Software Architecture

October 2, 2003

Location: Electrical Engineering/Computer Science Bldg., Room EE/CS 3-230

Abstract:

Software Architecture has existed as a sub-field of Software Engineering for about 10 years, but is still gaining awareness in industry. It has grown out of High-Level Design from a software design perspective, and Systems Engineering from a non-functional requirements (quality attributes) perspective. There are a number of current best practices that relate to how architecting fits with Project Management roles and activities to improve the development lifecycle and minimize risk, including: the Architecture Business Cycle, quality attribute analysis, architecture prototyping, evaluation, and product lines.

About the Speaker:

Elizabeth Sisley has worked in industry for about 23 years, and obtained both her M.S. (1990) and Ph.D. (1999) in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota while working full-time. She has taught in the U of M's MS in Software Engineering program for the past 5 years, initiating a Software Architecture course in 2001 which she is currently teaching for the 4th semester. Her industry experience has ranged from work on defense systems (Over-the-Horizon Targeting and IR&D) at Sperry/Unisys; to initiation of commercial software products & businesses (Field Service & Home Health assignment and scheduling applications) and Information Technology (Corporate IT Architecture), all at 3M Company. Her research interests are software architecture, especially partitioning and allocation algorithms, software engineering, artificial intelligence, and assignment & scheduling topics.