Model-Driven Evolution of Software Architectures - Software and ...
Model-Driven Evolution of Software Architectures - Software and ...
Model-Driven Evolution of Software Architectures - Software and ...
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9.2. IntegrationinPractice(RQ1) 191<br />
wecontinuouslyconsideredindustrialintegrationasanimportantaspect<br />
<strong>of</strong>thesolutionsweproposed. Inparticularweaimedatreducingtheorganisationalimpact<strong>of</strong>oursolutions<strong>and</strong>addressedtheadoption<strong>of</strong><br />
MDA<br />
st<strong>and</strong>ards.<br />
ReducingOrganisationalImpact Instead<strong>of</strong>definingnewlanguages<strong>and</strong>methods,weusedexistingindustrialst<strong>and</strong>ardsasmuchaspossible(i.e,those<br />
relatedtotheMDA)<strong>and</strong>tookintoaccountcurrentindustrialpractices,such<br />
astheinformaluse<strong>of</strong>modelling. Ingeneral,weaimedatusing<strong>and</strong>extending(similar)technologiesasalreadyusedinpractice.Additionally,we<br />
triedtominimisetheresourcesrequiredtoapplyoursolutions.<br />
Wedidnotadvocatetheuse<strong>of</strong>newlanguagesifnotstrictlynecessary.<br />
Inthecaseswherewediddefinenewlanguages,theseareusedalongside(Chapter6)oraremappedto(Chapters7<strong>and</strong>8)languagesalready<br />
used(i.e., UML). Moreover,fortheirdefinitionweusedtheMetaObject<br />
Facility 1 (MOF),themetamodellinglanguage<strong>of</strong> MDA. Theadvantageis<br />
thatMOFuseswell-knownobject-orientedconceptstodefinemodellinglanguages.<br />
Furthermore,MOFissupportedbyanincreasingnumber<strong>of</strong>tools<br />
<strong>and</strong>open-sourceimplementationsareavailable(e.g.,theEclipse<strong>Model</strong>ing<br />
Framework 2 (EMF)).<br />
AlthoughUMLisawell-definedlanguage(atleastsyntactically),even<br />
inorganisationswhereUMLisused,modelsare<strong>of</strong>tenveryinformal.Such<br />
models,aremoreusedasillustrativediagramsthanprecises<strong>of</strong>twarespecifications.Toaccountfortheinformaluse<strong>of</strong>modellinglanguagesingeneral,<strong>and</strong>inparticularthat<strong>of</strong>UML,oursolutionsforconformancechecking<br />
(Chapter5)<strong>and</strong>migration(Chapter7)involveaspecificnormalisationstep.<br />
Suchastepisnecessarybecauseouraimtoautomatethesetasksbymeans<br />
<strong>of</strong>modeltransformations,requiresthatinputmodelsstrictlyconformtoa<br />
metamodel.<br />
Currently,thenormalisationstepisessentialfortheapplication<strong>of</strong>our<br />
model-drivensolutionsforthes<strong>of</strong>twareevolutiontasksinindustry. The<br />
mainreasonisthatatpresentmodellinginindustrycanbecharacterised<br />
asimmature[Kleppeetal.,2003],whichwealsoobservedduringoursurvey(seeChapter3).However,whentheuse<strong>of</strong>MDEtechnologiesingeneral,<br />
<strong>and</strong>theassociatedst<strong>and</strong>ardsinparticularbecomesmorewide-spread,we<br />
expectthatthemodellingmaturitylevelinindustrywillrise. Asmodels<br />
becomemoreprecise,theneedfornormalisationisreduced.<br />
To increase the potential for integration in practice it is important<br />
thatas<strong>of</strong>twareengineeringtechniquedoesnotrequireas<strong>of</strong>twaredevelopmentorganisationtochangemuch<strong>of</strong>itscurrentway<strong>of</strong>working<strong>and</strong><br />
1 http://www.omg.org/m<strong>of</strong>(June2007)<br />
2 http://www.eclipse.org/emf(June2007)
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