Semantically Correct Interoperability of Executable Architectures

Many techniques and tools have been developed to model and simulate system performance and operation. Robust answers are now needed to a broader class of theatre-wide/enterprise-wide problems not readily addressed by integrating legacy architectures lacking a common description of executable content. Executable architecture data model (EADM) developed in a feasibility study now allows for tools to embed within architecture descriptive execution rules that can be unambiguously interpreted by other tools. Implementation of the EADM has been prototyped in a tagged-data (XML) format, to be integrated into tools using three architecture languages: Colored Petri Nets (CPN), Unified Modeling Language (UML) and Integrated Definition Methods (IDF0). Complete interoperability will be achieved within CPN-based tools (VSO, CPN-Tools). Limited interoperability for IDEF0 and UML tools may result from incomplete or opaque specification of execution rules. A gap analysis will identify these limitations. Performed tests will establish whether the semantics of one tool’s execution rules are preserved when translated from its local execution format to EADM XML implementation format and then converted to the local execution format of the second tool. A conformance matrix will be developed describing the extent to which the executable content expressed by tools and languages can populate the EADM.