Architectural design is equivalent to system design,during which the developer selects the system-level structure
and allocates the software requirements to the structure’s components.
Architectural design – sometimes
called top-level design or preliminary design
–typically defines and structures computer program components and data,
defines the interfaces, and prepares
timing and sizing estimates. It includes
information such as the overall processing architecture, function allocations (but not detailed descriptions),
data flows, system utilities, operating
system interfaces, and storage
throughput.