=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=None
|storemode=property
|title=MEMOCenterNG - A Full-featured Modeling Environment for Organization Modeling and Model-driven Software Development
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-592/PaperDemo12.pdf
|volume=Vol-592
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/caise/GuldenF10
}}
==MEMOCenterNG - A Full-featured Modeling Environment for Organization Modeling and Model-driven Software Development==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-592/PaperDemo12.pdf
MEMOCenterNG – A full-featured modeling
environment for organization modeling and
model-driven software development
Jens Gulden and Prof. Dr. Ulrich Frank
University Duisburg-Essen,
Universitaetsstr. 9, 45141 Essen, Germany
{jens.gulden,ulrich.frank}@uni-duisburg-essen.de
http://www.wi-inf.uni-duisburg-essen.de/FGFrank/
Abstract. We present MEMOCenterNG1 , an integrated, full-featured
modeling environment containing 11 built-in modeling languages together
with meta-modeling support for creating new languages and correspond-
ing diagram editors. Tools for analysis, model transformation and code
generation are included.
Key words: Modeling, Model-driven software development, Multi-perspective
modeling, Enterprise modeling
1 A comprehensive multi-language modeling tool
Large modeling projects typically use multiple modeling languages simultane-
ously to express a variety of aspects of a modeled system. This holds true in di-
verse types of modeling projects, especially in business process modeling, which
unites conceptual business aspects with technical realizations. Model-driven soft-
ware development benefits from multiple interrelated modeling perspectives to
gain a coherent and as complete view as possible on the system to be developed.
To foster large modeling projects, an integrated modeling environment tool
is desirable to reduce efforts in combining multiple model editors operating on
shared model content. Semantic integrity is an indispensable requirement for
multi-perspective modeling [6], that means, when different model editors refer-
ence the same concept (e.g., a person displayed both in an organization structure
diagram and in a process diagram), the model editor components need to share
common information about its unique identity. The need for semantic integrity
requires model editors to work on top of a common set of meta-concepts [7]
which ensures semantically valid relations among model data.
With MEMOCenterNG, we present a comprehensive modeling environ-
ment which integrates an extensible set of modeling languages on the basis of
1
MEMOCenterNG is named after the MEMO enterprise modeling method [6].
“NG” stands for “Next Generation”, MEMOCenterNG is the successor to an ear-
lier MEMOCenter prototype application.
2 Jens Gulden, Ulrich Frank
a consolidated common meta-model API. The provided modeling languages are
suitable to express knowledge about a system on three different levels of abstrac-
tion from multiple interdependent perspectives.
The available levels of abstraction provided by built-in modeling languages
in MEMOCenterNG are:
1. A meta-modeling layer which allows for creating new modeling languages
and corresponding diagram editors, and also internally defines other built-in
modeling lnaguages.
2. A set of built-in modeling languages for modeling the organizational envi-
ronment of involved actors, their goals, behaviour and involved resources.
This organizational abstraction layer is provided by domain-specific model-
ing languages of the MEMO modeling method [6].
3. An implementation model layer which offers general purpose modeling lan-
guages to express a software system’s inner perspective in terms of, e.g.,
classes, attributes and relationships.
Figure 1 gives an overview on the component architecture of MEMOCen-
terNG, as it evolves from applying the MEMO Meta Modeling Language (MML)
for language creation.
implemented through
Eclipse
MML Editor Modelling MEMO Center
Environment
generate compile
Ecore
instance
create meta model specify concrete syntax modify/add code test model editor
Fig. 1. MEMOCenterNG component architecture
MEMOCenterNG contains a total of 11 modeling languages on all three
abstraction layers. This set is composed of 7 domain specific languages as pro-
posed by the MEMO method [6], made up of Activity Diagrams, Allocation Dia-
grams, Organization Diagrams, Process Control Flow Diagrams, Process Decom-
position Diagrams, Resource Diagrams and Strategy Diagrams. 3 implementation-
level generic purpose modeling languages covering Data Flow Diagrams (DFD),
Entity-Relationship-Models (ERM) and class-diagrams of the Unified Modeling
Language (UML), and the MEMO Meta-Modeling Language (MML). These ini-
tially available languages can be enhanced by any number of specific modeling
MEMOCenterNG – A full-featured modeling environment 3
languages created with the MML. Supplemented by third-party tooling com-
ponents, models can be analyzed, model-transformations can be carried out,
and code-generation mechanisms are available to generatively create software in
a model-driven development process. Altogether, MEMOCenterNG forms a
comprehensive environment for modeling on multiple layers of abstraction from
multiple perspectives, store and manage interrelated models in a common envi-
ronment, and further process model data inside the same platform. In model-
driven software development projects, generated artefacts can furthermore be
edited, compiled and packaged within the same tool. The platform is based on
the Eclipse [4] environment which can additionally be enhanced by a multitude
of third-party supplementary components for software development.
By means of the included MEMO Meta Modeling Language (MML, [7]), new
modeling languages can efficiently be created, and appropriate diagram editors
for using the languages are automatically created from MML meta-models.
Since all generated components run in the same environment as MEMO-
CenterNG, models and generated software components may even reflectively
refer to MEMOCenterNG’s models. This allows models to be integrated into
software components at runtime as part of a self-referential information system
architecture [8].
2 Organization modeling languages
To express the outer context of an incident to be modeled, organization modeling
languages capture people’s goals, their behavior, organizational structure and
resources of the modeled context. Such types of models play an important role
in enterprise modeling (EM, [6]), to express types of business processes that are
performed in an organization. Besides business contexts in a narrow sense, any
organizational setting and projects with shared goals among groups of people
can generically be expressed with the semantic modeling concepts provided by
these modeling languages.
MEMOCenterNG comes pre-packaged with interrelated modeling lang-
uages of the MEMO OrgML [6] that cover organization modeling. These are in
the first place the Organization Diagram language for modeling organizational
structure, and the Process Control Flow Language [6], which allow to express
semantically rich process model descriptions of business processes and other
methodical procedures in organizations. The Process Control Flow language is
enhanced by the Process Decomposition Language which allows for specifying
static decomposition relationships among process steps, i.e., express which pro-
cess steps are made out of others. Finally, the Strategy Diagram and Activity
Diagram languages for expressing strategy, goals and actions from a high-level
strategic view are part of the environment.
To model physical and non-tangible resources in business contexts, the ResML
[10] is included in the set of modeling languages, accompanied by the Allocation
Diagram language which is responsible to express the mappings between process
steps and resources.
4 Jens Gulden, Ulrich Frank
Figure 2 shows an example Process Control Flow model edited in MEMO-
CenterNG.
Fig. 2. Example MEMO Process Control Flow model
3 Included meta-modeling language
The MEMO Meta Modeling Language (MML, [7]) included in MEMOCen-
terNG has especially been designed to efficiently enhance existing languages,
and to automatically generate deployable diagram editors from meta-model de-
scriptions of modeling languages. The MML puts special focus on interlinking
multiple modeling languages. Concepts from other, previously existing MML
models, can be referenced. Every concept is classified by a unique graphical
symbol which indicates to which language it belongs.
Full-featured diagram editors can automatically be generated by a single
mouse-click from MML models within the user-interface of MEMOCenterNG’s
MML editor. These generated diagram editors are fully downwards-compatible
to the Eclipse Modeling Framework (EMF, [13]) and Graphical Modeling Frame-
work (GMF, [9]) components, which allows for applying any additional EMF / GMF
technology component to MML-specified model editors and corresponding model
instances, and also use model-instances for analysis, transformation and code-
generation (see sect. 5).
MEMOCenterNG – A full-featured modeling environment 5
Figure 3 gives an example of an MML model edited in MEMOCenterNG.
Fig. 3. Example of an MML model edited in MEMOCenterNG
4 Implementation-level modeling languages
In order to take a traditional modeling view on a low abstraction level, MEMO-
CenterNG contains three classical formal systems modeling languages, Entity
Relationship Models (ERM, [2]), Data Flow Diagrams (DFD, [3]) and object ori-
ented class diagrams from the Unified Modeling Language (UML, [1]). Selected
concepts of these languages can be referenced from elements in organization
models to trace implementation details from a high real-world abstraction level
down to technical details.
Each of the implementation-level modeling languages comes with pre-packaged
analysis and code-generation functionality. The ERM model editor allows to gen-
erate a relational database schema from ERM models as a sequence of executable
SQL data declaration statements, which subsequently may be executed from in-
side the Eclipse platform to deploy the initial database. The DFD editor comes
with basic analysis capabilities, and from UML class diagrams, the source code
for Java classes can be generated.
Together with the software development features of the underlying Eclipse
[4] platform, MEMOCenterNG forms a fully integrated model-driven software
6 Jens Gulden, Ulrich Frank
development environment. An example of integrating between an organization
model and an implementation model is displayed in figure 4.
Fig. 4. Integrating between an organization model and an implementation model
5 Supplementary Tools for analysis, model-transformation
and code-generation
All components of MEMOCenterNG are based on the Eclipse Modeling Project
[9] components EMF and GMF, and make use of the Ecore language [5] through
the MML. As a consequence, any supplementary component that exists for the
Eclipse Modeling Project can be applied in MEMOCenterNG, too. This al-
lows for seamlessly integrating supporting technology such as Xtend / Xpand
[5], and other specific code generation languages such as Velocity [12], or the
QVT [11] model transformation language. By default, the Eclipse components
for Xtend / Xpand transformations are included in the MEMOCenterNG
environment.
6 Availability
A beta-version of MEMOCenterNG is available for download at http://www.
wi-inf.uni-duisburg-essen.de/FGFrank/download/memo/. Please request
password information from the authors.
MEMOCenterNG – A full-featured modeling environment 7
7 Conclusion and Outlook
We have presented a modeling tool that offers multiple modeling languages in
an integrated environment, based on a meta-model supported language archi-
tecture and enriched by an easy-to-use meta-model editor for specific language
enhancements.
A common language architecture ensures the semantic integration of concepts
across multiple languages. By incorporating meta modeling and the creation of
new modeling languages into the feature spectrum of the modeling tool, a new
degree of flexibility and adaptability to future requirements part of the applica-
tion. This makes MEMOCenterNG a comprehensive, full-featured integrated
modeling environment for multiple types of modeling projects, including model-
driven software development approaches. Currently, the tool is successfully used
for teaching purposes and in medium-sized business projects carried out in co-
operation with our research group.
In further research work, we intend to develop and integrate additional mod-
eling languages, e.g., for designing indicator systems that are integrated with
models of business processes and IT resources. We also plan to extend the frame-
work with elaborate support for method engineering by integrating model editors
with corresponding process editors.
References
1. Booch, G., Jacobson, I., Rumbaugh, J.: The Unified Modeling Language Reference
Manual. Addison-Wesley, Reading (1999)
2. Chen, P.: The Entity-Relationship Model – Toward a Unified View of Data. In: ACM
Transactions on Database Systems 1/1/1976 ACM-Press ISSN 0362-5915, pp. 9–36
(1976)
3. DeMarco, T.: Structured Analysis and System Specification. Prentice Hall, Upper
Saddle River (1979)
4. Eclipse Foundation: Eclipse Platform. http://www.eclipse.org/ (2010-04-25)
5. Efftinge, S., Friese, P., Haase, A. and others: openArchitectureWare User
Guide. http://www.openarchitectureware.org/pub/documentation/4.3.1/
html/contents/index.html (2008)
6. Frank, U., MEMO: A Tool Supported Methodology for Analyzing and
(Re-)Designing Business Information Systems. In: Ege, R., Singh, M., Meyer, B.
(eds.): Technology of Object-Oriented Languages and Systems, pp. 367–380 (1994)
7. Frank, U.: The MEMO Meta Modeling Language (MML) and Language Architec-
ture. ICB-Research Report No. 24, Institute for Computer Science and Business
(ICB), University Duisburg-Essen (2008)
8. Ulrich Frank, U., Strecker, S.: Beyond ERP Systems: An Outline of Self-Referential
Enterprise Systems. ICB-Research Report No. 31, Institute for Computer Science
and Business (ICB), University Duisburg-Essen (2009)
9. Gronback, R. C.: Eclipse Modeling Project: A Domain-Specific Language (DSL)
Toolkit. Addison-Wesley Longman, Amsterdam (2009)
10. Jung, J.: Entwurf einer Sprache für die Modellierung von Ressourcen im Kontext
der Geschftsprozessmodellierung. Logos, Berlin (2007)
8 Jens Gulden, Ulrich Frank
11. Object Management Group: Meta Object Facility Query / View / Transformations.
http://www.omg.org/spec/QVT/1.0 (2008)
12. Apache Software Foundation: The Apache Velocity Project. http://velocity.
apache.org/ (2010-04-25)
13. Steinberg, D., Budinsky, F., Paternostro, M., Merks, E.: EMF: Eclipse Modeling
Framework (2nd edition). Addison-Wesley Longman, Amsterdam (2009)