When we create a software architecture, who is it for? There are a variety of stakeholders in a software system, such as the end users of the system, business analysts, domain experts, quality assurance personnel, managers, those who may integrate with the system, and operations staff members. Each of these stakeholders is affected by the software architecture to some degree. While certain stakeholders will have access to, and be interested in, examining the software architecture and its documentation, others will not.
Some of these stakeholders are indirect consumers of the architecture in that they care about the software, and because the software architecture is the foundation of the system, they become indirect consumers of the architecture. As a software architect, you are serving these types of consumers in addition to the direct consumers. For example, end users are perhaps one of the most important stakeholders and should be a major focus. The software architecture must allow the implementation to satisfy the requirements of the end users.
When we discuss the consumers of a software architecture, we can't omit the developers who work on that software. As a software architect, you need to be thinking about your developers, whose work is directly affected by the software architecture. They are the ones who will be working on the software on a daily basis.
