Relating software requirements and architectures

Requirements engineering and software architecture have become established areas of software engineering research, education, and practice. Requirements engineering is concerned with discovering the purpose of a software system and the contexts in which it will be used (Nuseibeh and Easterbrook, 2000). Software architecture is concerned with the study of the structure of software, including its topology, properties, constituent components and their relationships and patterns of combination (Perry and Wolf, 1992). There have been significant research advances made in both software requirements and architectures, and fundamental differences and relationships between the two areas have come to light which are outlined.