Explicit platform models for MDA

Abstract

The main drive for Model-Driven Architecture is that many software applications have to be deployed on a variety of platforms. The way MDA achieves this is by transforming a platform-independent model of the software to a platform-specific model, given a platform model. In current MDA approaches, the model transformations implicitly represent this platform model. Therefore, the number of different target platforms is limited to the number of supported model transformations. We propose a separate platform model, based on description logics, that can can be used to automatically select and configure a number of reusable model transformations for a concrete platform. This platform model can be extended to describe the relevant platform information, including concrete platform instances as well as platform constraints for each model transformation. This separates the model transformation concern from the platform concern and, since the model transformations are no longer limited to targeting one platform, more platforms can be supported with the same set of transformations. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.