Open-Sourcing Solutions Architecture Patterns

Solutions architects (SAs) are the people who convert deep technical knowledge into a format that can be understood by both technical and non-technical people. They are the bridge between product engineers and sales. It is so strange that there is no common knowledge base (KB) that has been shared in the open-source community related to solutions architecture.

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That was the motivation for me to build such a KB that can be reused by SAs, regardless of which technology stack they are working with or promoting. I have started small and initiated a GitHub repository where I've started contributing solutions architecture patterns. Recently, I released version 0.3 of this repository with a set of new solutions architecture patterns. Here is the GitHub link for this repository.

The architecture patterns discussed here are not my own inventions. Rather, they are common patterns I've found day-in and day-out working as a solution architect. The below-mentioned diagram is a sample architecture pattern that is described in the repository.

This repository is mainly divided into two categories:

1. Vendor-neutral
2. Vendor-specific

Vendor-neutral patterns contain solutions architecture patterns that are not restricted to a specific vendor or technology stack. The architectures discussed here can be implemented with multiple vendors as well as with one vendor. But there are no special remarks on a specific vendor in most cases. There are some patterns that utilize specific technologies. But those are very rare.

The vendor-specific pattern category contains solutions architecture patterns that are specific to a given vendor or technology. These architecture are bound to respective vendors and their products. This is an area in which we are expecting some contributions from people working with these vendors since we have not worked with all the vendors mentioned in the repository.

We have started this project with the goal of building an open-source community around solutions architecture discipline and a common ground where people can share their knowledge, ideas, and suggestions. This is still early stages and we have 100 GH stars and 20+ GH forks as of this writing.

We would like to share an open invitation to solutions architects/engineers who work with enterprise software products and solutions to come and join with us to build a wider community around the technologies we build. You can send your contributions to this GitHub repository link.

Further Reading

Solution Architecture Vs. Software Architecture 

Solution Architecture: The Five Patterns You Need to Know

Top 19 Software Architecture Books