This paper helps to articulate the value of patterns and demonstrate how they can be harvested from real engagements, in alignment with architectural decisions.
This paper examines the value of patterns by examining the life cycle of a particular pattern - the requester-side caching (RSC) pattern.
Patterns are defined as a reusable solution to a problem in context and can be used effectively in software engineering to create repeatable architectures that are compliant with software development best practices and lessons learned. Patterns are often used to satisfy quality of service or non-functional requirements such as performance, scalability, and transactionality -- and when used systematically can provide traceability and accountability of the architectural decisions made.
A demonstration and validation of this architectural traceability and accountability is provided in this paper by examining in detail the life cycle of the RSC pattern from the harvesting of the pattern in a field engagement to the formalization of the pattern definition, and finally an implementation using IBM® Rational™ Software Architect followed by successful reuse of the pattern by multiple practitioners.
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