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Conflicting Architectural Requirements

publish date: 2026/06/09 21:16:36.165926 UTC

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A system has both high performance and high maintainability as critical non-functional requirements. Why do these requirements create an architectural conflict?

Performance requires large components deployed together, while maintainability requires fine-grain, self-contained components — these are opposites

There is no conflict — performance and maintainability always use the same architectural approach

Performance requires distributed components, while maintainability requires a single monolithic component

Performance and maintainability both require layered architectures, making it impossible to satisfy either

Correct Answer

Performance requires large components deployed together, while maintainability requires fine-grain, self-contained components — these are opposites

Explanation

Using large components improves performance by reducing communications overhead. Using small, fine-grain components improves maintainability. These are directly conflicting strategies. A compromise must be found, sometimes by using different architectural patterns for different parts of the same system.

Reference

Software Engineering, Ian Sommerville, 10th edition

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Architectural Design Decisions