risks exposed by poor architecture include software that is unstable, is unable to support existing or future business requirements, or is difficult to deploy or manage in a production environment.
Goals:
The architecture should:
- Expose the structure of the system but hide the implementation details.
- Realize all of the use cases and scenarios.
- Try to address the requirements of various stakeholders.
- Handle both functional and quality requirements.
Reference:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee658098.aspx
