Architectural control for teams

Structure101 includes 4 cooperative components that can be used with pretty much any development process.

Structure101 client. A rich interactive environment for structural analysis and architecture definition. Structure101 publisher. Writes data to a structure101 repository. This can be called from a client or build script. Structure101 web application. Web-enables the repository so that the contents can be browsed and accessed remotely by clients. Structure101 IDE plug-in. Displays architecture diagrams within the IDE and warns programmers if code changes violate the architecture.

The structure101 client and publisher are licensed products; the web application and IDE plug-in can be downloaded and installed freely.

The client can be used stand-alone. However the web application, IDE plug-in and some client features (such as comparisons) require at least one publisher in order to populate a repository.

As a guideline, the client is sometimes used stand-alone on smaller projects, or by evangelists and consultants who want to get started with minimal effort and outlay. On teams that want to fully adopt architectural control, one client and one publisher for each architect or senior developer, and one client for other developers is recommended. You can try all of the components before deciding your specific needs.