Architectural Design: Conception and Specification of Interactive Systems

This book presents a design methodology that is practically applicable to the architectural design of a broad range of systems. It is based on fundamental design concepts to conceive and specify the required functional properties of a system, while abstracting from the specific implementation functions and technologies that can be chosen to build the system. Abstraction and precision are indispensable when it comes to understanding complex systems and precisely creating and representing them at a high functional level. Once understood, these concepts appear natural, self-evident and extremely powerful, since they can directly, precisely and concisely reflect what is considered essential for the functional behavior of a system.

The first two chapters present the global views on how to design systems and how to interpret terms and meta-concepts. This informal introduction provides the general context for the remainder of the book. On a more formal level, Chapters 3 through 6 present the main basic design concepts, illustrating them with examples. Language notations are introduced along with the basic design concepts. Lastly, Chapters 7 to 12 discuss the more intricate basic design concepts of interactive systems by focusing on their common functional goal. These chapters are recommended to readers who have a particular interest in the design of protocols and interfaces for various systems.

The didactic approach makes it suitable for graduate students who want to develop insights into and skills in developing complex systems, as well as practitioners in industry and large organizations who are responsible for the design and development of large and complex systems. It includes numerous tangible examples from various fields, and several appealing exercises with their solutions.

Chris A. Vissers was a full professor at the University of Twente (UT), the Netherlands, where he established and managed the Tele- Informatics and Open Systems group, responsible for research and teaching in distributed ICT systems. His personal interests are in architecture, in the formal approach to design and specification methodologies, and in industry and business applications. From 1992 to 2006 he organized and managed the Telematics Institute (TI) as its Scientific and General Director. He acted as the OSI- Reporteur on Formal Description Techniques, guiding the LOTOS (IS8807) and Estelle (IS9074) standards development groups.

Luís Ferreira Pires is Associate Professor at UT. His research interests include design methodologies for distributed systems, architecture of distributed systems, modelling and specification techniques, middleware platforms and telematics applications. More recently he has been working on the application of Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) and Semantic web technologies to the design of context-aware applications and services, and to (dynamic) service composition. He contributed to various national and international research projects, co-authored more than 150 research papers in international conferences, workshops and journals, and is currently Education Director of the “Business Information Technology” Education Programme of the University of Twente.

Dick A. C. Quartel is senior research consultant and team leader of the R&D department at BiZZdesign. In this capacity he supports, coordinates and contributes to the development of new and existing solutions in the areas of enterprise architecture, enterprise portfolio management, strategy implementation and business process management. He contributed to several national projects in these areas, with BiZZdesign often as partner or sponsor.

Marten J. van Sinderen is associate professor at UT. From 1997 to 2000 he was senior researcher at UT’s Centre for Telematics and Information Technology, and from 2000 to 2004 he chaired the Architecture and Services of Networked Applications group. Currently he is with the Services, Cybersecurity and Safety group. His research focuses on the design of networked information systems, particularly next-generation collaborative enterprises and smart systems and services. He managed and participated in several national and international research projects and co-authored more than 150 research papers, was chair of the Steering Committee of the EDOC Conference on Enterprise Computing (2011-2013), and is currently chair of the International Conference on e-Business (ICE-B) and co-chair of the International Joint Conference on Software Technologies (ICSOFT).