Does Software Architecture Still Matter?
Bob Quillin is vFunction's Chief Ecosystem Officer, in charge of developer advocacy, marketing, and cloud ecosystem involvement.
When the Agile Manifesto was published in 2001, one of the 12 agile software principles said that "the best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams." Many architects began to see the writing on the wall at that moment. That idea has proven to be fairly prophetic two decades later, since the role of software architects and software architecture has radically altered. In a conventional waterfall model, the architect had an important early role in establishing the architectural blueprint that was typically followed throughout the application's life. With monolithic apps, in particular, the dice were cast that this would be the eternal design, as seen by the intrinsic problems that teams confront today in re-architecting and refactoring monoliths. This was a sensible and reasonable option that most firms adopted based on the era's traditions, best practices, and technology stack.
By 2023, these architectural decisions will have become incompatible with cloud-native patterns, procedures, and infrastructures in most situations. Even more so, with the emergence of iterative, rapid-cycle Agile approaches delivered in a DevOps-driven culture, the position of the software architect has required adaptation. And, certainly, self-organizing teams are frequently used. Previously, software architects were actively involved upfront in the waterfall paradigm, and their engagement and hence authority declined once the original product was delivered. With rapid development loops, high-frequency releases, upgrades, and quick-turn MVPs, software architects must now proactively and consistently insert themselves in the development process throughout their apps' lifespan. Culturally, they must transition from an authoritarian position that dictates architecture to a more collaborative and involved approach that emphasizes influence over authority.
Investigating the Need for Software Architecture
Some businesses have questioned whether the function of a software architect is really necessary. When high-velocity, self-organizing teams first form, they frequently democratize and share the architect position, but data shows that difficulties occur when each application encounters its share of shortcuts, blunders, and shortsightedness. Exhibit A is the snowballing architectural technical debt that has sprung up across a wide range of applications over the last few years. Any application team should be wary of monolithic apps and their accumulation of technological debt. These monoliths began with a large architectural technical disadvantage but have now bloated into even greater mud balls. Architectural technical debt, as described in my earlier Forbes article, is the accumulation of architectural decisions and implementations that result in high software complexity, including deep shared dependencies, extensive dependency chains, duplicated code, and dead code.
If rising amounts of technical debt aren't enough to persuade teams of the significance and benefit of software architects and architecture, architectural drift is offered as Exhibit B. Architecture drift, like rust or rot that develops over time, deteriorates the initial composition and structure of an application and has a direct technical, business, and financial impact. Ignoring architectural drift when creating more and more functionality on top of an application is analogous to adding levels or rooms to your house while the infrastructure and foundation deteriorate. Eventually, the entire structure disintegrates or collapses. Architectural drift occurs in all programs, not just monoliths; thus, even well-architected apps can fall victim to neglect, shifting priorities, developer churn, release pressures, and a lack of insight that any of this is occurring. Someone must clearly accept responsibility for architectural drift and debt. The architect must be the answer.
While the evolving software architect position is more important than ever, it is uncertain how an architect would address the debt and drift challenge. Observability solutions appear to be a viable option since they are already in use across a wide range of monitoring, logging, and tracing use cases, but they are only focused on cloud infrastructure and application performance. Architects require a continual architectural observability method to track architectural drift. Architectural observability best practices apply the same principles to software architecture and drift that infrastructure and application performance tools do to infrastructure and application performance. In contrast to static code analysis methodologies, architectural observability requires seeing and analyzing software architecture behavior (rather than code smells) in dynamic production contexts.
Architectural observability is concerned with the issue of architectural technical debt. For example, how can you assist an architect in identifying domains that are hidden deep within a complex architecture so that they can create efficient service boundaries that lead to cleaner separation, better modularity, and effective cloud-native microservice architectures within an application architecture? This necessitates an awareness of resource dependencies as well as cross-domain pollution and entanglements, while also boosting modularity through the addition of common libraries. Software architects may identify and prioritize what needs to be addressed by watching and evaluating the architecture, resulting in a modernization backlog for developers to solve sprint by sprint. Furthermore, by establishing an architectural baseline, the architect may discover drift when additional domains or dependencies are added.
Last Thoughts :
The answer to the issue of whether software architecture is still important is unequivocal: it is more important than ever. However, in the age of Agile and DevOps, their function and relevance have radically changed. The role of a software architect is no longer simply about laying down a plan; it's a fluid, continual endeavor to keep architectural debt and drift under check. Today, high-velocity, self-organizing teams are the norm, but the intricacies they present need particular attentiveness. The introduction of architectural observability as a field signifies a step forward in innovation, providing architects with the tools they need to monitor, evaluate, and adjust architecture in real time. This assures not just the functionality of apps but also their durability, scalability, and ultimately the profitability of the businesses they serve. Far from becoming outdated, the function of the software architect has evolved into a multifaceted one, offering the navigational knowledge required in a sea of rapid development and technological change. So, is software architecture still important? The intricacies and problems of today's software ecosystems answer that question emphatically.
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