Sparx Systems Forum

Enterprise Architect => General Board => Topic started by: PhilJollans on September 24, 2016, 06:53:47 am

Title: High level system diagram
Post by: PhilJollans on September 24, 2016, 06:53:47 am

I would like to make a high level and fairly informal system diagram.

I want to include:
- software components
- hardware components
- maybe mechanical systems
- files
- possibly a database
- actors

I don't really care if it a formally correct UML diagram.

Can I make a diagram like this using Enterprise Architect, and if so, what kind of diagram would it be?

Thanks in advance
Phil

Title: Re: High level system diagram
Post by: mackie on September 24, 2016, 07:28:55 am

You might consider ArchiMate for this kind of thing.  It will take some time to learn it though, so if you need to crank out something in the next hour this isn’t the solution for you.

Title: Re: High level system diagram
Post by: Stephen Kropp on September 24, 2016, 07:35:29 am

Have you checked out the demo videos available on the Sparxsystems website, they are very good and could be pieced together to get what you need?

http://www.sparxsystems.com/resources/demos/ (http://www.sparxsystems.com/resources/demos/)

Title: Re: High level system diagram
Post by: qwerty on September 24, 2016, 08:08:40 am

You can also have a look into EA's example model. Help/Example Model

q.

Title: Re: High level system diagram
Post by: Glassboy on September 24, 2016, 10:18:18 pm

Quote from: PhilJollans on September 24, 2016, 06:53:47 am

I would like to make a high level and fairly informal system diagram.

I want to include:
- software components
- hardware components
- maybe mechanical systems
- files
- possibly a database
- actors

That's not what I'd call high level, but a UML deployment diagram can be used to do what you want.  Just add stereotypes to the components and nodes to indicate what they are, and drop and actor in from the use case tool toolbox.

Title: Re: High level system diagram
Post by: PeterHeintz on September 26, 2016, 06:20:23 pm

If you want to have software, hardware and mechanical stuff in you model SysML could also be a good choice because modeling these things together is what SysML is all about.

Title: Re: High level system diagram
Post by: PhilJollans on September 26, 2016, 10:26:13 pm

Thanks for the answers.

I have made a diagram which is good enough as a Deployment diagram. I had previously not found the "more tools..." option in the toolbox, so I couldn't figure out how to add actors to a diagram which was not a use-case diagram.

The Example Model is a good source of ideas which I will refer to in future.

SysML and ArchiMate both look interesting. Our team has a license for Enterprise Architect, so I wanted to use this tool if possible.

Phil