This paper presents a survey of consistency rules identified between UML diagrams. It bases on a representative collection of publications and author’s experience of developing original method of software architecture construction (e-CMDA). A new notation for consistency rules is introduced. It uses regular expressions combined with symbols of UML diagram elements and the introduced "projected" (custom) UML diagram symbols. This notation facilitates analysis and selection of appropriate consistency rules in software development at the architectural level.
KEYWORDS: Computer architecture, Information technology, Software development, Modeling, 3D modeling, Chemical elements, Algorithm development, Logic, Process modeling, Mathematical modeling
A description of software architecture is a plan of the IT system construction, therefore any architecture gaps affect the overall success of an entire project. The definitions mostly describe software architecture as a set of views which are mutually unrelated, hence potentially inconsistent. Software architecture completeness is also often described in an ambiguous way. As a result most methods of IT systems building comprise many gaps and ambiguities, thus presenting obstacles for software building automation. In this article the consistency and completeness of software architecture are mathematically defined based on calculation of entropy of the architecture description. Following this approach, in this paper we also propose our method of automatic verification of consistency and completeness of the software architecture development method presented in our previous article as Consistent Model Driven Architecture (CMDA). The proposed FBS (Functionality-Behaviour-Structure) entropy-based metric applied in our CMDA approach enables IT architects to decide whether the modelling process is complete and consistent. With this metric, software architects could assess the readiness of undergoing modelling work for the start of IT system building. It even allows them to assess objectively whether the designed software architecture of the IT system could be implemented at all. The overall benefit of such an approach is that it facilitates the preparation of complete and consistent software architecture more effectively as well as it enables assessing and monitoring of the ongoing modelling development status. We demonstrate this with a few industry examples of IT system designs.
KEYWORDS: Computer architecture, Systems modeling, Process modeling, Information technology, Modeling, 3D modeling, Beam propagation method, Telecommunications, Software development, Visualization
The goal of the MDA is to produce software systems from abstract models in a way where human interaction is restricted to a minimum. These abstract models are based on the UML language. However, the semantics of UML models is defined in a natural language. Subsequently the verification of consistency of these diagrams is needed in order to identify errors in requirements at the early stage of the development process. The verification of consistency is difficult due to a semi-formal nature of UML diagrams. We propose automatic verification of consistency of the series of UML diagrams originating from abstract models implemented with our consistency rules. This Consistent Model Driven Architecture approach enables us to generate automatically complete workflow applications from consistent and complete models developed from abstract models (e.g. Business Context Diagram). Therefore, our method can be used to check practicability (feasibility) of software architecture models.
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