Visible Systems has announced a new release of its Visible Analyst modeling tool that supports UML 2.1. Visible Analyst 2009 is a modeling tool for systems analysis and design, database design, and UML modeling of team-based systems. Two key diagram types have been included in the release: Component diagrams and the Deployment diagrams. Component diagrams focus on the software components of a system and Deployment diagrams support the hardware components of a system.
The main purpose of the Component diagram is to visually show the structural relationships between the components in a system. A component is an autonomous, encapsulated element within a system that provides for one or more interfaces. Typically components are larger design elements that will be implemented using replaceable modules.
Deployment diagrams model the physical architecture of a system showing the relationships between the software and hardware components in a system, as well as the physical distribution of the processing. Deployment diagrams depict the static view of the run-time configuration of processing nodes and the components that run on those nodes. The deployment diagrams show the hardware for your system, the software that is installed on that hardware, and the middleware used to connect the disparate machines to one another.
Deployment diagrams are related to component diagrams because they are used to deploy the components from Component diagrams. Deployment diagrams are important because they control the performance, scalability, maintainability, and portability of a system and are used during the implementation phase of development.
Deployment diagrams are differentiated from Component diagrams in that they show where "components and artifacts" are used in relation to a deployed system. The deployment diagram includes the notational elements used in component diagrams with a couple of additional concepts including a node. A Node represents physical machine or virtual machine node.
All editions of Visible Analyst are available as 32-bit Windows applications for Windows 95/98/ME/2000/2003/XP/Vista or Windows NT 4.0.
