SAAM
architectural description:
A representaion of high level
organization of a computer system (mainly software, but also hardware
at times) that indicates location of function and storage and
relationships between them.
connection:
Either a control connection or a component
connection.
control connection:
A relationship of invocation between
components.
data connection:
A relationship of information flow between
components.
component:
Either an active component or a
passive component.
active component:
A component which represents a location of
function in an architecture.
passive component:
A component which represents a location of
storage in an architecture.
scenario:
A snippet of behavior for a system. These are usually
expressed in terms of a given system and there is a further
classification of a scenario with respect to that system. There are
two kinds of scenearios: direct scenarios and indirect scenarios.
direct scenario:
A scenario that describes behavior currently
supported by the system.
indirect scenario:
A scenario that describes behavior that is
not currently supported by the system. That is, the system, as
currently understood, must undergo some evolution to support the
behavior.
impact analysis:
For a given indirect scenario, a description
of how a given system must be evolved to support the behavior. This
change or impact is usually in terms of
addition/subtraction/modification of the architectural
description.