Concept: Architecturally Significant Requirements
Some requirements have a profound impact on the architecture of the solution and require special attention.
Relationships
Main Description

Not all requirements have equal significance to the architecture of the solution. Some will have an important role to play in determing the architecture of the solution whilst others do not.

Deciding whether a specific requirment is architecturally significant is often a matter of judgement.Typically, these are requirements which might be viewed as technically challenging; technically constraining; or central to the system's purpose.

Examples of architecturally significant requirements are

  • The system must record every modification to customer records for audit purposes
  • The system must respond within 5 seconds
  • The system must deploy on Microsoft Windows XP and Linux
  • The system must encrypt all network traffic
  • The ATM system will dispense cash on demand to validated account holders with sufficient cleared funds