Beyond Software Architecture: Creating and Sustaining Winning Solutions Date: 30 January, 2003   —   $36.44   —   Book product page Rating:

I've really benefited from reading other books in the Martin Fowler series. Somehow I missed this one. - it was published last year. Recently I was looking for a book to refer to while working at a client site for developing an architecture blueprint for their enterprise applications. This was a good book, easy enough to browse through. I found it addressed facets of architecture design that are usually not documented in a well-organized manner in other reference. Hohmann does a great job of bringing out issues that need to be considered beyond just the technical architecture design.

I highly recommend this book to architects and product managers who are looking for the holistic picture when designing software architectures for enterprise applications. This is definitely not a book for developers or folks who are addressing just the technical part of the application. It is a great source for architects and consultants who are looking at the big picture, and have already tackled the basic pieces of architecture design. The book focuses on "solutions" instead of just architecture.

A colleague of mine who is a non-techie made a humerous remark - "I can't get my hands round "Software Architecture" and here you are looking at the "Beyond." He did hit the nail on the head though. The book is for architects who are looking beyond standard architecture design. For architecture design, you need to look at other sources.

Hohmann focuses on the business issues that an architect needs to address. The book is organized very well and the issues presented are logically grouped, so that you can cover the content in part, or in its entirity, depending on what you need for your project. The basic issues that need to be addressed by the architecture, such as performance, security, etc. are covered in the first chapter while the second chapter is a good reference for product development managers and product managers. This The rest of the book covers the issues and consequent best practices that need to be followed in the lifecyle of developing product architecture. 

One of the interesting threads through a major part of this book is the differentiation between "Marchitecture and Architecture."  Aspects of the business plan, licensing, branding, upgrades, installation, upgrades, usability, and so on are covered in a concise mannet. I found the chapter on software licensing very useful.

The "Check This" and "Try This" sections at the end of each chapter are a refreshing change from the typical chapter summaries that are provided in other books. They encourage the readers to think and apply the concepts of the chapter to real-life situations.

In my opinion, this book is a great reference for software architects - to use in addition to traditional architecture design books that are already a part of their library.