A generic framework for modeling resources with UML

Current wisdom encourages designers to first focus on the logical aspects of their problem and then defer platform and technology issues until the concluding phases of development. This behavior is reasonable, considering that devising logically sound solutions is frequently the most difficult aspect of development. Unfortunately-and this has been understated to date-there are many situations in which this approach is inappropriate. Real-time software design is one domain where this situation is particularly obvious because the domain's requirements force software to interact with the physical world in some way. Recently, a generic object oriented framework has been proposed for modeling both physical and logical resources. Although the framework is generic, it is mainly used with the industry-standard Unified Modeling Language (UML). By providing a standard means for representing resources and their attributes, it becomes possible to seamlessly transfer UML models of real-time systems between design and specialized analysis tools. The author shows how developers can use the OMG's UML to model resources and thus predict crucial system properties before fully implementing a system.