RE: [sca-assembly] ISSUE 2: Use of UML 2.0

In my opinion, this kind of effort does have some value for people who are already well-versed in UML. However, I believe that such people are a minority of the people who are potentially interested in SCA, so I would encourage this work to be done in a separate specification and for the main assembly specification to stick with the current “cartoon” approach.

I also have some concerns that the UML 2.0 semantics don’t line up exactly with SCA (e.g. two services with the same interface, or two components implemented using the same class). Although I expect that these things can either be worked around or glossed over if they are part of a separate spec.

Michael

From: Martin Chapman [mailto:martin.chapman@oracle.com]
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2007 6:35 AM
To: sca-assembly@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: [sca-assembly] ISSUE 2: Use of UML 2.0

Renamed subject line

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeffrey A. Estefan [mailto:jeffrey.a.estefan@jpl.nasa.gov]
Sent: Friday, October 05, 2007 4:10 AM
To: sca-assembly@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Fw: [sca-assembly] SCA Visual Modeling "Standard?"

This posting on behalf of Jeff Anderson.

----- Original Message -----

From: Anderson, Jeff T (CA - Toronto)

To: Jeffrey A. Estefan ; Moberg Dale ; Martin Chapman ; Michael Rowley

Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 1:52 PM

Subject: FW: [sca-assembly] SCA Visual Modeling "Standard?"

For some reason my posts do not seem to be making it to the SCA assembly list
if someone could please forward this message to the list on my behalf that would be much appreciated...

From: Anderson, Jeff T (CA - Toronto)
Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2007 2:10 PM
To: sca-assembly@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [sca-assembly] SCA Visual Modeling "Standard?"

As discussed,
I've put together a first cut at what I believe is a good UML representation of how an SCA composite could be diagramed.
I found that the component diagrams, especially the UML 2.x version, were able to cover most of the SCA concepts , although to UML purists I did have to be a little creative. I know some of the previous discussion here centered around using "composite" diagrams, however after doing some further research, I do not believe that UML composites are appropriate.

I've attached the initial diagrams for reference, simply explained I applied the following mappings .
Composite >a component with service, components, or references inside

interface >component interface

reference >is simply a UML port from the point of view of the component, and can be modeled as a delegate to a port when showing an exposed reference

service >can be modeled as a component interface that has been exposed to the outside world using a delegate.
Properties >with a little tweaking, realization artifacts contained in a component could be extended to model properties of a composite or component. This will allow for much richer modeling of properties than simple squares shown in the current SCA diagrams. Basically we can use all the notation available in class diagrams to model the properties.

Does anybody find this UML representation to be useful? if so, where would we document any decisions that we have around what would be the "normative" modeling approach using UML? Would have alternate representations in the actual specifications, ruled me just produce a separate documentation and with this ride how we are extending UML to cover the concepts described in SCA?

Any comments would be much appreciated

Jeff Anderson
Deloitte Inc.
416 874 4471
mobile: 647 444 5932
jeffanderson@deloitte.com

From: Duane Nickull [mailto:dnickull@adobe.com]
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2007 11:21 AM
To: David Booz; Jeffrey A. Estefan
Cc: Moberg Dale; Martin Chapman; Michael Rowley; sca-assembly@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: Re: [sca-assembly] SCA Visual Modeling "Standard?"

My $0.02 CAD (now on par with $0.02 USD)

There can be different expressions of the model for different audiences. The architect/UML heads like myself can make use of the UML models and we can also chose a simpler convention (concept maps??) for business people. Given they are both expressions of the same thing, it should not present issues if modeled properly. I favor UML as the more terse, normative as the binary relationships can be far more meaningful.

/duane

On 9/28/07 5:17 AM, "David Booz" <booz@us.ibm.com> wrote:

I see that Martin posted an email to raise the visual modelling issue. I'll not address merits of the issue until we can formally address the issue, but will only try to address the historical question you raised.

As you know by now, OSOA produced UML diagrams to represent the architecture as another way to represent the model. We did this as another means to explore the design. We (ok, maybe it's just me) have found UML to be inaccessible to the target audience for SCA, which is comprised of business logic developers, not middleware vendors. In light of that, we needed a simpler visual model for expressing the concepts. In addition, several of the visual SCA tools that have emerged during OSOA have adopted a similar visual model which creates a very nice synergy in the community. One of the original SCA principles is to "keep simple things simple [for the business logic developer]", and the current visual representation seems to meet that goal for the target audience.

Dave Booz
STSM, SCA and WebSphere Architecture
Co-Chair OASIS SCA-Policy TC
"Distributed objects first, then world hunger"
Poughkeepsie, NY (845)-435-6093 or 8-295-6093
e-mail:booz@us.ibm.com
http://washome.austin.ibm.com/xwiki/bin/view/SCA2Team/WebHome
"Jeffrey A. Estefan" <jeffrey.a.estefan@jpl.nasa.gov>

"Jeffrey A. Estefan" <jeffrey.a.estefan@jpl.nasa.gov> 09/27/2007 03:24 PM Please respond to
"Jeffrey A. Estefan" <jeffrey.a.estefan@jpl.nasa.gov>

To

"Moberg Dale" <dmoberg@axway.com>, "Martin Chapman" <martin.chapman@oracle.com>, "Michael Rowley" <mrowley@bea.com>, <sca-assembly@lists.oasis-open.org>

cc

Subject

Re: [sca-assembly] SCA Visual Modeling "Standard?"

Dale, Mike, & Martin,

The conceptual UML model of SCA as a whole put forth by Mike Edwards is an excellent one and I have no issue with it. The issue I was raising had to do with the cartoon-like visual models used throughout the SCA specs that show properties, services, SCA components, and SCA composites plus their wiring together.

My argument is that there is great expressive power with UML 2 that did not exist in UML 1.x to support component-based development; structured classifiers in UML 2 (classes and components) can be decomposed and assembled ("wired") via Parts, Ports, and Connectors in the new Composite Structure diagrams. I wanted to suggest use of this visual modeling standard rather than use of custom cartoons for forthcoming SCA specs under OASIS. And my original question was to the source of these cartoons. We are exploiting UML 2 in our development of the OASIS Reference Architecture for SOA, which will be released for public review late this year or early '08. I also stress that we are using UML 2 as a means to capture visual models that form architectural views of the overall Reference Architecture.

As Duane Nickull (TC chair for the OASIS Reference Model for SOA) points out in his blog, we are considering use of the term "service aggregation" vice "service composition" since the latter is more accurate as it describes a whole-part relationship, meaning you 'delete the whole, you delete the parts.' This, of course, is not the intent of composite services or composite applications. We also recognize that the whole industry has already gained steam on the terminology of composition of services or "service composition" and therefore, we have not made a final decision on the language of the RA just yet.

I did not see an SCA-Assembly issues list on the Kavi site as of yet but once it is posted, I will update the issues list. It is my understanding from the recent SCA-Assembly TC minutes that JIRA is still being considered for tracking issues but has not yet been resolved so I'm sending this note to the whole TC.

Cheers...

- Jeff E., JPL

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