Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is a visual modeling and design tool based on the OMG UML. The platform supports: the design and construction of software systems; modeling business processes; and modeling industry based domains. It is used by businesses and organizations to not only model the architecture of their systems, but to process the implementation of these models across the full application development life-cycle.
Overview
Systems modeling using UML provides a basis for modeling all aspects of organizational architecture, along with the ability to provide a foundation for designing and implementing new systems or changing existing systems. The aspects that can be covered by this type of modeling range from laying out organizational or systems architectures, business process re-engineering, business analysis, and service-oriented architectures and web modeling, through to application and database design and re-engineering, and development of embedded systems. Along with system modeling, Enterprise Architect covers the core aspects of the application development life-cycle, from requirements management through to design, construction, testing and maintenance phases, with support for traceability, project management and change control of these processes, as well as, facilities for model driven development of application code using an internal integrated-development platform.
The user base ranges from programmers and business analysts through to enterprise architects, in organizations ranging from small developer companies, multi-national corporations and government organizations through to international industry standards bodies. Sparx Systems initially released Enterprise Architect in 2000. Originally designed as a UML modeling tool for modeling UML 1.1, the product has evolved to include other OMG UML specifications 1.3, 2.0, 2.1, 2.3, 2.4.1 and 2.5.
Standards
Enterprise Architect supports a range of open industry standards for designing and modeling software and business systems. The following are the core standards supported:
- UML 2.5
- SysML 1.4
- BPMN 2.0
- BPEL
- SoaML
- SPEM
- WSDL
- XSD
- DDS
- ArchiMate 3.0
- ArcGIS
- Geography Markup Language (GML)
- ODM, OWL and RDF
- Enterprise Integration Patterns (EIP)
Enterprise Architect also supports industry Frameworks such as:
- Zachman Framework
- TOGAF (including FEAF)
- UPDM framework that supports DoDAF, MODAF and NAF
- Service-Oriented Modeling Framework (SOMF)
Enterprise Architect supported Frameworks supplied by industry bodies:
- TRAK
- GeoSciML
- NIEM
Supports the core service-oriented architectures:
- SoaML
- Service-Oriented Modeling Framework (SOMF) - Enterprise-Level Architecture
Along with Round Trip engineering of WSDL, XSD used to facilitate BPEL generation.
Standards development
Models published by industry standards development bodies using Enterprise Architect include:
- Aeronautical Information Exchange Model (AIXM), Flight Information Exchange Model (FIXM), ICAO Weather Information Exchange Model (IWXXM)
- International Air Transport Association IATA
- Telecommunications framework Business Process Framework (eTOM) and TAM
- AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture AUTOSAR
- GENIVI Alliance automotive industry alliance involved in developing In-Vehicle Infotainment (IVI)
- TRAK Transport framework for systems engineers based on MODAF
- Datex II specifications for exchanging traffic information Datex2
- Geoscience Markup Language GeoSciML
- Geospatial Interoperability Specification ISO/TC 211
- ArcGIS Pipeline Data Model (APDM)
- International Defence Enterprise Architecture Specification IDEAS Group
- Smartgrid Common Information Model (electricity) (IEC CIM)
- HL7 - International standard for transferring data between Hospital information systems Health Level 7 EHR-S FIM
- caBIG Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid
- BRIDG Biomedical Research Integrated Domain Group
- UN/CEFACT's Modeling Methodology for UN/CEFACT
- UnifiedPOS managed by Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS)
Modeling
Underlying UML modeling are several key aspects that most modeling tools support. The core aspects supported by Enterprise Architect include:
- Profiles
- Patterns
- MOF
- OCL
- MDA Transforms
- Corba IDL
UML Validation can be run against the model.
General features
Requirements management
The common features of Requirements Management supported by Enterprise Architect include customization of how requirements are documented, linking requirements to the design and implementation details, and providing Requirement Traceability through the design and construction phases. These requirements can be subject to change management, workflow processing, baseline comparison and auditing.
Business modeling and analysis
Enterprise Architect supports a number of methods of modeling business processes using UML as the foundation modeling language. The core languages for business modeling and analysis include BPMN and BPEL, with various historic profiles such as the Eriksson-Penker profile. Enterprise Architect also supports the definition of Business Rules with the ability to generate executable code from these rules. Business modeling can be combined with Gap analysis to view potential gaps in proposed solutions.
Simulation
Model simulation is supported for:
- Behavioral Diagrams:
- State Machines
- Interaction (Sequence diagrams)
- Activities
- Execution flow is defined using Triggers, Guards and Effects. The simulation supports re-runs with alteration to the triggered events and supports viewing variables, the call stack and setting debug markers. There is also support for interaction with emulated User-Interface screens containing common UI fields.
- BPMN Diagrams:
- Using BPSim - BPMN models can be simulated creating tabulated results for analysis.
- SysML Parametric Simulation:
- Using Open Modelica, mathematical formulas in SysML Blocks and Parametric Blocks can be simulated for plotting graphs used in analysis.
System development
In line with the Model Driven design principles Enterprise Architect supports MDA transforms of PIM Class structures to PSM Class structures, Round-trip engineering of code for 10 software languages and several key embedded HDL systems languages (Ada, VHDL and Verilog). It also supports code generation from Behavioral models.
Languages supported:
- ActionScript
- C
- C# (for both .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0)
- C++(standard, plus .NET managed C++ extensions)
- Delphi
- Java (including Java 1.5, Aspects and Generics)
- PHP
- Python
- Visual Basic
- Visual Basic .NET
In accordance with Model Driven Development principles, Enterprise Architect provides an Integrated Development Environment that supports code editing (with Syntax highlighting and Intellisense), for Building, Debugging and Code Testing all from within the model. Compilers and interpreters supported:
- Microsoft Windows Native C
- Microsoft Windows Native C++
- Microsoft Windows Visual Basic
- Microsoft .NET Family (C#, J#, VB)
- Sun Microsystems Java.
- PHP
- GNU Compilers for C++, C and Ada (GCC & GDB )
Add-ins are available for integration with MS Visual Studio and Eclipse.
Wireframing
Wireframe modeling supports using templates for modeling the appearance of dialogs presented to users when interacting with an application. The supported device dialogs include:
- Screen Dialogs
- Webpages - to model how the web pages work
- Android Phones and Tablets
- Apple iPhones and Tablets
- Windows 8.1 Phones
Test management
For code based testing there is support for:
- xUnit Testing
- This involves MDA transformation of Classes to NUnit or Junit Classes with the ability to generate unit tests from the model and automatically record the results against the tested Classes.
- Testpoint testing
- This is a model based code testing. It is parallel to test contracts defined in ‘Design by Contract’ and it runs using debug definitions.
Both of these methods support the test definitions and test results being logged against related Classes in the model.
Visual execution analysis
Integrated with building and debugging code Enterprise Architect allows the developer to perform abstract analysis of the software using Profiling and Sequence diagram generation:
- Sequence diagram generation provides a means to analyze the general process flow and iron out inconsistencies
- Profiling summarizes, by thread and routine, the code's general efficiency
System engineering
System Engineering is supported with SysML 1.4 modeling which can be coupled with executable code generation. SysML supports modeling from requirement definition and system composition using SysML Blocks and Parts, through to parametric model simulation. The executable code generation supports embedded HDL system languages (Ada, VHDL and Verilog), or it can be coupled with behavioral code generation of the standard code languages defined above.
Data modeling
Enterprise Architect supports Data Modeling from the Conceptual to Physical levels, Forward and Reverse Engineering of Database Schemas, and MDA transformation of the Logical (platform independent) to Physical DBMS(platform dependant). Diagram types supported include:
- DDL notation
- ERD notation
- IDEF1X notation
- Information Engineering notation
Supported DBMSs:
- DB2
- Firebird/InterBase
- Informix
- Ingres
- MS Access 97, 2000, 2003
- MS Access 2007
- MS SQL Server 2000, 2005, 2008, 2012
- MySQL
- SQLite
- Oracle 9i, 10g, 11g and 12c
- PostgreSQL
- Sybase Adaptive Server Anywhere (Sybase ASA)
- Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise (Sybase ASE)
- ArcGIS
Project management
Features supporting project management include:
- Resource Allocation and tracking using Gantt charts
- Kanban diagrams
- Event Logging using model calendars
- Workflow scripting for setting workflow processes
- Security
- Model Metrics
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Change management
The key facilities supporting change management are:
- Auditing
- Baseline Difference and Merge
- Version Control
The auditing feature supports logging changes to the model. The Baseline Management feature allows snapshots of parts of a model to be created periodically. A baseline can be compared and merged with the current model or a branch of that model. This supports Branching model information to another repository, then adding updates and merging them back.
The Version Control interface supports the major version control applications:
- Subversion
- CVS
- Team Foundation Server
- SCC interface to any SCC compatible version control system.
Integration with other tools
Features that support integration with other tools include:
- XMI Import/Export: Supports the XMI 1.1, 1.2 and 2.1 specifications (and import of .emx and Rhapsody files)
- Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC)
- CSV Import/Export
- ArchiMate Open Exchange Format Import / Export (from version 13)
- Automation interface â€" supports a comprehensive API interface for use with any COM based language (and Java).
Among the Add-ins available are interfaces to VS .Net and Eclipse, Microsoft Office and DOORS, along with third party add-ins for interfacing with the likes of Jira.
See also
- List of UML tools
- Glossary of Unified Modeling Language terms
References
External links
- Official website
- Enterprise Architect resources and articles on umlchannel
- Enterprise Architect YouTube Channel