Component Generation Technology for Semantic Tool Integration1

1
Component Generation Technology for Semantic Tool
Integration1

• Gabor Karsai and Jeff Gray
• Institute for Software Integrated Systems
  Vanderbilt University
• http//www.isis.vanderbilt.edu
• gabor, jgray_at_vuse.vanderbilt.edu

2
Motivating Problem Tool Integration

• Problem Description
• Previous Approaches
• File Translators, Middleware, Universal Language,
  PCTE
• Increased complexity and semantic richness
  requires semantic translation
• The core of our solution involves software
  generators that offer a componentized solution
  to the tool integration problem

3
Integrated Data Model
Tool-X
LRU
MM
FR
FDE
MSG
UNIT
OBS
ALR
Integrated Model
4
Evaluating Tool Integration Solutions

• How much time and effort does it cost to
  integrate a new tool?
• How scalable is the integration approach?
• How much expert knowledge is needed to realize an
  integration solution?
• What is the coupling between the individual tools
  and the integration technology?

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Tool Integration Framework (TIF)
Legacy tools require a bi-directional tool adapter
IMS models can be viewed in a web browser
New tools can access the IMS directly through
the CMI
CORBA
The CMI is specified in CORBA IDL and defines
rules and data structures for accessing the IMS
MS Repository sits on top of an ODBC database
currently Access or SQL Server
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Tool Specification

• paradigm Foo
• model Top_Model
• ...
• part Component components
• model Component
• ...
• part Entity_1 ent_1
• part Entity_2 ent_2
• part Component subComponents
• rel Rel aRel
• entity Entity_1 ...
• entity Entity_2 ...
• relation Rel
• Entity_1 src 1lt-gtEntity_2 dst

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Creating a Semantic Translator
Reusable Component
Tool Data Model (MSF/UML)
IMS Data Model (MSF/UML)
Translation Model Traversals and C
Generated Component
Hand-coded Component
GEN Tool
XLG Tool
DBB Tool
Tool Meta Data
UP Translator
INTEGRATED MODEL DATABASE
Model Instance Data
Repository Interface
Database Scaffolding
DOWN Translator
CMI Scaffolding
Constraint Enforcer
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Structured Specification of Translators

• visitor Visitor
• at Component...
• ltlt...gtgt traverse...
• at Entity_1...
• ltlt...gtgt
• at Entity_2...
• ltlt...gtgt
• at Rel...
• traverse...

• traversal Traversal using Visitor
• from Top_Model -gt
• ltlt...gtgt to components... ltlt...gtgt
• from Component...
• to entity_1..., entity_2...,
• subComponents..., rel...
• from Rel...
• ltlt...gtgt to src..., dst... ltlt...gtgt

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The Process (Semantic Translators)
Customer/Developers
Representation of tool using our model
specification notation
Represents the underlying IMS model
schema Assume to be created previouslyMay
require modification
Pluggable servercomponent
Developers
Process is repeated for IMS2Tool translator
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Creating a Tool Adapter
Reusable Component
Tool Data Model (MSF/UML)
Generated Component
Hand-coded Component
TAG Tool
Tool Meta Data Scaffolding
Tool Adapter Main Code
TOOL DATABASE
Model Instance Data
CMI Scaffolding
CMI/CORBA
Support utility classes
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The Process (Tool Adapters)
Wrapper for CMIdata structures
Common reusable code
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IMS Browser (Instance Data)
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Development Effort

• Translators can be written within a few man-days
• Average translator was 225 lines of
  traversal/visitor code
• Tool Adapter development depends on
• Complexity of tool
• Complexity of the tools data access mechanism
  (e.g., ADO, COM, comma separated values)
• Developer experience with previous Tool Adapters
• Our average development time for a bi-directional
  Tool Adapter is about 10 man-weeks

14
Lessons Learned

• Successful integration of 4 tools
• Separation of concerns
• Cleaner solution by separating semantic and
  syntactic issues
• Framework approach using software generators
• infrastructural elements
• tool-specific translators (componentized)
• traversal/visitor specification language

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Future enhancements

• Incremental translation (fine-grain operations)
• Intelligent data fusion (merge)
• Web-based access to IMS (XML server)
• Automatic generation of integrated schema from
  the individual tool specifications