Examining an Architectural Landscape

System design and architectural landscape

To get a good understanding of what an architectural landscape is, we’ll compare a system design with an architectural landscape. We’ll follow this up with a look into the implementation of the Mercury messaging application on a corporate network.

There is more in common between a system design and an architectural landscape than not. The design patterns between the two are the same and are often referred to as architectural patterns. They also both describe the relationship between components of an ecosystem that share some relationship either in the data they process and handle or the function that they collectively perform.

Where they can differ is the scope and depth of the design. A system design is limited in scope, as it often covers a single feature or limited data flow between highly related systems. The design may dive into API definitions, as well as illustrate the data model and how it flows through the system.

An architectural diagram usually covers higher-level system interactions and multiple systems and features that share a common theme. APIs and data field flows are less relevant at the level of the architectural landscape.

To start, in the figure below, we compare a system design to an architectural landscape.