Runtime View

Contents.

alternative terms:

  • Dynamic view

  • Process view

  • Workflow view

This view describes the behavior and interaction of the system’s building blocks as runtime elements (processes, tasks, activities, threads, …).

Select interesting runtime scenarios such as:

  • How are the most important use cases executed by the architectural building blocks?

  • Which instances of architectural building blocks are created at runtime and how are they started, controlled, and stopped.

  • How do the system’s components co-operate with external and pre-existing components?

  • How is the system started (covering e.g. required start scripts, dependencies on external systems, databases, communications systems, etc.)?

    Note

    The main criterion for the choice of possible scenarios (sequences, workflows) is their architectural relevancy. It is not important to describe a large number of scenarios. You should rather document a representative selection.

Candidates are:

  1. The top 3 – 5 use cases

  2. System startup

  3. The system’s behavior on its most important external interfaces

  4. The system’s behavior in the most important error situations

Motivation.

Especially for object-oriented architectures it is not sufficient to specify the building blocks with their interfaces, but also how instances of building blocks interact during runtime.

Form.

Document the chosen scenarios using UML sequence, activity or communications diagrams. Enumerated lists are sometimes feasible.

Using object diagrams you can depict snapshots of existing runtime objects as well as instantiated relationships. The UML allows to distinguish between active and passive objects.

Runtime Scenario 1

  • Runtime diagram (or other adequate description of scenario!)

  • Description of the notable aspects of the interactions between the building block instances depicted in this diagram.

Runtime Scenario 2

  • Runtime diagram (or other adequate description of scenario!)

  • Description of the notable aspects of the interactions between the building block instances depicted in this diagram.

some more

Runtime Scenario n

  • Runtime diagram (or other adequate description of scenario!)

  • Description of the notable aspects of the interactions between the building block instances depicted in this diagram.