1 Timothy D. Korson Model Driven Development: Hype or Reality

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 2 of 44 Restricted Use This copyrighted material is provided to attendees of Korson-Consulting courses under a restricted licensing agreement exclusively for the personal use of the attendees. Korson-Consulting retains ownership rights to the material contained in these course notes. Please respect these rights. Any presentation or reuse of any part of this material in any form must be approved in writing by Copyright © 2006 Korson-Consulting. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 3 of 44 MDA Premise Generate systems from models

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 4 of 44 Blueprints to Buildings It is like having a team of Robots that could automatically construct a building from a detailed set of blueprints

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 5 of 44 Natural Progression Assembler FORTRAN Ada Middleware Components … MDA

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 6 of 44 State of Software Development Lots of advances, but programmers still spend and inordinate amount of time Distribution mechanisms GUI layout Database structure and access mechanisms Details that logically could be automated

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 7 of 44 Corporate Architecture multiple industry standards-CORBA, EJB/J2EE,.NET, XML/SOAP, These become “MDA compiler options” instead of “Bet the Company” decisions

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 8 of 44 MDA Benefits According to the OMG: “the benefits of MDA are significant - to business leaders and developers alike: Reduced cost throughout the application life-cycle Reduced development time for new applications Improved application quality Increased return on technology investments Rapid inclusion of emerging technology benefits into their existing systems MDA provides a solid framework that frees system infrastructures to evolve in response to a never-ending parade of platforms, while preserving and leveraging existing technology investments. It enables system integration strategies that are better, faster and cheaper.” Better Faster Cheaper

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 9 of 44 Scope Makes MDA Unique

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 10 of 44 MDA Goals MDA addresses the challenges of today's highly networked, constantly changing systems environment, providing an architecture that assures: Portability, increasing application re-use and reducing the cost and complexity of application development and management, now and into the future. Cross-platform Interoperability, using rigorous methods to guarantee that standards based on multiple implementation technologies all implement identical business functions. Platform Independence, greatly reducing the time, cost and complexity associated with re-targeting applications for different platforms- including those yet to be introduced. Domain Specificity, through Domain-specific models that enable rapid implementation of new, industry-specific applications over diverse platforms. Productivity, by allowing developers, designers and system administrators to use languages and concepts they are comfortable with, while allowing seamless communication and integration across the teams.

11 MDA Basic Technical Concepts

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 12 of 44 Traditional Software Development Requirements Mostly text Analysis Diagrams and text Design Diagrams and text Coding code Deployment executables

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 13 of 44 Problems Portability/new technologies Rapid pace of change Interoperability Maintenance and documentation Lack of documentation Any documentation one does have is out of date Too much overhead

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 14 of 44 MDA Process Business Analysis Use Cases Computation Independent Model Systems Definition Platform Independent Model Design Transformation Platform Specific Model Code Transformation code Deployment executables Transformation Tool Transformation Tool Business Analysis Systems Definition

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 15 of 44 Traditional Roles mapped to MDA

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 16 of 44 MDA Benefits Productivity Automated transformation tools Portability Multiple PSMs for a given PIM Interoperability PSM bridges Maintenance and Documentation Maintenance is done directly on the models so the Models cannot get out of sync with the code. The models are no longer overhead

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 17 of 44 MDA Advantages 1. The business logic for PIMs can be developed, and validated, by business analysts with little or no technical background. Some MDA tools even let you “run” a PIM on a virtual machine to test it. 2. There is full traceability from PIM through PSM and the ultimate deployed software. This provides a great deal of quality assurance. 3. Subsequent changes in either the business model or the technology platform can be gracefully accommodated. Changes in the technology don’t require changes to the PIM. Changes to the PIM can be traced to determine their likely impact on the PSM and ultimate deployed implementation.

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 18 of 44 MDA Framework MDA already has been applied to all kinds of business problems and integrated with a wide array of other common computing technologies. Because of its broad applicability, MDA itself is not packaged as a single standard like UML. MDA is more like an umbrella over a growing family of standards that now includes the UML V2.0, the Meta Object Facility (MOF), the Common Warehousing Model, and the Software Process Engineering Metamodel (SPEM), among others.

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 19 of 44 MDD Model Driven Development is a more generic term that includes approaches that do not adhere to the MDA standards

20 MDA Implications

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 21 of 44 Thoughtful Cost Benefit Analysis Required What process is used for building A dog house A garage A house A business park A skyscraper

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 22 of 44 Just build it It might cost more to create a detailed blueprint for a dog house than carpenter would charge for labor and materials for the entire construction

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 23 of 44 On the Other Hand For complex applications which have to have detailed blueprints anyway The value of MDA can be substantial

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 24 of 44 Not Your Father’s UML Most UML modeling tools generate code One UML class – one Java class MDA tools are model-driven, pattern- based One UML class – many code artifacts MDA tools intelligently generate infrastructure from models

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 25 of 44 From a Customer Class in UML A good MDA tool can generate: The appropriate Data definition language to create, delete, and init the RDBMS table. A Data Access Object or Enterprise JavaBeans data access layer A SessionFacade to access the bean A ServiceLocator to find the bean A set of Data Transfer Objects to pass to the web tier A Struts-based framework to perform CRUD operations on a "Customer" All the security, logging, exception and other hooks that one would expect to use

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 26 of 44 Focus Changes from Coding to Modeling Business analysts will not need IT skills in order to stay involved in systems development from beginning to end Geeks will focus on building the MDA transformation tools Business applications will be build by analysts and architects skilled in modeling

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 27 of 44 Agile MDA Incremental techniques work well with MDA Most XP practices such as “pair programming” extend naturally to MDA The PIM replaces what “code” is to agile development teams

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 28 of 44 Increased importance Inspections CIM PIM

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 29 of 44 Testing Test cases can be generated from the same models that generate the code A completely automated test suite is a software system So use MDA UML testing profile (U2TP) This will have a major impact on the skills required of testers and the test process itself.

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 30 of 44 Generated Code Should be Bug Free Focus can be on testing business logic rather than the middleware and other system code and interactions. We assume the C compiler doesn’t introduce translation bugs into the assembly code Community at large finds these errors

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 31 of 44 MDA for Prototyping Repeat Model Generate prototype using MDA Evaluate prototype Until stakeholders are happy with prototype Build system using traditional techniques

32 MDA Hype versus Reality

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 33 of 44 MDA Compliant Vendors make MDA claims whenever their tool implements one of the many standards in the MDA family of standards This is misleading An MDA environment should be able to turn a PIM into a running system

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 34 of 44 Current Tools

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 35 of 44 Current Tools Don’t Generate All the Code

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 36 of 44 Just the Messy Error Prone Code Generated Middleware Business objects Data Base stuff Objects and method stubs Default GUI Typically Not Generated Customization to the GUI Method Bodies for the Business algorithms Transformation Tool Transformation Tool

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 37 of 44 Two step Process Transformation Tool Transformation Tool Most of the development Certain architectural configuration and GUI customization Custom business logic

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 38 of 44 Controlled Study

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 39 of 44 Case Study Conclusions 35% gain in development productivity Up to 70% gains in maintenance productivity

40 MDA Final thought

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 41 of 44 Impact on Outsourcing?

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 42 of 44 MDA - An Alternative to Offshore Outsourcing? Roger Lane, Managing Director, Interactive Objects Software The off-shore outsourcing trend is gathering momentum. Business and IT management see off-shore as a way of making their hard pressed IT budgets go further. Organizations who have successfully used outsourcing say it is not only about cost, but about better quality. In truth, a high proportion of off-shore projects fail to meet expectations on cost or quality and an alarming number fail. MDA has the potential to offer significant productivity and quality gains. Could it be that MDA is a viable alternative to sending development off-shore ? This presentation examines how MDA stacks up against the off-shore model and the potential additional advantages it can bring to organizations and their staff th March, New Connaught Rooms, London

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 43 of 44 Crystal Ball MDA is not the only game in town. Neither the problems that plague the software industry, nor the principles of good software engineering are secrets known only to the MDA elite. All the tool vendors out there are searching to find solutions that will win in the marketplace. At the same time that MDA environments are starting to mature, IDEs are becoming more and more powerful and multi- use components more widespread. My personal opinion is that both the IDE style programming approach and the MDA style modeling approach will exist side by side during the next decade. MDA will not take over the application development space, but it will play an important role there. Two of the biggest risks to the future of MDA are: Will the development community be patient with MDA while the MDA tools mature, and Will the OMG find the “right” way to specify business logic at the PIM level in a timely manner.

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 44 of 44 Conclusions MDA is a natural step in raising the level of abstraction at which we develop systems. MDA embodies the basic engineering concept of separation of concerns. It is clear both intuitively and anecdotally that MDA can lead to important gains in productivity, portability, and the ability to focus on business functionality as opposed to technology details. Most importantly, MDA is not a proprietary vendor initiative, but is a technology enabled by a family of standards developed by the OMG consortia of computing users and vendors. The implications to testers of a move to MDA style development are especially significant.

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 45 of 44 Thank you for attending Please feel free to contact me with any follow up questions or comments Timothy Korson

Copyright © 2005 Korson-Consulting 46 of 44