What best describes a system’s architecture?

A system’s architecture fundamentally refers to a conceptual model that defines both the structure and behavior of a system. This includes how the system components interact with one another and the overall organization of the system as a cohesive unit. It serves as a blueprint that guides both the design and the development of the system, ensuring that it meets its requirements while maintaining scalability, reliability, and efficiency.

Describing the system architecture in this way emphasizes its role in framing the relationships between various components, the data flows, and the interaction protocols necessary for the system to function effectively. This holistic overview is essential for accurately capturing the system’s design, making it easier for stakeholders to understand how the parts fit together and how they contribute to the system's overall functionality.

The other options do not encapsulate the essence of system architecture as effectively. A detailed plan for hardware selection focuses narrowly on physical components, a list of system requirements specifies functionalities without addressing structural relationships, and coding standards pertain specifically to programming practices rather than the overarching design of the system. Thus, the second option provides a more comprehensive and accurate description of what constitutes a system’s architecture.