Cloud Computing Architectures: a Smart Architecture

The book “The art of Scalability” describes a very interesting approach to Software Architectures for distributed Systems. A key challenge is that a Software Architecture should be smart. But what exactly is “smart”? The book describes “smart” in a different sense and the letters are capitalised. We talk about a SMART architecture. Each of the letters represents an individual challenge to Software Architectures:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Testable

Specific: The Architecture should solve a Problem. It doesn‘t need to be the „coolest“ one.
Measurable: Application basics must be measurable. Sample: the Service must return the data within 1 second, if 1 Million People access it. WRONG: The Service must be fast if a lot of people access it.
Achievable. The goals set by the architecture must be achievable. It makes no sense if the architecture allows everything but can‘t be done by the developers as it is too complex
Realistic. It is necessary to use the potential within an organisation. If the developers in a company use Java, it makes no sense to use other technology since they might fail.
Testable. Results must be testable.
Picture Copyright by Moyan Brenn