Postface
I hope that you enjoyed your software architecture journey. As you understood from the initial chapter, there is no single vision of software architecture. I think that a good software architect must specialize in application development and architecture, as well as understand the bigger picture. A good software architect must be able to interact with every type of stakeholder. This is why I took you through the discovery of a few popular frameworks, such as TOGAF, ITIL, and NIST, as well as the ATAM methodology. These skills (even partially) are a must-have to grow as an architect. The frameworks help you structure and organize your work. The extent to which you apply them depends on the organization you are working for.
I could not bypass design patterns because they are an integral part of the software architect's job, but there are tons of books about them, so I did not want to write yet another book on design patterns. Our last two chapters showed how the cloud...