Validating UML models against architectural profiles

ABSTRACT

The Unified Modeling Language (UML) has become a widely adopted standard in the software industry. While UML has established itself in detailed software design, its usage as an architecture description language is still taking its shape. In particular, there is a growing need for techniques to define domain specific architectural constraints and conventions in UML. We address this issue by adopting the concept of UML profiles for architectural design. Architectural profiles are specialized for describing and constraining software architecture descriptions for a given domain. We argue that these profiles represent an appropriate abstraction level to elaborate architectural constraints and conventions. We present a general schema for arranging architectural profiles and a set of conformance rules that define how these profiles are interpreted, constituting a profile definition language for validating architectural design. We introduce a tool for performing architectural validation and discuss the results of our initial case studies.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.1 Requirements/Specifications
          Subjects: Methodologies (e.g., object-oriented, structured)

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.1 Requirements/Specifications
          Subjects: Tools
      D.2.2 Design Tools and Techniques
          Subjects: Object-oriented design methods

General Terms:
Design, Documentation

Keywords:
UML, architectural validation, profiles