Intro

Arch. antipatterns are common problems and mistakes in the creation, implementation and management of the architecture.

Vendor Lock-in

Symptoms:
- Commercial component upgrades drive the application software maintenance cycle.
- Commercial component does not subscribe to any open systems standard.
Causes:
- No technical approach to isolating application software from direct dependency on the product version.
Fix:
- Introduce an isolation layer
- Hardware abstraction layer
- Adoption of open systems standard and carefully choose components that meet this standard.

Vertical design elements are those dependent on specific software application and individual implementation.
Horizontal elements are those that are common among applications.
Symptoms:
- Both the horizontal and vertical design elements get mixed up.
- This makes design less stable and less reusable. Wide change impact.
Causes:
- No special effort involved, programmers just focused on getting job done.
Fix:
- Identify the horizontal elements and delegate them to a separate architectural layer.
- Vertical elements as extensions for specialized functionality and performance.
- Incorporate metadata into the architecture.

Symptoms:
- Lack of architecture specifications for a system under development. Usually, the architects responsible for the project have experience with previous system construction, and therefore assume that documentation is unnecessary.
- Hidden risks caused by scale, domain knowledge, technology, and complexity, all of which emerge as the project progresses.
- Ignorance of new technologies.
- Absence of technical backup and contingency plans.
Causes:
- Overconfidence of managers, architects, and/or developers.
- No risk management.
- Reliance on previous experience.
Fix:
- Adopt SEI architecture based process steps.