how to model application interfaces

Hi,

I am trying to model interfaces between a set of computer systems (applications). I also want to include a detailed description of the data that flows through the interfaces. This will be used for impact analysis, i.e. to determine which interfaces are affected if the definition of a data attribute is changed.

I have been considering the communication modeler, system interaction modeler and the workflow modeler.

Any good suggestions on how to handle this ?

Thanks,

Kristof

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Comments

Bertin Guenzburger

Hi Kristof

Here is what we did; We have modified the modeling langage and added the application interface as a new object type and defined its attributes. Then we have created custom links to a number of other object types (system to/from applicaton interface, . For the time being I have only loaded data from excel tables in order to collect the systems, responsibles, application interfaces and their relationships. The goal is to understand which systems, application components, interfaces carry customer data, with which classification.

I think to get the overview picture graphically I would use the communication manager, but I might be wrong.

Hope this helps

Jim Clendon

We have looked at 2 possible ways to resolve this, but both should probably play a part. It's like there are 2 different approachs that partially meet the requirements, but neither is complete.

(1) In practice we have used the communication model, and the communication link to define what data is passing betweent systems. We then use the System Interaction model to represent the physical interface interactions between systems and middleware (which we model as a system). The communication link has an association tab and this allows the communication link to be associated with a system interaction as an implementation. We have given system interactions a unique ID and this will (ideally) have an artefact link to the related specification.

(2) In the Enterprise Architecture modelling language there is an object called Interface. What is of interest is if you use the Service object, and define the Service Operations, the service operations can be implemented by Components and Interfaces. Component or Interfaces can only ne modelled in a Deployment diagram (or the Navigator). In the deployment model the interface has an imlementation link to the Componet.

However when you view the Interface object this DOES NOT show the association to the service operation it implements. The object has an operations tab, but these operations are a different set from the service operations and I am not sure how these are used of why what appears to be an important association is not visable on both objects.