System modeling

Vũ Thị Hồng Nhạn

(vthnhan@vnu.edu.vn)

Dept. Software Engineering, FIT, UET

Vietnam National Univ., Hanoi

 Contents
 Context models

 Interaction models

 Structural models

 Behavioral models

 Model-driven engineering

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 2

 System modeling
 System modeling is the process of developing abstract models of a
system,

 Each model present a different view or perspective of that system

 These models are represented using some kind of graphical notation,

which is now almost based on notations in the Unified Modeling
Language (UML)

 System modeling helps the analyst to understand the functionality of

the system

 and models are used to communicate with customers

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 3

 Existing & planned system models
 Models of the existing systems are used during requirements
engineering

 They help clarify what the existing system does and can be used as a basis
for discussing its strengths and weakness

 These then lead to requirements for the new system

 Models of the new system are used during requirements engineering to

help explain the proposed requirements to other system stakeholders

 Engineers use these models to discuss design proposals & to document the
system for implementation

 In a model-driven engineering process, it is possible to generate a

complete or partial system implementation from the system model

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 4

 System perspectives
 An external perspective, where you model the context or environment
of the system

 An interaction perspective, where you model the interactions between a

system & its environment, or between the components of a system

 A structural perspective, where you model the organization of a system

or the structure of the data that is processed by the system

 A behavioral perspective, where you model the dynamic behavior of

the system and how it responds to events

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 5

 UML diagram types
 Use case diagrams, which show the interactions between a system and
its environment

 Sequence diagrams, which show interactions between actors and the

system and between system components

 Activity diagrams, which show the activities involved in a process or in

data processing

 Class diagrams, which show the object classes in the system and the
associations between these classes

 State diagrams, which show how the system reacts to internal and
external events

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 6

 Use of graphical models
 As a means of facilitating discussion about an existing or proposed
system

 Incomplete and incorrect models are OK as their role is to support discussion

 As a way of documenting an existing system

 Models should be an accurate representation of the system but don’t need

to be complete

 As a detailed system description that can be used to generate a

system implementation

 Models have to be both correct & complete

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 7

 Context models
 Context models are used to illustrate the operational context of a system

 They show what lies outside the system boundaries

 Social and organizational concerns may affect the decision on where to

position system boundaries

 Architectural models show the system and its relationship with other
systems

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 8

Context models

System boundaries
 System boundaries are established to define what is inside and what is
outside the system

 they show other systems that are used or depend on the system being
developed

 The position of the system boundary has a profound effect on the system
requirements

 Defining a system boundary is a political judgment

 These may be pressures to develop system boundaries that increase/decrease

the influence or workload of different parts of an organization

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 9

Context models

the context of the Mentcare system

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 10

 Process perspective
 context models simply show the other systems in the environment, not
how the system being developed is used in that environment

 Process models reveal how the system being developed is used in

broader business processes

 UML activity diagrams may be used to define business process

models

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 11

 Process model of involuntary detention

‘s

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 12

 Interaction models
 Modeling user interaction is important as it helps to identify user
requirements

 Modeling system-to-system interaction highlights the communication

problems that may arise

 Modeling component interaction helps us understand if a proposed

system structure is likely to deliver the required system performance and
dependability

 Use case diagrams and sequence diagrams may be used for

interaction modeling

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 13

Interaction models

Transfer-data use case

 A use case in the Mentcare system

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 14

Interaction models

Tabular description of the ‘transfer data’ use case

Tranfer data

Actors Medical receptionist, patient records system (PRS)

Description A receptionist may transfer data from the Mentcare system to a general
patient record database that is maintained by a health authority. The
information transferred may either be updated personal information
(address, phone number, etc.) or a summary of the patient’s diagnosis
and treatment

Data Patient’s personal information, treatment summary

Stimulus User command issued by medical receptionist

Comments The receptionist must have appropriate security permissions to access

the patient information and the PRS

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 15

Interaction models

Use cases in the Mentcare system involving the role ‘Medical Receptionist’

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 16

 Sequence diagrams
 Sequence diagrams are part of the UML and are used to model the
interactions between the actors and the objects within a system

 A sequence diagram shows the sequence of interactions that take

place during a particular use case

 The objects and actors involved are listed along the top of the diagram,
with a dotted line drawn vertically from these

 Interactions between objects are indicated by annotated arrows

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 17

 Sequence diagram for View patient information

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 18

Sequence diagram for Transfer Data

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 19

 Structural models
 Structural models of software display the organization of a system in
terms of the components that make up that system and their
relationships

 Structural models may be static models, which show the structure of

the system design, or dynamic models, which show the organization
of the system when it is executing

 You create structural models of a system when you are discussing and
designing the system architecture

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 20

 Class diagrams
 Class diagrams are used when developing an object-oriented system
model to show the classes in a system and the associations between
these classes

 An object class can be thought of as a general definition of one kind of

system object

 An association is a link between classes that indicates that there is some

relationship between these classes

 When you are developing models during the early stages of the
software engineering process, objects represent something in the real
world, such as a patient, a prescription, doctor, etc.

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 21

 UML classes and association

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 22

 Classes & associations in the HMC-PMS

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 23

 The consultation class

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 24

 Generalization
 Generalization is an everyday technique that we use to manage complexity

 Rather than learn the detailed characteristics of every entity that we

experience, we place these entities in more general classes (animals, cars,
houses, etc.) and learn the characteristics of these classes

 This allows us to infer that different members of these classes have some
common characteristics, e.g., squirrels and rats are rodents

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 25

 Generalization...
 In modeling systems, it’s often useful to examine the classes in a system to
see if there is scope for generalization

 if changes are proposed, then you don’t have to look at all classes in the
system to see if they are affected by the change

 In object-oriented language, such as Java, generalization is implemented

using the class inheritance mechanism built into the language

 The lower-level classes are subclasses that inherit the attributes and
operations from their superclasses

 These lower-level classes then add more specific attributes and operations

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 26

 A generalization hierarchy

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 27

 A generalization hierarchy with added detail

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 28

 Object class aggregation models
 An aggregation model shows how classes that are collections are
composed of other classes

 Aggregation models are similar to the part-of relationship in semantic data

models

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 29

 The aggregation association

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 30

 Behavioral models
 Behavioral models are models of the dynamic behavior of a system
as it is executing

 They show what happens or what is supposed to happen when a system

responds to a stimulus from its environment

 You can think of these stimuli as being of two types

 Data: some data arrives that has to be processed by the system

 Events: some event happens that triggers system processing. Events may have
associated data, although this is not always the case

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 31

Behavioral models

Data-driven modeling
 Many business systems are data-driven systems that are primarily driven
by data

 They are controlled by the data input to the system, with relatively little
external event processing

 Data-driven models show the sequence of actions involved in

processing input data and generating an associated output

 They are particularly useful during the analysis of requirements as

they can be used to show end-to-end processing in a system

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 32

Behavioral models

An activity model of the insulin pump’s operation

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 33

 Order processing

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 34

Behavioral models

Event-driven modeling
 Real-time systems are often event-driven, with minimal data processing

 E.g., a landline phone switching system responds to events such as ‘receiver

off hook’ by generating a dial tone

 Event-driven modeling shows how a system responds to external and

internal events

 It is based on the assumption that a system has a finite number of states

and that events (stimuli) may cause a transition from one state to another

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 35

 Data machine models
 These model the behavior of the system in response to external and
internal events

 They show the system’s responses to stimuli, so are often used for
modeling real-time systems

 Sate machine models whose system states as nodes and events as

arcs between these nodes

 when an event occurs, the system moves from one state to another

 Statecharts are an integral part of the UML and are used to represent state
machine models

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 36

 State diagram of a microwave oven

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 37

 Microwave oven operation

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 38

 States & stimuli for the microwave oven

State Description
Waiting The oven is waiting for input. The display shows the current time
Half power The oven power is set to 300 watts. The display shows ‘Half power’
Full power The over power is set to 600 watts. The display shows ‘Full power’
Set time The cooking time is set to the user’ input value. The display shows
the cooking time selected and is updated as the time is set

Disabled Oven operation is disabled for safety. Interior oven light is on. Display
shows ‘Not ready’
Enabled Oven operation is enabled. Interior light is off. Display shows ‘Ready
to cook’
Operation Oven in operation. Interior oven light is on. Display shows the timer
countdown. On completion of cooking, the buzzer is sounded for 5
seconds. Oven light is on. Display shows ‘cooking complete’ while
buzzer is sounding

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 39

 States & stimuli for the microwave oven

Stimulus Description
Half power The user has pressed the half-power button
Full power The user has pressed the full-power button
Timer The user has pressed one of the timer buttons
Number The user has pressed a numeric key
Door open The oven door switches is not closed
Door closed The oven door switch is closed
Start The user has pressed the Start button
Cancel The user has pressed the Cancel button

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 40

 Model-driven engineering
 Model-driven engineering (MDE) is an approach to software development
where models rather than programs are the principle outputs of the
development process

 The programs that execute on a hardware/software platform are then

generated automatically from the models

 Proponents of MDE argue that this raise the level of abstraction in SE so

that engineers no longer have to be concerned with programming
language details or the specifics of execution platforms

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 41

 Usage of model-driven engineering
 Model-driven engineering is still at an early stage of development, and it is
unclear whether or not it will have a significant effect on SE practice

 Pros

 Allows systems to be considered at high level of abstraction

 Generating code automatically means that it is cheaper to adapt systems to

new platforms

 Cons

 Models for abstraction are not necessarily right for implementation

 Savings from generating code may be outweighed by the costs of developing

translators to new platforms

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 42

 Model-driven architecture
 Model-driven architecture (MDA) was the precursor of more general model-
driven engineering

 MDA is a model-focused approach to software design and implementation

that uses a subset of UML models to describe a system

 Models at different levels of abstraction are created

 From a high-level platform- independent model, in principle it’s possible to

generate a working program without manual intervention

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 43

 Types of model
 A computation independent model (CIM)
 These model the important domain abstractions used in a system
 CIMs are sometimes called domain models
 A platform independent model (PIM)
 These model the operation of the system without reference to its
implementation
 The PIM is usually described using UML models that show the static system
structure and how it responds to external and internal events
 Platform specific models (PSM)
 These are transformations of the platform-independent model with a separate
PSM for each application platform
 In principle, there may be layers of PSM, with each layer adding some platform-
specific detail

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 44

 MDA transformations

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 45

 Multiple platform-specific models

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 46

 Agile methods and MDA
 The developers of MDA claim that it is intended to support an interactive
approach to development and so can be used within agile methods

 The notion of extensive up-front modeling contradicts the fundamental

ideas in the agile manifesto

  few agile developers feel comfortable with model-driven engineering

 If transformations can be completely automated and a complete program

generated from a PIM,

 then in principle, MDA could be used in an agile development process as no

separate coding would be required

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 47

 Adoption of MDA
 A range of factors has limited the adoption of MDE/MDA

 Specialized tool support is required to covert models from one level to

another

 There is limited tool availability and organizations may require tool

adaptation and customization to their environment

 For the long-lifetime systems developed using MDA, companies are

reluctant to develop their own tools or rely on small companies that
may go out of business

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 48

 Adoption of MDA...
 Models are a good way of facilitating discussion about a software design

 However abstractions that are useful for discussions may not be the right
abstraction for implementation

 For most complex systems, implementation is not the major problem –

requirement engineering, security and dependability, integration
with legacy systems and testing are all more significant

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 49

 Adoption of MDA
 The arguments for platform-independence are only valid for large, long-
lifetime systems

 For software products and information systems, the savings from the use of
MDA are likely to be outweighed by the costs of its introduction and tooling

 The widespread adoption of agile methods over the same period that
MDA was evolving has diverted attention away from model-driven
approaches

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 50

Key points
 A model is an abstraction view of a system that ignores system details.
Complementary system models can be developed to show the system’s
context, interactions, structure and behavior

 Context models show how a system that is being modeled is positioned in an

environment with other systems and processes

 Use case diagrams and sequence diagrams are used to describe the
interactions between users and systems in the system being designed

 Use cases describe interactions between a system and external actors

 Sequence diagrams add more information to these by showing interactions

between system objects

 Structural models show the organization and architecture of a system

 Class diagrams are used to define the static structure of classes and their
associations

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 51

Key points
 Behavior models are used to described the dynamic behavior of an
executing system

 This behavior can be modeled from the perspective of the data processed by
the system, or by the events that stimulate responses from a system

 Activity diagrams may be used to model the processing of data, where each
activity represents one process step

 State diagrams are used to model a system’ behavior in response to

internal or external events

 Model-driven engineering is an approach to software development in which

a system is represented as a set of models that can be automatically
transformed to executable code

4/2/2021 System modeling Page 52