3.4.1 Traceability: A Systems Integration Perspective

Abstract

It has been argued previously that system integration requires a controlled environment, which in turn demands a number of integration and management undertakings (Sage & Lynch, 1998). This paper considers one such undertaking, information integration and management, and in particular, means of managing and tracking information across disjoint CASE tools. A taxonomy is proposed that defines a conceptual framework for traceability in a systems integration context. The framework is realised by exporting information from the internal models of tools to an integrated environment consisting of: i) a Workspace comprising a set of structures or meta‐models expressed in a common modelling language representing selected notations for which tool support exists; ii) well‐formedness constraints over these structures capturing properties of the notations; and iii) associations between the structures. To maintain consistency, the structures are verified against a further structure that defines common building blocks underlying the various notations.