Separation of concerns

Separation of concerns is an engineering concept, widely used in software engineering, to separate a seemingly overwhelmingly complex problem into a set of more tractable concerns, each with its own technical solution. There will need to be careful engineering among the gateways and interfaces among the various "solution spaces".

One common approach to separation, in telecommunications, is between the consumer and provider of service. The key element in such separation is to understand what each side expects at their shared interface.