Architecture representation is a fundamental practice in system design. It involves creating various artifacts like diagrams, documentation, and models to communicate the structure and design of complex systems to different stakeholders.
Architecture artifacts come in various forms. Visual diagrams provide intuitive understanding, technical documentation captures detailed specifications, formal models enable analysis, and architecture views present different perspectives for various stakeholders.
Architecture views provide different perspectives of the same system for various stakeholders. The logical view shows components and relationships, process view captures runtime behavior, development view organizes code structure, and physical view describes hardware deployment.
Various modeling languages help express architecture in standardized ways. UML provides comprehensive object-oriented modeling, ArchiMate focuses on enterprise architecture, C4 model offers simple software architecture views, while BPMN and SysML address business processes and systems engineering respectively.