Towards Tool Integration through Artifacts and Roles

Existing approaches to tool integration based upon metamodels encounter the problem that common (integration) metamodels become too large and complicated, due to the large number of different tools that have to be integrated, each with their specific metamodel defining models handled by each tool. The approach taken here is radically different in that it distinguishes between the model for integration and the tool metamodels, and that it provides mechanisms by which the common integration model and the various tool metamodels can be related. In addition the integration model covers the need for expressing commonalities between models in different languages. Integration is done by means of Artifact resources that are representatives of the real models and model elements. Pure Artifact resources have properties that are required for simple tool integration like trace ability. In order to cover transformations, special Artifact resources for models and model elements in languages defined by metamodels will have properties identifying the metamodel of the language and the type of model element. In cases where integration is based upon concepts that are common to a set of languages, the common concepts are represented by roles played by Artifact resources, in general the same real model element may therefore play different roles for different integration purposes. The integration approach is validated by three experiments: trace ability, transformation, and common concepts for the purpose of software-hardware co-design. The approach is independent of specific implementation platforms. The paper demonstrates how the approach is realized based upon OSLC [24].