Guy Genilloud

A foundation for the concept of role in object modelling

Standardization experts in object modelling are having difficulties with defining the concept of role; for example, they are not sure of whether role is a type or an instance concept. This issue is a source of confusion in the UML standard, and prevents ISO experts to reach consensus and finalize a language for ODP enterprise modelling. In this paper, we make an in-depth analysis of the problem, find its likely causes, and come up with a proposal for a new ODP definition of role, as well as with definitions of related concepts. Our findings and our definitions provide a basis for reconciling the positions that people have about the concept of role.

The role of Roles in use case diagrams

Use cases are the modeling technique of UML for formalizing the functional requirements placed on systems. This technique has limitations in modeling the context of a system, in relating systems involved in a same business process, in reusing use cases, and in specifying various constraints such as execution constraints between use case occurrences. These limitations can be overcome to some extent by the realization of multiple diagrams of various types, but with unclear relationships between them. Thus, the specification activity becomes complex and error prone. In this paper, we show how to overcome the limitations of use cases by making the roles of actors explicit. Interestingly, our contributions not only make UML a more expressive specification language, they also make it simpler to use and more consistent.

An analysis of the OSI systems management architecture from an ODP perspective

This paper analyses the OSI Systems Management Architecture (SMA) in terms of the RM-ODP concepts and architecture. It explains why ISO and ITU are considering new modelling techniques for implementing distributed systems management. In the information viewpoint, these new techniques might be inspired from GDMO. The paper also examines the use of automatic translation tools (GDMO to CORBA IDL translators) to integrate existing management agents within the future Open Distributed Management Architecture (ODMA).

Common domain objects in the RM-ODP viewpoints

An important standardisation effort is in progress within the Object Management Group (OMG) regarding domain computing facilities and common domain objects. In this paper, we investigate the very idea of common objects within the Reference Model for Open Distributed Processing (RM-ODP). We show that common objects are in fact common object templates, that different kinds of templates are needed for different viewpoint models, and that agreeing on common object templates is particularly useful for information modelling.

Managing ANSA objects with OSI Network Management tools

OSI Network Management provides a general framework for the management of OSI systems, and by extension of any distributed system. However, as this model is not well-adapted for management of software components, distributed programming environments (e.g. DCE, CORBA, ANSAware) essentially ignore the OSI Network Management model. We assume nevertheless that OSI Network managers want to have some control of a distributed infrastructure and application. We examine how access to some of the ANSA (distributed programming environment) objects can be given to OSI Network managers. An implementation of an ANSA-OSI adapter is then presented.<<ETX>>