Checklist of Commonly Encountered Quality Attributes in Software Architecture
When designing software systems, understanding and addressing quality attributes (also known as non-functional requirements) is crucial. These attributes ensure that the system not only meets functional requirements but also provides value through efficiency, reliability, security, and ease of use. Below is a comprehensive checklist of the quality attributes that architects and developers often need to consider:
1. Performance
- Ensures that the system responds quickly to user interactions.
- Key metrics: response time, throughput, latency.
2. Scalability
- Ability to handle increased load by adding resources.
- Consider vertical scaling (adding more power to existing resources) and horizontal scaling (adding more resources).
3. Availability
- Measures the system’s uptime and ability to be operational over time.
- Achieved through redundancy, failover mechanisms, and load balancing.
4. Security
- Protects the system against unauthorized access and attacks.
- Key aspects include authentication, authorization, data encryption, and secure data transmission.
5. Disaster Recovery
- Ability to recover from unexpected failures or disasters.
- Strategies include regular backups, data replication, and failover systems.
6. Accessibility
- Ensures the system is usable by people with a wide range of abilities.
- Involves features like screen reader compatibility, keyboard navigation, and text-to-speech.
7. Monitoring
- Continuous tracking of system performance, behavior, and issues.
- Involves tools for logging, metrics collection, and alerting to identify problems.
8. Management
- Refers to how easily the system can be managed, configured, and maintained by administrators.
9. Audit
- Ability to track and log changes or events in the system for auditing purposes.
- Key for ensuring accountability, traceability, and compliance.
10. Flexibility
- Capability to accommodate changes or additions with minimal impact on existing components.
11. Extensibility
- Ease of adding new features or functionality without affecting existing system operations.
12. Maintainability
- Ensures that the system is easy to update, modify, or fix.
- Relies on clear code structure, proper documentation, and modular design.
13. Interoperability
- Ability of the system to work with other systems or services seamlessly.
- Involves the use of standardized protocols, APIs, and data formats.
14. Legal and Regulatory Compliance
- Ensures adherence to laws, regulations, and standards relevant to the system’s domain.
- Includes data protection laws (e.g., GDPR), industry standards, and internal policies.
15. Internationalization (i18n)
- Prepares the system to support multiple languages and regions.
- Involves using Unicode, separating language-dependent content, and handling locale-specific data formats.
16. Localization (L10n)
- Adapts the system to a specific locale, including language translation, currency formatting, and date/time formats.
How to Use this Checklist
- During Planning: Use this checklist as a guide to identify key quality attributes for your project, based on its requirements and context.
- During Design: Ensure that architectural decisions support the prioritized quality attributes.
- During Development: Continuously verify that the code meets the defined quality attributes through testing and validation.
- During Deployment: Implement mechanisms like monitoring, disaster recovery, and security controls to maintain the quality attributes in a live environment.
By addressing these quality attributes, you can build a robust, scalable, and user-friendly system that meets both functional and non-functional requirements.
Leave a Reply