To realize this vision, architects and developers must communicate their designs to each other at a human level — something well above cryptic XML descriptors files.
Unfortunately, the Software Communications Architecture standard and associated documents do not specify a standard graphical representation for most types of connections. This results in miscommunication between humans and incorrect delivered descriptors.
Zeligsoft's 'Communicating SCA Architectures by Visualizing SCA Connections' paper is a must read for Software Communications Architecture designers, developers, testers and program managers. This paper describes a simple, natural, graphical notation for depicting all Software Communications Architecture connections and architectures based on "freestanding ports". Using this notation, both waveform and platform architects can quickly define and communicate clear architectures and developers can write or generate better descriptors faster.
A quick preview and excerpts from the paper appear below.
"A CORBA connection can be defined directly to a known object. The Software Communications Architecture component instance reference connection provides the same ability. CORBA also allows objects to register with a naming service and connect by name. The Software Communications Architecture supports this, but in a much less useful way for making connections within an application or platform. However, freestanding ports provide an expressive graphical representation support external connections in environments where they are permitted. To understand the power and limitations of name-based connections, an understanding of Software Communications Architecture naming is necessary."
"The SCA is designed to make applications portable across different hardware platforms with minimal modification. Applications therefore have no direct knowledge of the platform on which they are deployed. However, applications must be able to use the platform through its logical devices. How can these connections be made in a portable way? How can unknown devices be referred to, how are these devices represented in the context of an application, and how are connections to the logical devices defined?"
In short, combining the Zeligsoft's Software Communications Architecture Development Best Practices along with Zeligsoft Component Enabler improves the quality of Software Communications Architecture software and reduces the integration time! Please download Communicating SCA Architectures by Visualizing SCA Connections Whitepaper from http://www.zeligsoft.com/.
For more information on Communicating SCA Architectures by Visualizing SCA Connections White Paper or To Test Drive Zeligsoft CE please contact Trevor Rothwell at Zeligsoft. (info@zeligsoft.com)
+1 819 684 9639 internationally, or +1 800 ZELIGSW in North America.
