Vorarlberg University
of Applied Sciences

Information on individual educational components (ECTS-Course descriptions) per semester

Application Architecture

Degree programme	Business Informatics – Digital Transformation
Subject area	Engineering & Technology
Type of degree	Master Part-time Summer Semester 2024
Course unit title	Application Architecture
Course unit code	087421020401
Language of instruction	German, English
Type of course unit (compulsory, optional)	Compulsory
Teaching hours per week	2
Year of study	2024
Level of the course / module according to the curriculum
Number of ECTS credits allocated	3
Name of lecturer(s)	Steffen HARTMANN, Bernhard OBERHAUSER

Requirements and Prerequisites

Fundamentals of business informatics, in particular teaching content on programming/software development

Course content

Basics and terminology: distributed architectures, protocols, data formats, application integration, frameworks and platforms, risks, security aspects, usability, architectural styles (dataflow systems, data-centric systems, hierarchical systems, distributed systems, event-based systems, interaction-oriented systems, heterogeneous systems), Quality Attributes and Map.
Principles of Application Architecture Development: Abstraction, Complexity Reduction, Communication, Representation, Visualization, Quality, Security, Uncertainty and Risk Reduction, Openness for Evolution
Application architecture and integration concepts: modularity and components, reuse and interfaces, integration and communication, compatibility and coupling, portability and containers, scalability, availability, flexibility, software design principles: SOLID, Dependency Injection, Law of Demeter, Composite over Inheritance, Design by Contract and Design Patterns.
Architecture paradigms: Monolithic System, Distributed Architecture, Layered Architectures, Domain-based Architectures, Event-based Architectures, Enterprise Application Integration (EAIP), Interaction-oriented Patterns
Service-oriented architectures: SOAP, REST, GraphQL, Microservice, Nanoservice, OPC Unified Architecture

Learning outcomes

Modern application systems in the corporate environment are complex due to high business and technical requirements. Application architects must ensure that these requirements are implemented in compliance with the planned budget and the required quality. It is important that risk factors are identified at an early stage in the development process, that the overall view is maintained and that the systems have a comprehensible structure. This enables changes and extensions of the application systems and ensures the reuse of subcomponents in other projects. The aim of this course is to show students the basic application architectures, their importance as well as systematic planning and documentation.

The students

understand the technical foundations, principles and concepts of architecture models and are familiar with the most important architecture paradigms for constructing large, complex software systems.
are able to develop and document suitable application architectures for different use cases based on a business architecture and can justify why a chosen application architecture is promising.

Planned learning activities and teaching methods

Input presentations
Work assignments/exercises with presentations and subsequent discussion

Assessment methods and criteria

70% work/exercise tasks incl. presentation, discussion contributions
30% Final exam: knowledge reproduction (without documents)

For a positive grade, a minimum of 50% of the possible points must be achieved in each part of the examination.

Comment

Internal

Application Architecture