Is your software architecture as clean as your code?

Modern software must function smoothly within a diverse ecosystem, from on-premises monoliths to ever-evolving cloud-based microservices. Architectural choices made during software development, be they explicit or implicit, add complexity and create interdependencies, often leading to an increased risk of outages, incidents, and security issues as well as the accumulation of technical debt that impact the overall performance of the application.

How can you assess whether your software architecture holds up to scrutiny? Modern tools and practices allow organizations to go beyond code quality checks and implement principles that promote the health, stability, and scalability of their software architecture. This article explores why clean architecture is essential for supporting the growth, flexibility, and reliability of your software and provides practical steps for maintaining a healthy system architecture.

The principles of a clean software architecture

All systems are divided into independent modules, each responsible for specific tasks. The way in which these components are defined and how they interact with each other is the key factor in deciding the interdependencies of the system and therefore its complexity. The following principles of clean software architecture serve as the backbone of a well-structured system and promote flexibility while minimizing complexity:

Vertical separation

• Separate business use cases into modules.
• Ensure each module has its own persistence layer to save and retrieve data.
• Minimize cross-module communication.

Vertical separation makes it easier to maintain and update individual modules based on a business case without affecting the whole system.

Horizontal separation

• Communication should travel downwards (i.e., outbound → business logic layer → infrastructure), not upwards or sideways.
• Separate infrastructure from the business logic layer, the brain of the application that contains a complex set of rules, computations, and decision-making processes that define the software’s core functionality.
• Separate core business logic layer modules from outbound modules, interfacing with external users or systems.

Horizontal separation allows the creation of core modules that handle the most critical business logic while keeping them stable, reusable, and independent of external systems. In contrast to core modules, outward-facing modules handle interactions with external users or systems and rely on core services for their functionality but are less stable and more flexible by design.

Qualification

A module should be dedicated to a single purpose but not every purpose warrants a separate module. A well-defined task could potentially require a separate module but it must be qualified as such. Key qualifiers are business role, reuse, and scale.

• Business: The task comprises a clear and distinct business scenario.
• Reuse: The task is used in multiple different scenarios.
• Scale. The task comprises its own unit of scale.

Note that dedication can go too far. Over-dedication leads to an excessive number of modules, increasing complexity on multiple levels (management, development, network, maintenance, etc.).

The principles of vertical separation, horizontal separation, and qualification enable developers to meet current requirements, adapt to future needs, and minimize complexity and technical debt. By ensuring modularity and minimizing dependencies, you ensure that modules can be developed, maintained, and scaled independently, improving system reliability without adding complexity.

The benefits of a clean software architecture

Clean architecture practices ensure that your software remains efficient, resilient, and scalable. Neglecting these principles can lead to mounting architectural technical debt, potentially costing organizations a significant loss in revenue. This financial impact stems from several factors including decreased system resiliency causing more frequent outages, missed market opportunities due to delayed launches and performance issues, customer churn as competitors offer more reliable solutions, and increased infrastructure costs to manage scalability problems.

Clean architecture offers several key benefits that significantly enhance software development and maintenance.

• Improved system quality: Clean architecture results in a more maintainable and scalable system that adapts to changing requirements with minimal disruption.
• Reduced technical debt: Thoughtful architectural decisions minimize debt, making future changes easier and less costly.
• Enhanced developer productivity: A well-structured architecture makes it easier for developers to understand, modify, and extend the system, increasing productivity and reducing onboarding time for new team members.

How organizations can promote clean architecture

While having comprehensive guidelines to define the essential attributes of your architecture is important, relying on architecture quality gates often proves ineffective. Without robust tools and a deep understanding of architectural nuances, gaps in enforcement will leave your system vulnerable to design flaws. Instead of relying on these traditional checkpoints, organizations should adopt proactive strategies that address architectural challenges throughout the development process, ensuring a more resilient and maintainable architecture.

To promote a well-understood architecture, consider the following practices.

Establish processes to measure, prioritize, and remediate technical debt.

• Measure: Leadership should regularly assess technical debt to understand its impact before it becomes critical.
• Prioritize: Application owners should allocate resources to address the most pressing issues, aligning remediation with business needs.
• Remediate: The development team should continuously address technical debt as part of the software development life cycle to ensure long-term architectural health.

Use AI-driven architectural observability and governance tools.

Architectural observability provides real-time insights into whether your architecture supports or obstructs your product strategy. These tools allow organizations to enforce good design principles by detecting issues in the architecture, suggesting improvements, and tracking the impact of changes over time. By detecting issues early, organizations can make data-driven decisions to mitigate risks and improve system resilience.

Provide training and resources for engineering teams.

Offer ongoing education to ensure teams understand and apply architectural principles in their daily work. This empowers them to make informed decisions, promoting continuous improvement.

A clean software architecture is essential for building robust systems that ensure application scalability, resiliency, and engineering velocity. Taking a top-down approach to technical debt remediation and performing regular evaluations in the development process allows organizations to find and fix the root causes of architectural issues, cut down technical debt, and nurture a culture of excellence in architecture. By focusing on proactive measures and continuous improvement, organizations can keep their software architecture in optimal condition—prepared to tackle both current and future challenges.

Ori Saporta is vice president of engineering and co-founder at vFunction.

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