Tool Mentor:  Performing Architectural Analysis Using Rational XDE Developer - .NET Edition

Purpose

This section provides links to additional information related to this tool mentor.

• Architectural Analysis

The steps in this tool mentor match those in the activity. Links to topics in the Rational XDE™ online Help are marked with .

Overview

This tool mentor assumes that a set of structured models has already been created, in accordance with the XDE Model Structure Guidelines.

The following steps are performed in this tool mentor:

• Develop Architecture Overview
• Survey Available Assets
• Define the High-Level Organization of Subsystems
• Identify Key Abstractions
• Identify Stereotypical Interactions
• Develop Deployment Overview
• Identify Analysis Mechanisms
• Review the Results

Develop Architecture Overview 

Rational XDE can be used as a drawing tool to generate informal diagrams that describe the architecture overview.

Survey Available Assets

The architect must consider the reuse of in-place assets, including existing Rational XDE models.

Note that the RDA Exchange on the Rational Developer Network^SM contains assets that you might find useful.

Define the High-Level Organization of Subsystems

Add packages in the Design Model to reflect your layering strategy. In accordance with the example layering given in Rational XDE Model Structure Guidelines, the steps are as follows:

1. Open the Design Model.
2. Navigate to the package or packages that contain layering sub-packages.
3. Create packages for each layer, and stereotype as «layer». See the topics and in the Rational XDE online Help.

Refer to the following white papers for guidance on structuring models:

• Rational XDE Model Structure Guidelines
• Layering Strategies

Identify Key Abstractions 

Capture key abstractions in class diagrams with brief descriptions of each class. To do this:

1. Open the Design Model.
2. Navigate to the package containing key abstractions. See Rational XDE Model Structure Guidelines.
3. Add a class diagram. See .
4. Add classes to the diagram, stereotyped as «entity». See and .
5. Add a description to each class. See .
6. Optionally associate a document with the class. See .
7. Define any relationships that exist between the classes.
• Add association relationships. See .
• Specify the kinds of association relationships. See .
• Add generalization relationships. See .

For more information, refer to .

Identify Stereotypical Interactions

This step is included only when performing this activity during inception.

The purpose of this step is to identify those interactions, between key abstractions in the system, that characterize or are representative of significant kinds of activity in the system. These interactions are captured as Use-Case Realizations.

For guidance on creating Use-Case Realizations in XDE, see Tool Mentor: Performing Use-Case Analysis Using Rational XDE.

Develop Deployment Overview

1. Add a deployment diagram to the Deployment Model. See .
2. Add nodes to the diagram. See .
3. Add associations between nodes. See .

For more information, refer to .

Identify Analysis Mechanisms 

There is no Rational XDE specific guidance for this step.

Review the Results

The results of architectural analysis are preliminary and relatively informal; therefore, reviews should be informal as well. It might be helpful to publish any models to html format. Also note that diagrams can be copied from Rational XDE to Microsoft Word and other programs.

For more information, refer to .

Rational Unified Process