Acciente - System Architecture and Software Design

Acciente will provide systems architecture and software design consulting for client's information systems projects. We will provide following systems architecture and software design services across the different phases of software development project.

Written documents and diagrams will be prepared to communicate the designs and plans to the client. The client will be provided an electronic and where feasible printed copies of designs and plans. All such documents and diagrams will be strictly treated as client proprietary information.

This section describes the specific services offered by the company. Systems architecture and software design is comprised of several different disciplines and areas of specialization. Each project demands a different mix of services. Acciente's founder has extensive expertise in the areas followed by the symbol.

Systems architecture design starts with of systems current requirements, and possibly anticipated future needs. The goal of the systems architect is to determine feasible architectures that that would then guide the more detailed design of the system. Some of the factors and architect would consider are:

• Who/what interacts with system?

• What devices should be supported for the interaction?

• What are the users' expected response times? And what are the consequences of a system slowdown?

• What is the consequence of a system failure?

• How much downtime can be tolerated in the event of an outage?

• How sensitive is the information handled by the system?

• How important is security? What are the consequences of a breach?

• What types of loads are anticipated on the system? Are there major seasonal peaks?

• What kind of plans for expansion and growth does the business have? And how will they affect the demands from the system?

Answers to the above questions influence what type technology will be used for the major aspects of the system; it also determines the vendors for some of the major components such as the application server and database server software. The systems architecture phase is typically undertaken after the major requirements for a system are defined; however a good architecture must also incorporate resilience possible changes in requirements.

This service will be billed at the Level 2 service rate.

This is a specialized discipline that involves the design of an interface for part of a system or an entire system. This interface is used by another part of the same system or a completely independent system to facilitate communication.

APIs are an integral part of modern software development. The recent trend towards a design paradigm referred to Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) encourage that entire a system expose it functionality using a well design API.

This service will be billed at the Level 2 service rate.

Database design involves the design of the structures used to store the information in an information system. Information in a database is stored in tables; a table is conceptually rows of information with each row containing a set of attributes. For example a table design to store information about a Person may contain the attributes: First name, last name, Address and Phone number in each row. So to store information about 20 people their will be 20 rows of information.

A moderately complex information system can have from 50 tables and larger systems can have 250 or more tables. The database design is one the most crucial aspects of a systems design, it is also one the longest lived aspects of a systems design. Sometimes new applications systems are built atop the an existing database design since database with years of accumulated information, often connected to several systems, make changes to the database design non-trivial.

An aspect of good database design is to cover the system’s requirements in the simplest and most elegant manner possible and to minimize assumptions. Minimizing assumptions increases the chances that it will be possible to evolve the database design with the client's needs without a complete rework.

Another aspect of database of database design is to design in such way that the information in the database can be accessed efficiently.

It is hard to overstate the impact of good database design on the performance and evolvability of a system.

This service will be billed at the Level 2 service rate.

This area involves the analysis and design of methods to communicate between systems. Typically this type of integration is performed to do away with manual data entry between systems.

The primary challenge is usually to provide as seamless integration as possible between two disparate systems. Another challenges is the need for robustness, in other words if either systems has an error information should be still be correctly exchanged.

This service will be billed at the Level 1 service rate.

This area involves the design of methods, processes and sometimes even complete systems to move information from a legacy system to a newer system.

One of the biggest challenges in this area is that the older system typically is missing several pieces of information required by the new system, and in addition any available information available is a stored in substantially different scheme.

Another major challenge is that the volume of data to be transferred in some cases is so large that it not feasible to just shutdown the old system transfer the data and start up the new system. Instead the transfer is done with old system in operation and the transfer program having the capability to “catch up” to the data that comes into the old system until it is final switched over.

It is the job of the migration architect to create a system that will map the data from one system to another and provide for estimated values or external sources for missing information. The migration architect will also design business procedures that govern operations during the switchover period, and devise final checks and balances to ensure that the transfer was complete and accurate.

This service will be billed at the Level 1 service rate.

This can be applied to both new and existing systems. It is more commonly applied to an existing system after a performance problem is found. For the design of a new system, basic performance optimization is done as part of the systems architecture design. For systems for which specific performance constraints are part of the systems requirement, performance optimization will play a major role in the design of the systems architecture.

This service will be billed at the Level 1 service rate.

This service is intended to help the client build the architectures and designs we create. It involves working hands-on with a client's software development team to develop the team members' systems architecture and software design awareness and skills.

This service will not be promoted as a standalone service but only as part of a solution including one or more of the services above.

This service will be billed at the Level 1 service rate.