Software Architecture and Decision-Making Leveraging Leadership, Technology, and Product Management to Build Great Products

Leverage leadership knowledge to make better software architecture decisions. Think deeply but implement slowly.

The overarching goal of software systems (hence, for software architecture) is to build systems that meet quality standards and that provide the highest return on investment (ROI) in the long run or within a defined period of time.

A great product requires a combination of technology, leadership, and product management (including UX). Leadership is primarily about managing uncertainty and making the right judgment. To build great products, technical leaders need to combine technology, leadership, and product management knowledge, and make the right decisions. Many technical mistakes come from the gap between knowledge about these three items and judgment.

In Software Architecture and Decision-Making, Srinath Perera explains principles and concepts that software architects must understand deeply and how to employ those principles to manage uncertainty. The questions and principles discussed in this book help manage uncertainty while building software architecture and provide a framework for making decisions. This book is for all technical leaders in the software industry who make holistic judgments about the systems they build and for future leaders learning the craft.

• Understand the importance of strong decision making with examples from great technical leaders such as the Wright brothers and Kelly Johnson
• Leverage five key questions and seven important principles to understand uncertainties during the design process and make strategic architectural decisions
• Approach the design systematically, first at the macro level and then the individual service level

This definitive guide explains principles and concepts--technical and non-technical alike--that software architects, senior software engineers, and technical leads must understand to manage the inevitable uncertainty involved in building software systems and to drive success of the products for which they are responsible.

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Chapter 1: Introduction to Software Leadership   1

Role of Judgment   1

Goal of This Book   3

Part I: Introduction   6

Part II: Essential Background   7

Part III: System Design   7

Part IV: Putting Everything Together   8

Chapter 2: Understanding Systems, Design, and Architecture   9

What Is Software Architecture?    9

How to Design a System   11

Five Questions   12

Seven Principles: The Overarching Concepts   16

Designing for an Online Bookstore   24

Designing for the Cloud   27

Summary   29

Chapter 3: Mental Models for Understanding and Explaining System Performance   31

A Computer System   32

Models for Performance   33

Optimization Techniques   41

Intuitive Feel for Performance   46

Leadership Considerations   46

Summary   47

Chapter 4: Understanding User Experience (UX)    49

General UX Concepts for Architects   49

UX Design for Configurations   53

UX Design for APIs   54

UX Design for Extensions   56

Leadership Considerations   57

Summary   57

Chapter 5: Macro Architecture: Introduction   59

History of Macro Architecture   60

Modern Architectures   62

Macro Architectural Building Blocks   63

Leadership Considerations   66

Summary   68

Chapter 6: Macro Architecture: Coordination   69

Approach 1: Drive Flow from Client   69

Approach 2: Use Another Service   70

Approach 3: Use Centralized Middleware   71

Approach 4: Implement Choreography   71

Leadership Considerations   73

Summary   73

Chapter 7: Macro Architecture: Preserving Consistency of State   75

Why Transactions?    75

Why Do We Need to Go Beyond Transactions?    76

Going Beyond Transactions   77

Best Practices   80

Leadership Considerations   81

Summary   83

Chapter 8: Macro Architecture: Handling Security   85

User Management   86

Interaction Security   88

Storage, GDPR, and Other Regulations   96

Security Strategy and Advice   98

Leadership Considerations   101

Summary   103

Chapter 9: Macro Architecture: Handling High Availability and Scale   105

Adding High Availability   105

Understanding Scalability   109

Scaling for a Modern Architecture: Base Solution   110

Scaling: The Tools of Trade   111

Building Scalable Systems   113

Leadership Considerations   117

Summary   118

Chapter 10: Macro Architecture: Microservices Considerations   119

Decision 1: Handling Shared Database(s)    120

Decision 2: Securing Microservices   122

Decision 3: Coordinating Microservices    122

Decision 4: Avoiding Dependency Hell   122

Loosely Coupled, Repository-Based Teams as an Alternative to Microservices   125

Leadership Considerations   126

Summary   127

Chapter 11: Server Architectures   129

Writing a Service   129

Understanding Best Practices for Writing a Service   130

Understanding Advanced Techniques   132

Using These Techniques in Practice   143

Leadership Considerations   146

Summary   147

Chapter 12: Building Stable Systems   149

Why Do Systems Fail, and What Can We Do About Them?    149

How to Handle Known Errors   151

Common Bugs   159

How to Handle Unknown Errors   161

Graceful Degradation   163

Leadership Considerations   163

Summary   164

Chapter 13: Building and Evolving the Systems   165

Getting Your Hands Dirty   165

Communicating the Design   172

Evolving the System: How to Learn from Your Users and Improve the System   172

Leadership Considerations   175

Summary   176

Index   179

Srinath Perera has been an Apache open source developer for the last 20 years. He has played a major role in the architecture of Apache Axis2, Apache Airavata, WSO2 CEP (Siddhi), and WSO2 Choreo. He has designed two SOAP engines and helped build four. He is a committer (a developer who can commit to a code base) for Apache Axis, Axis2, Apache Geronimo, and Apache Airavata.

He joined WSO2 in 2009 after finishing his PhD. WSO2 products are used by many Fortune 500 companies such as airlines, banks, and governments. At WSO2, he has played an architecture review role for 10+ projects and 100+ releases. He reviewed hundreds of customer solution architectures and deployments and sat in on thousands of architecture reviews. He has published 40+ peer-reviewed research articles, which have been referenced by thousands of other research publications.