Model-based a-posteriori integration of engineering tools for incremental development processes

Abstract

A-posteriori integration of heterogeneous engineering tools supplied by different vendors constitutes a challenging task. In particular, this statement applies to incremental development processes where small changes have to be propagated -potentially bidirectionally -through a set of inter-dependent design documents which have to be kept consistent with each other. Responding to these challenges, we have developed an approach to tool integration which puts strong emphasis on software architecture and model-driven development. Starting from an abstract description of a software architecture, the architecture is gradually refined down to an implementation level. To integrate heterogeneous engineering tools, wrappers are constructed for abstracting from technical details and for providing homogenized data access. On top of these wrappers, incremental integration tools provide for inter-document consistency. These tools are based on graph models of the respective document classes and graph transformation rules for maintaining inter-document consistency. Altogether, the collection of support tools and the respective infrastructure considerably leverage the problem of composing a tightly integrated development environment from a set of heterogeneous engineering tools.

A graph-based algorithm for consistency maintenance in incremental and interactive integration tools

“…The rule base is fed by simulation experts in an iterative process. However, the knowledge acquisition process goes beyond the scope of this paper; therefore, the reader is referred to [4]. In this paper, we will assume that the rule base is given and static.…”

“…The integration algorithm to be described in subsequent sections requires a formal graph representation. How such a graph representation is actually provided, goes beyond the scope of this paper and is described elsewhere [4]. The basic idea is to realize a graph view on the data structures of the tools (flow sheet editors and simulators) by means of wrappers.…”

“…The dashed boxes contain the left-hand side and the right-hand side, respectively. 4 The left-hand side consists of nodes, which are numbered in a unique way, and edges, both of which are typed. Since this rule specifies an extension of the host graph, the righthand side repeats all of these nodes, using the notation i' = 'i.…”

“…Framework-based integrators are controlled by integration rules as well. Therefore, the framework also includes tool support (upper right corner) for rule modeling which is based on the UML [4,7] (i.e., the graph grammar formalism is not exposed to domain experts).…”

“…5). Second, an implementation designed for industrial use was derived from the formal specification [4].…”