Functional software architecture: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 03:46, 15 March 2007

Revision as of 03:47, 15 March 2007

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===Integrated DEFinition===

IDEF is a [[structured modeling]] technique, which was first developed for the modeling of manufacturing systems. It was already being used by the U.S. Airforce in 1981. Initially it had 4 different notations to model an enterprise from a certain viewpoint. These were IDEF0, IDEF1, IDEF2 and IDEF3 for functional, data, dynamic and process analysis respectively. In the past decades a number of tools and techniques for the integration of the notations are developed in an incremental way. However, recent interesting attempts by Kim et. al. (2002) show it can be done; skip the IDEF2 notation and use an extended version of the IDEF1 (IDEF1x) enables the creation of an integrated IDEF/UML framework for the development of IT systems within the organization.

Figure 3 shows an IDEF0 functional diagram that is used to model the development process of educational material within a publish company:

**On top we see some meta-data about the diagram including author, project, revision-number, date and context. The context outlines the hierarchical way by which IDEF0 diagrams present business processes. In this case we see a context A0, which indicates that this is the top level diagram that can be decomposed into lower level diagrams like A1 and A2.

**The diagram shows 3 main functions within the publication process namely: “analyse market”, “plan a publication” and “develop a book”. Information inputs entering a function from the left result in information outputs at the right of the functions. Other needed resources like budget enter a function from the top. The actors for the different functions are shown at the bottom.

**A function like develop a book can be further decomposed into sub-functions and sub-sub functions until an object level is reached. This most detailed functional level can then be used for the translation into IDEF1x models, IDEF3 models and UML-diagrams respectively.

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'''Figure 3: IDEF0 functional diagram for the “publish new educational material” process'''

IDEF clearly shows how a business process flows through a variety of decomposed business functions with corresponding information inputs, outputs and actors. Like CIMOSA, it also uses different enterprise views. Moreover, IDEF can be easily transformed into UML-diagrams for the further development of IT systems. These positive characteristics make it a powerful method for the development of Functional Software Architectures.