Sparx Systems Forum

Enterprise Architect => General Board => Topic started by: mmontminy on October 10, 2018, 02:29:04 am

Title: Time Aware Modeling Best Practices Request
Post by: mmontminy on October 10, 2018, 02:29:04 am

Hi,

I'm training to get my head around Time Aware Modeling and how to use it. I've read most if not all post on this forum.

One important lesson learned is that even if it is compared to a branch and merge facility in the documentation, this is not the case as you should only work sequentially.
This means that you should not clone the same package twice.

I am currently building a POC to determine how we will use E.A. if approved.

Our context is Enterprise Architecture with a focus on Business and Application architecture first. Let me take Application architecture to illustrate my questions.
Our model would be structured like this. I put in (parenthesis) examples of Application Categories and Application Domain to make it more concrete.

Application Architecture
  |
  - Application List
    |
    _ Application Category 1 (Channels&Origination)
      |
      - Application 1
      - Application 2
      - ...
    - Applcation Category 2 (Core banking)
      |
      - Application n
      - Application n+1
      - ...
    - Applcation Category n (BI & Analitics)
      ...

  - Application diagrams by domain
    |
    _ Application Domain 1 (Bank Account)
      |
      - Version 1
         - Diagram 1
         - Diagram 2
         - ...
      - Version 2
         - Diagram 1
         - Diagram 2
         - ...
    _ Application Domain 2 (Mortgage)
      |
      - Version 1
         - Diagram 1
         - Diagram 2
         - ...
      - Version 2
         - Diagram 1
         - Diagram 2
         - ...

As you can see,

• I separate the list of my applications from the domain model because an application can be represented in many domain diagrams and should evolve independently of the diagrams.
• I currently thinking of using the cloning mechanism at the application domain level (only one level deep) and not at the root because of my understanding of the limiation of the TAM capability

Questions:

• I'm not sure where I would put the cloned version of the elements (Applications). If I put the different version under Application Category X, I will end up with multiple Application with the same name.
• I could create "version i" packages under Application Category X to regroup applications sharing a version number. The drawback (I think) with this approach is that two or more applications will end up in the same folder only because they share the same version number
• Any recommendations?