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Home > TRAK > ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010

ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010

Introduction

The international standard for architecture description is 'ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 Systems & Software - Architecture Description'.

The latest release was in 2022 (i.e. ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010:2022). The first issue of 41010 was 2011 i.e. 42010:2011. The version before 42010:2011 was ‘IEEE 1471-2000 Recommended Practice for Architectural Description for Software-Intensive Systems’, IEEE, Oct. 2000.

Conceptual Model

The ideas behind the standard are based on a conceptual model, summarised in 2 fragments below.

ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 Systems & Software - Architecture Description

ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 Conceptual Model - Centred on Architecture Description. http://www.iso-architecture.org/42010/cm/

This then defines that a System's Architecture is distinct from the description of it - the Architecture Description.

As an aside this general approach of separating architecture from architecture description can also be applied to the more specific area of ontology.

ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 Systems & Software - Architecture Description

ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 Conceptual Model - Centred on Architecture Viewpoint. http://www.iso-architecture.org/42010/cm/

This defines that each Architecture View has it's own Architecture Viewpoint and that the Architecture Viewpoint is a specification for that Architecture View.

An Architecture Description is formed from one or more Architecture Views.

An Architecture Viewpoint frames one or more Stakeholder Concerns.

Impact of ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 on TRAK

Concern-Led Approach

Each TRAK architecture viewpoint identifies the typical concerns framed.

Each concern is linked explicitly to the allowed TRAK architecture view content - the set of triples presented by the architecture view that address each concern. The content of a TRAK architecture view is verifiable against its architecture viewpoint.

Concerns are used in TRAK to drive the coverage of each architecture viewpoint. Each concern requires specific metamodel triples to address the concern. If, therefore, the concerns of two architecture viewpoints are not sufficiently distinct then the architecture view content won't be either and causes problems in selecting the right one for a particular purpose. Similarly the degree of overlap of content can make it harder to navigate between architecture views. At one extreme if there is no overlap it is then impossible to navigate between a pair of architecture views. Since each architecture view content is unambiguously specified in TRAK it is possible to analyse the degree of overlap.

The corollary is that any architecture framework that has no mechanism to specify architecture view content cannot by definition assess overlap and metamodel coverage.

Conformance of TRAK Against ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010

ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010:2011

TRAK was designed from the outset to be compliant with the ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010:2011 standard. Although 42010:2011 was released at roughly the same time as TRAK we did have sight of the preceding draft versions and made comments on them so were able to align TRAK with 42010:2011.

The basis of the claim of conformance together with the supporting arguments and evidence is described using TRAK MV-04 Assurance architecture views (based on Claims, Arguments and Evidence (CAE) metamodel elements) and MV-03 Requirements & Standards architecture views. The MV-03 views are used to present the requirements within ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010:2011 whilst the compliance claims and evidence are presented on the MV-03 architecture views. Some MV-02 Architecture Description Design Record architecture views are provided to describe the task and to summarise the results of the assessment.

The conformance asssessment is presented as an architecture description (too good an opportunity to miss!) exported as a separate set of linked web pages. This contains the output provided for formal assessment of the claims.

The conformance claims fall into 2 main areas:-

• claims of conformance of TRAK as an architecture framework against the requirements in section 6 of the standard
• claims of conformance of a TRAK-conforming architecture description against section 5 of the standard - so that users of TRAK can see how much conformance they get against the international standard when they create a TRAK-conforming architecture description.

The outputs are:-

• the description itself (web pages) - TRAK00013. TRAK. Architecture Description. Conformance Assessment – ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010:2011
• the overall summary document - TRAK00015. TRAK. Architecture Description. Summary. Conformance Assessment – ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010:2011.

Part of this conformance assessment against ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010:2011 is shown as requirement hierarchy and an example of a conforming TRAK architecture view being wholly a graph.

ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010:2022

Note that a conformance assessment against ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010:2022 has not yet been made. The 2022 version has significantly grown in size and introduces new concepts that aren't required so it is a lot harder to discern the "signal" from the "noise" in compliance terms. The conformance results are unlikely to be different, however.