Architecturediagramssequence-diagramuml
I have been learning UML and have a basic understanding now, but I keep seeing these sort of high level architecture diagrams. Here's one from Microsoft:
Source: A bad picture is worth a thousand long discussions.
Is this a UML diagram? Are there any rules to follow for creating these types of diagrams?
I would like to represent something similar, i.e. the realtionship between different installed systems / APIs… i.e. Platform architecture.
The most important insight about how thread executions happen can be depicted by what is known as sequence diagram. Here is an example from wikipedia
This diagram essentially draws the list of events along with a direction over a vertical single line often called lifeline. In this case, each thread is an owner of it's own life line. The diagram allow representation all types of events such as synchronous, asynchronous etc.
The other most important thing in such systems is the state-charts or state-diagrams. Usually, this applies only if the model is represented as a state machine. However, in most multi threaded systems (where threads are non-trivial) it is best that they are designed to function with isolated algorithms for different states.
There are other diagram types like interaction diagram and communication diagram but i think trying to draw sequence diagram and state diagrams will put maximum clarity.
The most important is that it is clear from the use case description that a choice must be made between the search and the browse functionality.
In your diagram, the 'add to basket' use case should <<include>> both the 'search products' and 'browse products' use cases (assuming that the choice for searching or browsing is made from the 'add to basket' use case). If you really want to show that those included use cases are mutually exclusive, you can add a UML constraint { mutually exclusive } linked to the inclusion arrows, but that is completely optional.
Best Answer
The more appropriate UML diagram to depict a platform's architecture is a component diagram. If you want to go a level lower, then you'd also need to draw one or more package diagrams, and perhaps even a deployment diagram.
The diagram you linked to is not a UML diagram, it's a "marchitecture / marketecture" diagram. It's not really supposed to be technically accurate, its main purpose is to look good on a presentation slide. You can of course chose to go with such a diagram instead of a more formal UML diagram, however there aren't any concrete rules on how to draw them. It should convey a basic idea of your components and how they work together, and... look good ;)