Concept: Transformation
Selecting the technology that best implements a logical component.
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Main Description

Component Transformation involves selecting the technology that best implements each of the logical components that you have identified and specified. You transform a logical component into a physical component by deciding which technology to use. You can transform logical components into their physical counterparts one at a time (to incrementally evolve a logical model into a physical model), or you can transform many components together as a group. Transforming all of the components in a model at once is known as model transformation.

Examples of transforming from a logical component to a physical component are:

  • The Account Manager is transformed into a session Enterprise Java™Bean (EJB) component using J2EE.
  • The Account Manager is transformed into a Microsoft .NET component.
  • The Customer Relationship Manager is implemented using Siebel Contact Center.
  • The Message Bus is implemented using IBM WebSphere Message Broker.

The term transformation is borrowed from the Model Driven Architecture (MDA) approach to development [KLEPP03]. MDA describes techniques for automatically transforming between a platform independent model, platform specific model, and code.

Figure 1. Model Transformation in MDA

The technique used for component transformation, moving components between logical and physical models, is similar in nature to the techniques of MDA. You can use a tool to do this automatically, or just follow a series of steps (such as selecting a package that implements a logical component).

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