10 things to know ...
10 things to know about Rhapsody:
- The 4 Editions of the Rhapsody family all support OMG SysML at no extra cost.
- The premium Editions of Rhapsody (Designer and Developer) also include licensing for Design Manager. See 8.1 announcement.
- Rhapsody has properties and properties help deployment. If you don't like the way Rhapsody does something then it can probably be changed (using a property).
- In my opinion the Rhapsody Gateway is a mature/proven way to synchronize with Rational DOORS and is licensed in the Rhapsody Tools and Utilities Add On package but you will not get its true value without being shown.
- The Gateway can be used to update DOORS requirements based on updates in Rhapsody.
- I'd recommend always drawing the BDD before the IBD. Drag the parts on. Take notice of diagram frames.
- Rhapsody is extensible with Java plug-ins. You can customize and extend with ease (if you know how).
- Rhapsody's low-cost Editions (Architect for Systems Engineers and Architect for Software Engineers) are one of the lowest priced of all IBM's tools. The prices are available on the IBM page.
- Rhapsody tables/matrices/queries/user-defined browser filters are very powerful for System Engineering usage.
- In my opinion if you don't use Rhapsody properties/custom profiles to tailor the user experience, you're wasting time and money. The purpose of training is to teach you this.
10 Things to know about SysML:
- SysML is a graphical language. It's a set of visual notations. It's not a method.
- SysML shares most of notation with UML 2.x making it great for sharing information across a software-intensive systems development team.
- SysML is not a tool. There are many UML tools that support SysML notation. Remember though, a modeling tool does more than just draw diagrams. It needs to integrate with your other tools and processes. It needs to work for more than one user.
- It is possible to use SysML with a formally defined method.
- It is perfectly possible to use SysML without a formally defined method.
- SysML is a set of notations. You don't need to use them all.
- At some point in using SysML you will ask this question: should I use activity models or sequence/interaction models to specify the behavior? This is a very fundamental question and will shape the method you adopt. You may you both. Choose with understanding if you really want to get the value.
- UML 2.x extended UML 1 to add better support for hierarchical decomposition of structure and behavior and component-based design. The result is that it incorporated structured-design techniques to a notation that was object-orientated in nature. The result is a hybrid. Both are useful for Systems Engineering.
- SysML is standardized by the Object Management Group (OMG). It is under development as an ISO standard.
- SysML adds meat around requirement and allocation concepts to the UML. The resulting table/matrices functionality becomes very useful indeed, even for UML modeling (e.g. text in use cases, actions/operations traced to requirements, etc).
