From MDA Platform-Specific Model to Code Generation: Coupling of RM-ODP and UML Action Semantics Standards

Model Driven Architecture (MDA) defined by Object Management Group (OMG) in 2000 promotes the model engineering in order to facilitate code production in a cost-effective manner. It advocates the distinction between models designed independently of any technical consideration of the underlying platform (the Platform Independent Model – PIM) and models that include such considerations (the Platform Specific Model – PSM). These are considered as the entry point towards the code. For this, they must reflect the software architecture of the application as well as the instructions details. Focusing on the case of distributed applications, the specification of distributed systems and in particular, of their software architecture is making possible through the use of the Reference Model of Open Distributed Processing (RM-ODP) issued by the ISO and ITU-T. Actually, this architectural framework is devoted to the description of distributed systems. However, it is not well suited to express all information contained in the code and consequently, to capture the relevant information needed in a PSM. To face this drawback, we have chosen to couple ODP with Action Semantic of UML. This paper reports our experience, which is achieved in the context of our work dealing at the provision of an MDA methodology.