MoVEing Forward: Towards an Architecture and Processes for a Living Models Infrastructure
Michael Breu, Ruth Breu, Sarah Loew · 2011
Abstract—Development, maintenance and operation of com-plex IT–systems, involving various stakeholders are chal-lenging tasks. Managing such IT–systems with model–based approaches can help to cope with this complexity. As IT– systems are changing during their lifetime, as do the models describing certain aspects of such systems. Document and model versioning repositories are the preferred infrastructure to maintain the documents and models, reflecting the evolution of the IT–system. However, there are more complex require-ments to model versioning compared to classical source code or document versioning: Depending on the types of models different modelling tools may be employed and must interface to the repository. The consistency between models must be ensured, and finally, since various stakeholders are involved, changes must be propagated between models. In this paper, we analyse these requirements and present the basic architectural concepts for a Living Models infrastructure that supports the evolution of models. Keywords-model versioning; model evolution; software en-gineering; change based process; tool integration; automated change management.