Nonfunctional requirements and architectural characteristics are used as criteria to do what?

Nonfunctional requirements and architectural characteristics serve as essential criteria for analyzing, assessing, and selecting candidate system elements and logical partitions within a system's architecture. These requirements focus on how a system should behave and include aspects such as performance, scalability, reliability, and security.

In the systems engineering context, understanding these nonfunctional requirements is vital for ensuring that selected components and their interactions meet the desired quality attributes of the overall system. For instance, if a system requires high availability, the architectural characteristics need to reflect redundancy and fault tolerance in the chosen elements.

Moreover, when evaluating candidate solutions, architects and engineers must consider how different options align with these nonfunctional criteria, which ultimately influence design decisions and system integrity. This systematic approach ensures that the final architecture is robust and meets both functional and performance expectations, leading to a successful implementation of the system.