IEEE P42030 DRAFT

Description / Abstract: This document specifies the means to organize and record architecture evaluations. Architecture evaluations are used to:

- validate that architectures address the concerns of stakeholders,

-assess the quality of architectures with respect to their intended purpose,

-assess the value of architectures to their stakeholders,

-determine whether architecture entities address their intended purpose,

-provide knowledge and information about architecture entities,

-identify risks and opportunities associated with architectures, and

-support decision making where architectures are involved.

NOTE This document addresses the evaluation of an architecture and not an evaluation of the architecture description’s suitability. Matters concerning the evaluation of the architecture description fall within the scope of the architecture conceptualization and architecture elaboration processes as defined in the ISO/IEC/IEEE 42020 standard. However, it is sometimes the case that the architecture description is evaluated concurrently with the evaluation of the architecture itself.

This document covers various kinds of architecture situations, e.g. enterprise, systems, software, products, services, hardware, data, facilities, systems of systems, family of systems, product lines, and encompasses a variety of elements such as, for example, the people, organizations, techniques and processes involved in those architecture situations. It also spans the variety of applications that utilize digital technology such as mobile, cloud, big data, robotics, web, desktop, embedded systems, and so on.

The generic AE framework specified in this document can be used in support of the Architecture Evaluation process defined in ISO/IEC/IEEE 42020. Specific frameworks can be derived from this generic framework, which can provide a mapping to the system life cycle processes in ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288 or to the software life cycle processes in ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207.