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Who are the consumers of software architectures?

Concept · Chapter 1

Who it’s for

Section titled “Who it’s for”

An architecture serves many stakeholders — end users, business analysts, domain experts, QA, managers, integrators, and operations staff. Each is affected by the architecture to some degree, though not all examine it or its documentation.

Direct vs. indirect consumers

Section titled “Direct vs. indirect consumers”
  • Indirect consumers: they care about the software itself; because the architecture is the system’s foundation, they consume it indirectly. End users are among the most important — the architecture must let the implementation satisfy their requirements.
  • Direct consumers: notably the developers, whose daily work is directly shaped by the architecture. An architect must keep them in mind when making decisions.
Section titled “Related concepts”

Citations

Section titled “Citations”
  • Software Architect’s Handbook (Packt, 2018), Ch.1 “Who are the consumers of software architectures?”, p. 71.