When they hear the term architecture, most people automatically visualize a building. However, architecture can also refer to a computer system. Architecture can also be defined as an interconnected arrangement of readily available components. A computer systems architect takes a collection of parts and organizes them so that they all work together in an optimal way. More than one way exists to put a computer system together from constituent parts, and some configurations will yield a computer system that is better at a particular task than other configurations, which might be better at something else. For example, consider a computer system for use by human users to support activities in managing their work in an office environment—composing documents, storing them, and printing them out. This computer system architecture would be completely different from that of a computer system designed to deal with a...