SD Times Issue 221 by BZ Media

Author:BZ Media
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SD Times;
Published: 2009-04-30T16:00:00+00:00

A Model for Business Success

Developers eschew code generation, but business users find value in architecture and system diagrams

you plan to?' We found that 95 to 98% of the people we talked to were not using UML 2 or intending to."

Hebda said Mega was pushing UML for a time, but he admitted, "We didn't get a strong reaction." So the company found a new route: modeling for contextual development. "We're staying out of full development, but we see a need for architectural modeling to give context for what's being developed. We're pushing that as a form of bridging." The company's UML core is Use Case, Class and Sequence diagrams, which he said was unchanged from UML lx to 2.

A SHIFT IN THINKING

Andrew Watson of the Object Management Group, which oversees the UML specification, said that model-driven development "is shifting from the idea of development to the ability to capture an organization's key knowledge assets in a form [machine-readable] that can reused."

Watson said modeling benefits organizations that don't want to lose those knowledge assets by having them manually translated into code. With modeling tools, you can generate applications that can live for five or 10 years or more, he pointed out. "Of course, they will change, but only at about 10% per year. The advantage [to using models] is that you won't have to start all over when rolling out a new platform."

He said organizations that toss out their COBOL applications for newer ones based on more current languages, without first creating models of those systems, run the risk of tossing out the knowledge of how their processes work.

Mega's focus is on enterprise architecture, which involves modeling the organizations and the processes and systems within it. "There's enormous value to say, 1 need a system here for this purpose.' You can use that to drive requirements in the context of the architecture in place, and then go further with detailed

requirements and use cases, to see what impact those systems will have on the overall enterprise," Hebda explained.

Enterprise architecture also opens the door to service-based development and agile practices, according to Neil Patterson, a systems product manager in IBM's Rational division. He acknowledged it is "often the case" that developers don't want to use UML modeling on their projects, but said, "Architects and development managers have a longer-term focus about the software being developed, the projects the software is going into and especially reuse."

IBM offers a variety of modeling tools, such as System Architect for enterprise architecture modeling; Rhapsody and Tau (acquired with the purchase of Telelogic) for embedded systems and system architecture modeling; and the Rational line of application modelers.

Patterson went on to acknowledge

that "in these times, reaching out to the

continued on page 30 ►

30 SPECIAL REPORT

Software Development Times . May 1 r 2009 .

www.sdtimes.com

Business Users Take On Models

< continued from page 29

people who own the money is very important with a model-driven development story. They understand very well the future of the business relies on being able to move quickly to react to market conditions and to look ahead" at new business opportunities.

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