Software architects use a variety of documents to design, plan, and communicate the architecture of a software system. Some common types of documents used by software architects include:
- Architecture Design Document: This document describes the overall architecture of the system, including the high-level design, system components, and the relationships between them. It may also include information about the system’s quality attributes, such as scalability, security, and performance.
- Use Case Document: This document describes the functionality of the system from the perspective of the end-user. It includes a detailed description of the system’s use cases, scenarios, and user stories.
- Software Requirements Specification: This document describes the functional and non-functional requirements of the system, including performance, security, and usability requirements.
- Technical Design Document: This document describes the detailed design of the system, including the system’s components, data structures, and algorithms. It also includes information on the system’s interfaces and protocols.
- Deployment Diagram: This document describes the system’s deployment topology, including the hardware and software components that make up the system, and their interactions and dependencies.
- Data Model: This document describes the system’s data model, including the data entities, attributes, and relationships. It also includes information on data storage, retrieval and security.
- System Modeling: This document can be a UML diagram such as Class diagram, Sequence diagram, State diagram etc. which describes the system’s behavior and interactions between components.
- Test Plan: This document describes the testing strategy for the system, including the test cases, test data, and test environments.
- Security Plan: This document describes the security measures in place for the system, including access controls, encryption, and network security.
- Maintenance Plan: This document describes the procedures and responsibilities for maintaining and updating the system over time.
These documents are used by software architects to clearly convey the design, plan, and requirements of the system to stakeholders, developers and other team members.
