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Architecture Modeling - SPES 2020

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3 The <strong>Architecture</strong> Meta-Model<br />

In Section 2 we briefly introduced the fundamental concepts of the architecture modeling approach.<br />

In this section these concepts are described in more detail. In addition it is shown how<br />

they are expressed in the architecture meta-model and how concepts relate to each other. However<br />

it is not in the scope of this document to give a complete specification of the architecture<br />

meta-model. That specification is delivered seperately in [50]. Note, that we sometime use the<br />

abbreviation <strong>SPES</strong>MM denoting the architecture meta-model.<br />

3.1 Abstraction levels<br />

The <strong>SPES</strong>MM introduces a generic concept of abstraction levels. An abstraction level represents<br />

the system under development at a certain level of detail. A car for example may be<br />

modelled at the top-level as a single component where only the interface of the car to the environment<br />

is visible. At a lower level, certain components of the car may be visible (chassis,<br />

engine, ...), and so on.<br />

+subPackage<br />

Package<br />

SystemModel<br />

+owner 0..1<br />

1..*<br />

+owner<br />

0..1<br />

0..*<br />

+abstractionLevel<br />

DeclarationZone<br />

1 +topLevel<br />

+declarationZone<br />

0..1<br />

+owner<br />

AbstractionLev el 0..1 +ownedPerspective<br />

Perspectiv e<br />

+successor 0..1<br />

0..*<br />

+abstractionLevel 0..*<br />

0..* +perspective<br />

+declared<br />

ReusableElement<br />

0..*<br />

+ kind: PerspectiveKind<br />

AbstractionLev elCategory<br />

+category 0..1<br />

Figure 3.1: Meta-model integration of the concept of abstraction levels<br />

A design item (e. g. the system under development or a component) may be modeled on<br />

different levels of abstraction. An ordering relation on the abstraction levels within a model<br />

is defined by means of the successor-association between AbstractionLevels (see<br />

Figure 3.1). The highest abstraction level associated by the SystemModel in the role of<br />

topLevel is intended to contain the most abstract description. Each AbstractionLevel<br />

owns a set of Perspectives, that in turn contain models and requirements.<br />

An abstraction level may be further categorized by AbstractionLevelCategory,<br />

which allows to adapt the concept to development processes of a company. So for an abstraction<br />

level of a certain category one can e. g. specify the set of considered perspectives.<br />

The component hierarchy modelled within a certain abstraction level may be re-arranged<br />

within the next lower abstraction level. Thus, a component-based architecture can not only be<br />

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