Benoît Ries

Engineering of Dependable Complex Business Processes Using UML and Coordinated Atomic Actions

For many companies, it is widely recognized that languages and methods for modeling and analyzing distributed business processes are becoming more and more important. For improving efficiency, the modeling language should provide reusability, easy understanding by business analysts, and should ease the validation and verification tasks. In this paper, we present an approach for developing dependable complex business processes using UML that satisfies these requirements. The proposed UML notation is designed to be directly integrated with COALA, a syntactically and semantically well-defined fault-tolerant advanced transaction model based on Coordinated Atomic Actions. Structuring concepts like nested business processes and fault-tolerance through exception handling are first class concepts brought by our approach that are crucial for modeling cross-enterprise business processes. The modeling phase is followed by a validation phase by business analysts through animation of the business process model in a workflow environment. Due to the precise notation used, automatic verification of crucial properties is accessible through integration with an automatic verifier.

MEDAL: a case tool extension for model-driven software engineering

The complexity of todays software systems leads to the creation of many related diagrams, representing different viewpoints, different levels of abstraction, and different implementation alternatives. Model-driven software engineering places these models in the center of the development process. Tool support is an essential aspect of model-driven engineering. Of particular interest are model transformation tools: they can facilitate the creation and the evolution of models; they provide a level of traceability between them and they help keeping them synchronized. Unfortunately, currently there are few such tools for UML-based models. We present MEDAL, our model transformation tool. First, we present our viewpoint on model-driven software engineering. Then we describe MEDAL and how we implemented MEDAL on top of rational XDE. Finally, in the last section we show how a Web application development that is based on an architectural framework can be supported by the MEDAL tool.

Selection, Evaluation and Generation of Test Cases in an Industrial Setting: A Process and a Tool

The test phase in safety-critical systems industry is a crucial phase of the development process. Some companies of these industries have their own test methods which do not reuse the notions available in the theory of software testing or model driven engineering. This paper reports on an experience in a testing process improvement made inside a safety-critical systems company in order to improve the quality of the test phase improvement. We present the initial situation, the objectives, the proposed process and the tools that are used to support it. In particular, we show that the most efficient improvements were achieved concerning the test process definition and in allowing a tailored and precise delimitation of the systempsilas elements to be tested.

Messir: a text-first DSL-based approach for UML requirements engineering (tool demo)

This tool paper presents the design and tool-support of Messir, an approach centered on textual domain-specific languages supported by our open-source UML requirements engineering tool, named Excalibur. The novelty of our approach is the actual integration in a single workbench (Excalibur) of textual DSLs richly covering the requirements and analysis phases, i.e. improved use-cases, environment, conceptual and operations models; and the read-only visualisation of the requirements with UML-compliant views; and the generation of scientific requirements analysis documents in LATEX; and the formal simulation of test cases requirements. We designed our Messir language, with a grammar-based approach generating a textual editor, using the XText framework as an Eclipse plugin. Messir DSL’s static semantics is defined as a set of validation rules guiding end-users through the requirements analysis phase. Messir DSL’s semantics is given as a semi-automatic translation to prolog code. We also generate, from the requirements model elements, read-only graphical views (using the Sirius eclipse plugin) as well as a complete requirements analysis document in LATEX. This approach and tool have been used as a requirements engineering educational tool in several bachelor and master semesters.

TESMA: Requirements and Design of a Tool for Educational Programs †

Defining and managing teaching programs at universities or other institutions is a complex task for which there is not much support in terms of methods and tools. This task becomes even more critical when the time comes to obtain certifications w.r.t. official standards. In this paper, we present an on-going project called TESMA, whose objective is to provide an open-source tool dedicated to the specification and management (including certification) of teaching programs. An in-depth market analysis regarding related tools and conceptual frameworks of the project is presented. This tool has been engineered using a development method called Messir for its requirements elicitation and introduces a domain-specific language dedicated to the teaching domain. This paper presents the current status of this project and the future activities planned.