Introduction - What is Architecture (and what is design)?

There are many views concerning what architecture is - basically they fall into:

• Architecture as high-level design
• Architecture as the design of the difficult/significant aspects
• Architecture as a road-map of change
• Architecture as a definition of the external appearance (not the implementation)
• Architecture as standards
• Architecture as technology policy
• Architecture as the project feasibility (design & costing) service

However in the context of this site architecture covers the following:

• The definition of the required scope and behaviour (including interfaces) of systems
• The way that systems cope with change (or technology and requirements)
• The way systems are used, deployed and supported by users.

This will be within the context of BPM systems and also with special consideration to open-source projects. So some of the ideas we will discuss may be relevant for the support of other types of open-source project.

By design I mean the details concerning an implementation, even if it is high-level or hard - it takes time and lots of resources. Implementing projects must be responsible for design and it is not the focus of this site (although I am keen to help any implementation project).

When generating BPM architecture we will explore architectural methods and approaches; and provide templates and advice that may be useful in other areas.