Enabling the Refinement of a Software Architecture into a Design

This paper demonstrates how a mainstream design notation, the Unified Modeling Language (UML), can help address these concerns. We describe a semi-automated approach developed to assist in refining a high-level architecture specified in an architecture description language (ADL) into a design described with UML. To this end, we have integrated DRADEL, an environment for architecture modeling and analysis, with Rational Rose?, a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) UML modeling tool. We have defined a set of rules to transform an architectural representation into an initial UML model that can then be further refined. We believe this approach to be easily adaptable to different ADLs, to the changes in our understanding of UML, and to the changes in UML itself.