SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

(GROUP PRESENTATION)
Chapter 5- SYSTEM MODELLING (GROUP 5)

 Content:
 Context models
 Interaction models
 Structural models
 Behavioral models
 Model-driven engineering
SYSTEM MODELLING: Introduction

 System modeling is the process of developing abstract models of a

system, with each model presenting a different view or perspective of
that system.
 System modeling has now come to mean representing a system using
some kind of graphical notation, which is now almost always based on
notations in the Unified Modeling Language (UML).
 System modelling helps the analyst to understand the functionality of
the system and models are used to communicate with customers.
You may develop models of both the existing system and the system
to be developed:
• Models of the existing system are used during requirements engineering. They help clarify what the existing system does and
can be used as a basis for discussing its strengths and weaknesses.
• Models of the new system are used during requirements engineering to help explain the proposed requirements to
other system stakeholders. Engineers use these models to discuss design proposals and to document the system for
implementation. In a model-driven engineering process, it is possible to generate a complete or partial system
implementation from the system model.
• SYSTEM PERSPECTIVES :You may develop different models to represent the system from different perspectives.
SYSTEM PERSPECTIVES
 An external perspective, where you model the context or environment of the system.
 An interaction perspective where you model the interactions between a system and its environment or between the components of a
system.
 A structural perspective, where you model the organization of a system or the structure of the data that is processed by the system.
 A behavioral perspective, where you model the dynamic behavior of the system and how it responds to events.
 UML diagram types:
 Activity diagrams, which show the activities involved in a process or in data processing .
 Use case diagrams, which show the interactions between a system and its environment.
 Sequence diagrams, which show interactions between actors and the system and between system components.
 Class diagrams, which show the object classes in the system and the associations between these classes.
 State diagrams, which show how the system reacts to internal and external events.
 Uses of Graphical Models
 As a means of facilitating discussion about an existing or proposed system
• Incomplete and incorrect models are OK as their role is to support discussion.
 As a way of documenting an existing system
• Models should be an accurate representation of the system but need not be complete.
 As a detailed system description that can be used to generate a system implementation
• Models have to be both correct and complete.
CONTEXT MODELS

At an early stage in the specification of a system, you should decide on the system boundaries, that is, on what is
and is not part of the system being developed.
• Context models are used to illustrate the operational context of a system - they show what lies
outside the system boundaries.
• Social and organisational concerns may affect the decision on where to position system
boundaries.
• Architectural models show the system and its relationship with other systems.
System boundaries are established to define what is inside and what is outside the system.
 They show other systems that are used or depend on the system being developed.
The position of the system boundary has a profound effect on the system requirements.
Defining a system boundary is a political judgment
 There may be pressures to develop system boundaries that increase / decrease the influence or workload of
different parts of an organization.
The context of the Mentcare system
Process perspective
• Context models simply show the other systems in the environment, not how the system being
developed is used in that environment.
• Process models reveal how the system being developed is used in broader business processes.
• UML activity diagrams may be used to define business process models.
• A process model of involuntary detention and use case in the MHC-PMS are shown below
Interaction models
• Modeling user interaction is important as it helps to identify user requirements.
• Modeling system-to-system interaction highlights the communication problems
that may arise.
• Modeling component interaction helps us understand if a proposed system
structure is likely to deliver the required system performance and dependability.
• Use case diagrams and sequence diagrams may be used for interaction
modelling.
 Use cases were developed originally to support requirements elicitation and now incorporated
into the UML.
• Each use case represents a discrete task that involves external interaction with a system.
• Actors in a use case may be people or other systems.
• Represented diagrammatically to provide an overview of the use case and in a more detailed
textual form.
Tabular description of the ‘Transfer data’ use-
case
Use cases in the MHC-PMS involving the
role ‘Medical Receptionist’
Sequence diagrams
• Sequence diagrams are part of the UML and are used to model the interactions between the
actors and the objects within a system.
• A sequence diagram shows the sequence of interactions that take place during a particular
use case or use case instance.
• The objects and actors involved are listed along the top of the diagram, with a dotted line
drawn vertically from these.
• Interactions between objects are indicated by annotated arrows.
• Sequence diagram for View patient information:
Sequence diagram for View patient information
Structural models
• Structural models of software display the organization of a system in terms of the components that make up that
system and their relationships.
• Structural models may be static models, which show the structure of the system design, or dynamic models, which show the
organization of the system when it is executing.
• You create structural models of a system when you are discussing and designing the system architecture.

• Class diagrams are used when developing an object-oriented system model to show the classes in a system and the
associations between these classes.
• An object class can be thought of as a general definition of one kind of system object.
• An association is a link between classes that indicates that there is some relationship between these classes.
• When you are developing models during the early stages of the software engineering process, objects represent something in
the real world, such as a patient, a prescription, doctor, etc.
• UML classes and association in the MHC-PMS :
 Generalization
• Generalization is an everyday technique that we use to manage complexity.
• Rather than learn the detailed characteristics of every entity that we experience, we place these entities in more
general classes (animals, cars, houses, etc.) and learn the characteristics of these classes.
• This allows us to infer that different members of these classes have some common characteristics e.g. squirrels
and rats are rodents.
• A generalization hierarchy with added detail shown below:
 Aggregation
• An aggregation model shows how classes that are collections are composed of
other classes.
• Aggregation models are similar to the part-of relationship in semantic data
models.
• The aggregation association:

Behavioral models:
• Behavioral models are models of the dynamic behavior of a system as it is executing. They show what happens or
what is supposed to happen when a system responds to a stimulus from its environment.
• You can think of these stimuli as being of two types:
• Data Some data arrives that has to be processed by the system.
• Events Some event happens that triggers system processing. Events may have associated data, although this is not always the case.
Data-driven modeling
• Many business systems are data-processing systems that are primarily driven by data. They are controlled by the
data input to the system, with relatively little external event processing.
• Data-driven models show the sequence of actions involved in processing input data and generating an
associated output.
• They are particularly useful during the analysis of requirements as they can be used to show end-to-end
processing in a system.
• An activity model of the insulin pump’s operation:
Order processing

Event-driven modeling
• Real-time systems are often event-driven, with minimal data processing. For example,
a landline phone switching system responds to events such as ‘receiver off hook’ by
generating a dial tone.
• Event-driven modeling shows how a system responds to external and internal events.
• It is based on the assumption that a system has a finite number of states and that
events (stimuli) may cause a transition from one state to another.
Model-driven engineering
• Model-driven engineering (MDE) is an approach to software development where models rather than programs
are the principal outputs of the development process.
• The programs that execute on a hardware/software platform are then generated automatically from the models.
• Proponents of MDE argue that this raises the level of abstraction in software engineering so that engineers no
longer have to be concerned with programming language details or the specifics of execution platforms.
• USAGE OF MDE
Pros
• Allows systems to be considered at higher levels of abstraction
• Generating code automatically means that it is cheaper to adapt systems to new platforms.

Cons
• Models for abstraction and not necessarily right for implementation.
• Savings from generating code may be outweighed by the costs of developing translators for new platforms.
Model driven architecture
• Model-driven architecture (MDA) was the precursor of more general model-
driven engineering
Model driven architecture(CONT)
• MDA is a model-focused approach to software design and implementation that
uses a subset of UML models to describe a system.
• Models at different levels of abstraction are created. From a high-level, platform
independent model, it is possible, in principle, to generate a working program
without manual intervention
Types of model
computation independent model (CIM)
• These model the important domain abstractions used in a system. CIMs are sometimes called domain
models.
A platform independent model (PIM)
• These model the operation of the system without reference to its implementation. The PIM is usually
described using UML models that show the static system structure and how it responds to external and
internal events.
Platform specific models (PSM)
• These are transformations of the platform-independent model with a separate PSM for each application
MDA transformations
Executable UML
he fundamental notion behind model-driven engineering is that completely automated
transformation of models to code should be possible. To achieve this, you have to be able to
construct graphical models with clearly defined meanings that can be compiled to executable
code. You also need a way of adding information to graphical models about the ways in which
the operations defined in the model are implemented. This is possible using a subset of UML 2,
called Executable UML or xUML
The fundamental notion behind model-driven engineering is that completely automated
transformation of models to code should be possible.
This is possible using a subset of UML 2, called Executable UML or xUML.