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MODEL DRIVEN INTEROPERABILITYFirst Workshop on

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About the MDI Workshop

Interoperability is the ability of separate entities, systems or artifacts (organizations, programs, tools, etc.) to work together. Although there has always been the need to achieve interoperability between heterogeneous systems and notations, the difficulties involved in overcoming their differences, the lack of consensus on the common standards to use and the shortage of proper mechanisms and tools, have severely hampered this task.

Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) is an emergent discipline that advocates the use of (software) models as primary artifacts of the software engineering process. In addition to the initial goals of being useful to capture user requirements and architectural concerns, and to generate code from them, models are proving to be effective for many other engineering tasks. New model-driven engineering approaches, such as model-driven modernization, models-at-runtime, model-based testing, etc. are constantly emerging.

Model interoperability is much more complex than simply defining a local serialization format, e.g., XMI. This would just resolve the syntactic (or “plumbing”) issues between models and modeling tools. However, interoperability should also involve further aspects, including behavioral specifications of models (which in turn describe the behavioral aspects of the systems being modeled), and other “semantic” issues such as agreements on names, context-sensitive information, agreements on concepts (ontologies), integration conflict analysis (including for example automatic data model matching), semantic reasoning, etc. Furthermore, interoperability not only means being able to exchange information and to use the information that has been exchanged, but also to exchange services and functions to operate effectively together.

Models and MDE techniques (especially metamodeling and model transformations) can play a fundamental role for fully accomplishing these tasks. Thus, models can become cornerstone elements for enabling and achieving interoperability between all kinds of systems and artifacts, including data sets (under the presence of different data schemata, and possibly at different levels of abstraction), services (despite their differences in data representation, access protocols and underlying technological platforms), event systems (with different complex types and origins), languages (that use different notations and may have different semantics), tools (with different data formats and semantic representations), technological platforms (with different notations, tools and semantics), etc.

Interoperability is the ability of separate entities, systems or artifacts (organizations, programs, tools, etc.) to work together

It is our claim that Models and MDE (esp. metamodels and transformations) can play a key role for enabling and achieving interoperability between systems, artifacts, functions, services, platforms and tools.

Interoperability goes beyond a common serialization format (e.g., XML or XMI): Names, protocols, behavior and semantics need to be agreed

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Scope of the workshop

The goal of this workshop is to discuss the potential role of models as key enablers for interoperability, and the challenges ahead.

It aims to provide a venue where researchers and practitioners concerned with all aspects of models and systems interoperability could meet, disseminate and exchange ideas and problems, identify some of the key issues related to model-driven interoperability, and explore together possible solutions.

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Topics for the workshop

Precise specification of models, metamodels and their properties. Precise notations of compatibility/composition of models and metamodels (for, e.g., DSL

combination). Automated tool support for constructing, analyzing, comparing and composing models. Definition of underlying formal frameworks that allow automated reasoning about model

interoperability. Requirements for interoperability: challenges and roadmap. Tool metamodeling. Use of existing MDE technologies for interoperability (model transformation, model weaving, model

differencing, model evolution, …). Analysis of current standards and proposals for extensions to standards to enable interoperability. Industrial and experience reports on interoperability. Architectures for MDI. Integration between Business and IT models. Model transformation for Semantic Interoperability. Ontological and semantic support for MDI. Reverse engineering of Information Systems and MDI. Taxonomy of interoperability problems and solutions. Methods and support for achieving interoperability through models.

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Agenda

9:00–10:30

Introduction and welcome"MDI in practice: preliminary evidences and issues from an industrial project""Semantic Interoperability of Clinical Data  Exchange""A Process Model Discovery Approach for Enabling Model Interop in Signal Engineering"

11:00–12:30

"Efficient Analysis and Execution of Correct and Complete Model Transf Based on TGG""Expressivity Bnchmrk for Mappings based on a syst. classification of Heterogeneities"

"Specifying Overlaps of Heterogeneous Models for Global Consistency Checking""Anticipating Unanticipated Tool Interoperability using Role Models""Behavioural Interoperability to Support Model-Driven Systems Integration"

14:00–15:30

"Aligning Business and IT Models in SOA s using BPMN and SoaML”"Domain-specific Templates for Refinement Transformations""Advanced Modelling Made Simple with the Gmodel Metalanguage""Model-driven Rule-based Mediation in XML Data Exchange"

16:00–17:30

Discussion session (60')Identification of further open issues, research challenges and opportunities. Roadmap Conclusions and farewell (5')

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Model Driven Interoperability

MDE is a new technology New technologies usually add to the

heterogeneity of legacy systems But MDE is not only a technology to be

integrated with others … MDE is also an integration technology

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Integration

Integration (from the Latin integer, meaning whole or entire) generally means combining parts so that they work together or form a whole. In information technology, there are several common usages:

• Integration during product development is a process in which separately produced components or subsystems are combined and problems in their interactions are addressed.

• Integration is an activity by companies that specialize in bringing different manufacturers' products together into a smoothly working system.

(WhatIs def.)

Integrate Make working together, in a whole

corresponding to a precise objective, elements that were not initially designed to achieve this objective.

Exemple: Enterprise Application Integration

(EAI) The process of adapting a system to

make applications work together when they would otherwise be incompatible.

Dictionary Of Database And Related Technology

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System Integration

system integration: The progressive linking and testing of system components to merge their functional and technical characteristics into a comprehensive, interoperable system

Note: Integration of data systems allows data existing on disparate systems to be shared or accessed across functional or system boundaries.

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Data Integration

A broad spectrum of data is available on the Web in distinct heterogeneous sources, stored under different formats. As the number of systems that utilize this data grows, the importance of data conversion mechanisms increases greatly… A key observation is that, often, the application programs used by organizations can only handle data of a specific format... To enable a specific tool to manipulate data coming from various sources, a translation phase must take place…The naive way to translate data from one format to another is writing a specific program for each translation task… A sound solution for a data integration task requires a clean abstraction of the different formats in which data are stored, and means for specifying the correspondences between data in different worlds and for translating data from one world to another.

Serge Abiteboul & al.Tools for data translation and integration

Data engineering Vol. 22,N.1, march 1999.

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Interoperability (definition)

Sa SbCompare,

Align,Compose,

Interoperate,Integrate,

etc.

Describing with precisiondifferent heterogeneous systems, situations, phenomenons, etc.

with the help of well-defined languagesin order to achieve some form of integration.

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Interoperability (Goal)

Sa Sb

Sa Sb

Sc

Two heterogeneousSystems Sa and Sb

One « integrated »system Sc

(Does not meanthat Sa and Sb

have been « merged »)

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(Model Driven) Interoperability

Sa Sb

Ma Mb

Two step heterogeneity resolution:

(1) Representing systems by models(2) Aligning the models

(2)(1)(1)

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(Language Driven) Interoperability

Sa Sb

Ma Mb(2)

(1)(1)

MMa MMb

c2 c2

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Three main types of MDE applications

Three levels of complexity S M (MD Software Development for development automation) S M (MD Reverse Engineering for legacy modernization) S M M S (Run Time Correspondences for system interoperability)

MDE Applications

« Code » generationArtefact generation

Model Discovery(e.g. from code)

System interoperability

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System interoperability is a challenge

ModelMa

System Sa

repOf ModelMb

System Sb

repOf

MetamodelMMa

MetamodelMMb

c2 c2

tr

Two heterogeneous sytems Sa and SbSystem interoperability implemented by model transformations

tr tr

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16

Categories of Systems Types of interoperability

Code Data Business Platform Tool Enterprise Requirements Problems Solutions Static systems Dynamic systems Etc.

• a model M

• a syste

m S

• repOf

• A situation or a phenomenon of• the real or imagined world.

• (a Graph)

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Examples for MDI

Interoperability between different toolsInteroperabilty between different versions of

systemsInteroperability between business and technologyInteroperability between diferent platformsInteroperability between the past and the futureInteroperability between different languagesetc.

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MDE and Tool Interoperability

System engineering in general is highly “tool oriented”: Composite H/S system specification, design, implementation, deployment,

maintenance, etc. Tools are ubiquitous in these contexts 100 tools in a department, 1000 tools in a department, more? 150.000 iPhone apps, 50.000 Android apps, more AppStores, etc.

Tools have various characteristics APIs & functionalities Features & services Human-driven, semi-automated or fully automated Simple or composite

Tool interoperability is becoming a critical issue Behind each tool, there is a metamodel

MDE seems to be the only realistic way to approach this huge integration problem

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Tool interoperability

MMa

TOOLa

The CESAR project RTP :(Reference Technology Platform)

a proposal

MMb

TOOLb

Alignement

Transformation

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Interoperability betweenmultiple normative «silos»

Exact or partial correspondencesPartial alignments

The OMG AESIG initiative

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MoDisco: making the futureinteroperate with the past

M2M Injectors Extractors

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Interoperability between two versionsof the same tool (software evolution)

AUTOSAR 2.0 AUTOSAR 2.1

Migration

conformsTo conformsTo

Autosar 2.0 Autosar 2.1

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Language interoperability at work

Credit to Marco Didonet del Fabro,IBM/ILOG

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Interoperability between various DSLs used in one single application

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Interoperability between toolsconforming to the same notation

The goal of the MIWG is to improve the interoperability of MOF/XMI-based tools. The initial focus is on model interchange among UML, SysML, and UPDM -capable tools.

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The «Village metaphor» by Antonio Vallecillo(functional reuse)

The Prolog villageThe Petri net village

The Coloured Petri Net Village The Modelica village

The SysML villageThe Autosar village

The Coq villageetc.