This is the eBook of the printed book and may not include any media, website access codes, or print supplements that may come packaged with the bound book. Architecture and Function of Complex Systems Systems Architecture sheds light on the increasingly important study of electronic and computer system design. The text teaches programmers and engineering professionals how to examine the DNA of a system to understand its basis for competitive advantage. Building on the idea of architecture as a specialized field, the First Edition sets the precedent for studying systems architecture as a “science”.
The material is highly connected to real world examples--many of them involving the participation of its authors. Focusing on how functions work together to create a coherent system, the text examines systems architecture in the disciplines of communication, robotics, exploration, medicine, and farm and space equipment.
This book was a required textbook in my class syllabus of Systems Engineering continuing education course at MIT. The course was focused on models and methods to manage complex systems. Systems Engineering is a general discipline that is relevant and very useful in many kinds of activities – from creating engineering artifacts to modelling of complex financial systems.
The book was a necessary and very good companion at the course. It has quite an easy start that allures even people without engineering background and thus gives a very good introduction to the essence of engineering and systems thinking. There's a good explanation of many important concepts of systems engineering and systems architecture provides with the increasing degree of difficulty as you go throughout the book.
Actual systems in our modern World have become very complex requiring sophisticated design, manufacturing, construction and management tools and processes. Complex systems are almost always created, analysed and managed by means of representing them in different kinds of models, mainly, numerical models. Models are very helpful in design and testing of different alternatives of the system architecture. This can and should be done before the actual system is build. This book teaches how to set up an integrated systems engineering process and allowing to make good system decisions at the early stages of a project. Good systems architecture which must meet the need of stakeholders is an essential part in the system creating process. The book has a lot of good details and examples of how complex systems should be architected and modeled.
The book is a somewhat heavyweight treatment of architecting complex systems, covering both physical and software systems, perhaps with a bias towards the former. I find the simple examples at the beginning very useful to clarify the nuances between spatial relationships and topology, structure vs. form vs. connectivity. Some tables like the DSM for Bubblesort left me a bit puzzled as to their value but those are easy to skip.
Chapters on the role of the architect, incl. upstream and downstream influence, are a valuable addition to the more rigid chapters in Part 1 and 2. The equally structured and rigid description of "creativity" makes one smile, especially when the authors admit that they got a lot of outside help on this chapter :-)
Recommended reading if you want to dive deeper into the value that architecture brings when dealing with complex systems. 1 star lost for the cover price.
I used this book as a resource for the introductory class I taught on systems architecture and I found it to be an incredible resource. This is well written, full of relevant information and examples. It is one of the best textbooks out there.
That said, I think the only challenge I encountered is that my undergraduates struggled to understand the order of the first few chapters. They had a tendency to get bogged down with lots of the jargon and terminology and struggled to understand how the basic fundamentals (e.g., form and function) are connected in the beginning. I found that some of the topics were hard for them to grasp and therefore, this makes me think it may be more appropriate for a graduate-level audience.
That said, overall this book is fantastic and I would highly recommend it to students and other faculty.
Raramente, há um conjunto de entidades na realidade que não possa ser analisado como um sistema. Sistemas estão presentes fortemente no cotidiano, seja nos relacionamentos humanos, sistemas organizacionais públicos ou privados, produtos, serviços, a natureza por si, ...
Apesar de ser um livro bastante técnico e com um enfoque maior para o desenvolvimento de produtos/serviços pontuais (Escopo de menor complexidade), serve de reflexão filosófica ao abordar uma visão holística do mundo e seus elementos. Mas também, ensina o leitor a destrinchar de forma pragmática os componentes que compõem esses sistemas. Além de ensinar a modelagem de sistemas, suas posteriores otimizações, quais ferramentas que o designer deve utilizar, conceptualizar sistemas e simplificar fatores de complexidade.
Eu acredito que é um livro valioso para quem irá trabalhar na arquitetura contínua de sistemas.
O fato dos autores serem professores do MIT e utilizarem esse livro como base em seus cursos foi algo que me chamou à atenção também, isso demonstra extrema credibilidade.
From Bruce Cameron our teacher at MIT Architecture and Systems Engineering course, this book sets the stage for Systems Engineering and how to approach architecture of complex systems. The OPM models and approaches described sets stage for Model Based Systems Engineering as well.