A Software Reference Architecture Proposal for Big Data Systems
Big Data, Software architecture, Reference architecture
Big Data is an umbrella term usually referring to data sets whose size grows beyond the ability of traditional methods and tools to gather, store, process, and analyze the available data at a tolerable time and using reasonable computational resources. Big Data systems (BDS) can be found in many fields, providing valuable insights and information to organizations and users. The intrinsic complexity and characteristics of these systems require software architectures to properly meet functional and quality requirements. Reference architectures are acknowledged as an important asset in building software architectures as they promote knowledge reuse and guide their development, standardization, and evolution. However, many reference architectures for BDS are still produced using an ad-hoc approach without following a systematized process for their design and evaluation. Therefore, most proposed architectures do not achieve the maturity required for real-world software projects addressing BDS. This work aims at proposing a software reference architecture to serve as a basis for building software architectures for BDS. The proposal has followed ProSA-RA as a systematic process to guide the definition of reference architectures, including major phases such as architectural analysis, synthesis, and evaluation grounded on sound information sources. The expected contributions from this work are (i) the establishment of relevant requirements and components in software architectures for BDS and (ii) a reference architecture for BDS founded on a systematic process while gathering both industry practice and academic knowledge in this domain.