Software Engineering

2. 
How is the software integration strategy devised?
3. 
How is the structural design configuration simplified to reduce complexity and 
sustainment costs?
4. 
How is the structural design solution transitioned to software implementation?
12.1 
Structural design solution
The structural design solution establishes the arrangement and integration relation-
ships of structural units and components for the software product configuration 
items. A software product may be composed of one or more configuration items, as 
needed. A client/server–based software product will involve a client configuration 
item and a server configuration item. The structural design solution also identifies 
the interfaces between the software product configuration items and elements of the 
computing environment, external systems, and other software applications, such as 
a database management system (DBMS). The block diagram for a conceptual soft-
ware product design solution is depicted in 
Figure 12.2
. This block diagram shows 
the integration relationships among the elements of the software product configura-
tion, as well as the interface relationships between the software product and exter-
nal entities. The elements identified in 
Figure 12.2
 are:
1. 
Software structural design solution
—identifies the software product configura-
tion, structural assemblages, software integration strategy, and interfaces that 
characterize the software design. The design artifacts (drawing, diagrams, mod-
els, specifications, and documentation) that describe the product configuration 
comprise the software product technical data package (TDP).
●
 
Software product configuration
—identifies the structural units and compo-
nents that are assembled and integrated to form the software product.
●
 
Structural unit
—represents the fundamental design elements or software 
building blocks from which structural components are assembled. Typical 
terms used to refer to a structural unit include module, routine, procedure, 
function, and object.
●
 
Structural component
—represents compound software building blocks com-
prised of two or more structural units or lower-level components.

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