This 234-page book is broken into 17 chapters and organized into four parts, each focused on a different aspect of software architecture. Each part is organized in a similar manner, with a clear focus on one topic related to software architecture. These four parts are an introduction to the topic; a discussion on how to design software architectures to achieve specific quality metrics; details on how to apply the software architecture styles to meet specific quality metrics; and a description of how to textually represent software architectures to compliment the visual representation using SysADL and SysML. The structure is logical and provides good support for use in an undergraduate class. However, the book does lack an extended example with a reasonable degree of sophistication to help readers synthesize all of the information and highlight the value of software architectures through something other than an oversimplified example typically used in each chapter.

Each chapter is short and easy to read, and follows an identical format. The chapter opens with a statement telling what the chapter will cover and what the reader will learn. The material is then presented and the chapter then concludes with a summary telling the reader what they just learned. A running example (temperature control system) is used throughout the book to showcase the attributes each chapter addresses. The example is simple and easy for undergraduate students to understand and does not detract from the point each chapter tries to make. However, the simplicity of the running example does not easily permit the reader to fully see the value of software architectures.

The first part (seven chapters) is devoted to introducing the fundamentals of software architecture, covering the basic concepts and constructs necessary for modeling software architectures. The chapters introduce SysADL and SysML, and the notion of designing quality-based software architecture and style-based software architectures. Chapter 2 provides a definition of a software architecture and describes architectural views and viewpoints. Chapter 3 covers requirements gathering for the software architecture, and chapter 4 covers the specification of the structure of the software architecture (components, ports, connectors, value types, configurations, and so on). Chapter 5 then discusses the behavior of the software architecture, covers behavioral views and viewpoints and behavior constructs, and introduces diagrams for behavioral views. Chapters 6 and 7 are devoted to specifying and executing software architectures. By the conclusion of Part 1 (approximately 50 percent of the book), the notation and diagrams necessary to describe software architectures are introduced. Good use is made of the temperature control system example to develop these topics. The chapters naturally flow from topic to topic as the authors introduce material.

Part 2 (four chapters) focuses on quality-based architectures. Chapter 8 introduces the concept of quality and the topic of quality-based architectures. It introduces three quality attributes: modifiability, scalability, and fault tolerance. These are each covered in more depth in chapters 9 through 11, respectively. Once again, the running example of a temperature control system is used to provide a practical example of each topic.

Part 3 (five chapters) turns its attention to style-based architectures. Chapter 12 introduces the topic and then four styles are addressed in turn in the following chapters. These styles are: pipe-filter, client server, feedback control loop, and the blackboard style. As in earlier chapters, the running example is used to introduce each topic and highlight its features.

Finally, Part 4 (one chapter, 22 pages) addresses the need for a textual notation for software architectures.

The book is brief and very much to the point. The terseness of each chapter is European in its approach; US readers and instructors tend to be used to more support and a greater variety of examples. As such, the book might not be adopted in many US institutions.

None of the authors are native English speakers and there are some sentences that can be a little distracting when read due to minor errors. However, this does not interfere with understanding the material.