Unified Modeling Language: Patterns, Profiles, and Challenges

The aim of this document is to provide brief information about the Unified Modelling Language and its applications in the programs and in the system development process. The patters is an important factor of the Unified Modeling Language as this helps to reduce the complexity of the programs and the system development process. This document shows various types of UML profiles and their values in the process of modelling. Also, these profile has been compared between themselves to get analytical information about all the UML profiles. The UML profiles also face various types of challenges and majority of the challenges occurred due to the problem in understanding the UML diagrams.

Running head: SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
System Analysis and Design
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
Abstract:
The aim of this document is to provide brief information about the Unified Modelling
Language and its applications in the programs and in the system development process. The
patters is an important factor of the Unified Modeling Language as this helps to reduce the
complexity of the programs and the system development process. This document shows
various types of UML profiles and their values in the process of modelling. Also, these
profile has been compared between themselves to get analytical information about all the
UML profiles. The UML profiles also face various types of challenges and majority of the
challenges occurred due to the problem in understanding the UML diagrams.
Keywords: UML, SPT Profile, Class Diagram, Unified Modeling Language, Patterns and
UML-RT.

2SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
Table of Contents
Introduction:...............................................................................................................................3
Background of Unified Modeling Language:............................................................................3
Discussion:.................................................................................................................................4
UML Profiles:........................................................................................................................4
Comparisons of UML profiles:..............................................................................................5
Challenges in the UML Profile:.................................................................................................6
Conclusion:................................................................................................................................7
References:.................................................................................................................................8

3SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
Introduction:
Patterns in the program design and in system development are very much important
for the present time. Application of the patterns was first used for designing the programs.
Now, the patterns are used in the data analysis, system architecture and project management
(Bonfè, Fantuzzi and Secchi 2013). Patterns are a part of the Unified Modeling Language
which is a commonly occurring reusable piece which can provide certain functionality. So,
patterns in the UML can help to keep the design of the system standard and more important is
that reduces the complexity of the system.
The class diagram is used in the Unified Modeling Language to identify and capture
the patterns in a specific system (Dennis, Wixom and Tegarden 2015). The document will
describe the Unified Modeling Language profiles, and further, it will discuss the value of
them in the modeling process.
Background of Unified Modeling Language:
The Unified Modeling Language is a typical standardized modeling language which
consists sets of diagrams that are integrated into the system (Rumbaugh, Booch and Jacobson
2017). This modeling language is developed to assists the systems and the developers of the
software that helps in the constructing, visualising, specifying and documenting the software
systems.
An important part of the UML is the patterns in the system software. Implementation
of the patterns in the Unified Modeling System helps to make the process of the software
development easier by reducing the complexity of the software. Patterns are actually is the set
of functionality which occurs several times in the software system. The patterns need to be
captured and documented successfully so that it can be used for the future reference and in

4SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
this context the UML is the perfect tool to perform this operation. The class diagram of the
UML helps to identify and capture patterns in a system.
Profile is another important aspect of the Unified Modeling Language (Guillén et al.
2013). The profiles are used in the UML because it can provide or generate an extension
mechanism which is generic for the customization purpose of the UML models in specific
platforms and domains. This extensions mechanisms can allow the refining standards in a
strict additive manner. This prevents them from the contradiction of standard semantics.
Discussion:
UML Profiles:
There are various types of UML profiles are available but in the context of the
software development the main two UML profiles are the SPT profile, and the other one is
the QoS profile or the Quality of the Service profile. The other UML profiles are the UML-
RT profile, TURTLE profile and Z.109 profile.
In the SPT profile, the SPT stands for Schedulability, Performance and Time. This
profile is for the real time modeling (Aziz, Mohamad and Jawawi 2013). This SPT profile is
the model to the quality of service, time, resource and concurrency concepts. This profile of
the UML provided the modeler a set containing stereotypes and tagged with values to
annotate the models of the UML. This UML profile can be divided into two sub-profiles.
These are the general resource model package, and another one is the analysis modeling
package.
Quality Service Profile of the UML is a typical emerging profile which adopts the
quality of service manner in a large factor (Ebeid, Fummi and Quaglia 2013). This UML
profile is relevant to the real time modeling of the software. This is also relevant to the real
time modeling as this was presented as a complementary of the SPT profile of the UML. The

5SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
SPT profile and the QoS profile is quite similar to the each other but the QoS provides the
program designer to outline any set of quality of services and to perform a specific analysis,
and this analysis can be relevant for the aspect of the safety and criticality of the of the real
time software system. The QoS profile UML model contains the information on bindings and
bound classes.
The UML-RT profile is a type of real time profile, and it was developed by Rational
Software (Posse and Dingel 2016). Extensibility mechanisms are used by this UML profile
which is a built-in feature of the UML for capturing the concepts which are demonstrated in
the real time object oriented modeling. While it is compared with the previous two profiles, it
not only just annotate a design model with the information that allows performing
quantitative analysis. This profile of the UML helps the designer to make complex designs,
possibly distributed and event-driven real time systems, but this does not support any type of
timing and time constraints modeling. The UML-RT includes two types of modeling which
are the structural modeling and behaviour modeling.
The TURTLE profile of the UML is used for the formal validation of the real time
systems which are complex in nature (Selic and Gérard 2013). This uses the mechanism of
extensibility which can enhance the structuring of UML and behavioural expression power.
The TURTLE profile brought two types of main extensions. These extensions are the
structural extensions, and the other one is the behavioural extensions.
The Z.109 profile is another UML profile, and this is combined with the SDL. The
Z.109 profile describes subset specialization of a UML and one to one mapping to SDL
subset (Kraas 2014). Thus in the Z.109 profile, SDL is used as a formal semantics. The Z.109
provides the main concept of the SDL to the UML model with equivalent stereotypes.

6SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
Comparisons of UML profiles:
Profile Issuer Tool
Support
System Analysis Expressiveness Formal
Semantics
SPT OMG
Industry
RT
Studio
Rhapsody
Real-time
and
generic
Schedulabilit
y of
performance
Resource
concurrency,
Time
No
UML-RT Rational Rational
RT
Event-
driven
system
Schedulabilit
y
Async
messages,
Capsules
No
Z.109 Industry
ITU-T
Telelogic Critical
system
No SDL concepts SDL
TURTL
E
Acamedia RTL Distributed
System
No Synch RT-
LOTOS
QoS OMG
Industry
- Generic
and real
time
system
User-defined QoS
Characteristic
No
Challenges in the UML Profile:
In the context of the UML profile, there are several challenges which are related to the
UML profile. These challenges are the general issues and deficiencies which includes the use
of slangs without a glossary, teasing, absence of examples, BNF rules mistakes and no rules
for the element names.
Previously the glossary parts were there which helped to understand the meaning of
fancy terms, used in the UML profile specifications. Unfortunately glossary part removed in
later which created challenges for the system designers. Teasing is another annoying
specification in UML profile. Understanding the meaning of the teasing implementation is
very much challenging for the system developers. Also, the UML profiles describe thousands
of words through a diagram as this is a visual modeling language. Thus an understanding of
UML profile diagrams takes a huge amount of time which slows the system development

7SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
process (Iqbal et al. 2015). Further, the BNF rules mistakes make the UML elements so much
annoying. Another challenge regarding the UML profiles is that does not deliver any type of
specific rules for the names of the elements which again creates a problem in the diagram
understanding.
Conclusion:
Form the above discussion it can be concluded that the Unified Modeling Language is
very much important in the aspects of the system development. It has also been assessed that
the patterns are an important factor in the UML as this minimizes the complexity of a
particular program or a system. This minimizes the complexity of the program by identifying
a reusable piece of the programs which provides a specific set of functionality. By reusing
this code whenever required, this reduces the complexity and improve the time for
development. In this document background of the Unified Modeling Language has been
discussed thoroughly which described the importance of the patterns and the UML diagrams.
Following that various types of UML profiles has been discussed and a comparison between
them has been given. Further, a challenge regarding the UML profiles has been discussed in
this document.

8SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
References:
Aziz, M.W., Mohamad, R. and Jawawi, D.N., 2013. Critical evaluation of two UML profiles
for Distributed Embedded Real-Time Systems Design. Int. J. Softw. Eng. Appl, 7(3), pp.137-
146.
Bonfè, M., Fantuzzi, C. and Secchi, C., 2013. Design patterns for model-based automation
software design and implementation. Control Engineering Practice, 21(11), pp.1608-1619.
Dennis, A., Wixom, B.H. and Tegarden, D., 2015. Systems analysis and design: An object-
oriented approach with UML. John wiley & sons.
Ebeid, E., Fummi, F. and Quaglia, D., 2013, September. UML-based modeling and
simulation of environmental effects in networked embedded systems. In Digital System
Design (DSD), 2013 Euromicro Conference on (pp. 787-794). IEEE.
Guillén, J., Miranda, J., Murillo, J.M. and Canal, C., 2013, September. A UML Profile for
modeling multicloud applications. In European Conference on Service-Oriented and Cloud
Computing (pp. 180-187). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
Iqbal, M.Z., Ali, S., Yue, T. and Briand, L., 2015. Applying UML/MARTE on industrial
projects: challenges, experiences, and guidelines. Software & Systems Modeling, 14(4),
pp.1367-1385.
Kraas, A., 2014, September. Towards an extensible modeling and validation framework for
SDL-UML. In International Conference on System Analysis and Modeling (pp. 255-270).
Springer, Cham.
Posse, E. and Dingel, J., 2016. An executable formal semantics for UML-RT. Software &
Systems Modeling, 15(1), pp.179-217.

9SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN
Rumbaugh, J., Booch, G. and Jacobson, I., 2017. The unified modeling language reference
manual. Addison Wesley.
Selic, B. and Gérard, S., 2013. Modeling and Analysis of Real-Time and Embedded Systems
with UML and MARTE: Developing Cyber-Physical Systems. Elsevier.