System architecture

A system architecture or systems architecture is the conceptual model that defines the structure, behavior, and more views of a system. An architecture description is a formal description and representation of a system, organized in a way that supports reasoning about the structures and behaviors of the system. A system architecture can comprise system components, the externally visible properties of those components, the relationships (e.g. the behavior) between them. It can provide a plan from which products can be procured, and systems developed, that will work together to implement the overall system. There have been efforts to formalize languages to describe system architecture, collectively these are called architecture description languages (ADLs).