Sparx Systems has once again made it to the 2017 SD Times 100 list in the ALM & Development Tools Category.  SD times indicated that "Application life-cycle management needs sound methods coupled with up-to-date tools and platforms for requirements so that teams know what to do and when to do it by. These companies helped developers stick to the plan and avoid falling behind in 2017."  Enterprise Architect provides a solid platform for the delivery and support of new applications, services, and technologies, by encouraging and facilitation of increased productivity between development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops). Sparx Systems is pleased to be on the 2017 SD Times 100.

Read the full article to read more about the 2017 SD Times 100 list.

2017 is an exciting year with the introduction of the all new Pro Cloud Server, allowing a real-time view of content contained in an Enterprise Architect Cloud repository to be shared with anyone with a smart phone, tablet or computer simply using a web-browser.

To learn more about the Pro Cloud server, we would encourage you to read about the product on the Sparx Systems website below:

http://www.sparxsystems.com/products/procloudserver/

In an in-depth and illuminating interview with Sparx Systems Founder and CEO Geoffrey Sparks, Alexandra Weber Morales from SD Times identified several key aspects surrounding the company's continued growth in the DevOps space.

Geoffrey illustrated how Enterprise Architect provides a solid platform for the delivery and support of new applications, services, and technologies, by encouraging and facilitation of increased productivity between development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops). The Sparx CEO also explained the importance of UML as the established standard for software modeling.

"Within those organizations that are undergoing digital transformation
to improve operational efficiencies (many of whom are Sparx Systems
customers), there is a prevalence of UML tools deployed to manage application
delivery, a process which relies implicitly on code quality assurance."
- Geoffrey Sparks, CEO & Founder, Sparx Systems

Read the full article in PDF - available on the Sparx Systems website here

Visit SD Times website here

Read More about Sparx Systems and DevOps here

Sparx Systems, together with the International Institute of Business Analysis™ (IIBA®), has announced the public Beta release of a reference model for IIBA's Business Analysis Body of Knowledge® (BABOK® Guide v3), supported by Sparx System's Pro Cloud Server and an MDG Technology within Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect.

Considered as the Ultimate Toolkit for Business Analysts, Sparx System's Tools & Techniques for BABOK Guide v3 has been developed in close conjunction with key stakeholders within the IIBA community, supporting the global business analysis community with improved efficiency and practical real-world modeling examples.

Easily accessible from within the browser of any Internet connected mobile device, the Tools & Techniques for BABOK Guide v3 represents BABOK Guide v3 Knowledge Areas as columns, while each cell represents a specific Task within the Knowledge Area. Enterprise Architect sample models are also contained within the online solution, offering Business Analysts with a comprehensive array of modeling resources to assist in attaining a high level of proficiency in the shortest possible time-frame.

Further information regarding the Enterprise Architect Tools and Techniques for BABOK ® Guide v3, delivered via the Pro Cloud Server collaboration platform or MDG Technology plug-in, plus a wealth of reference materials, is available at the Sparx Systems website: www.sparxsystems.com/babok

Enterprise Architect User Group

London 2017; 18th - 19th May

The London

2017 meeting of the Enterprise Architect User Group sees a shakeup to the agenda in the form of an additional day being added to the roster. In additional to the traditional presentation day of User Stories, How to's etc the extra day added to the event is taking the form of a training day.

The training day adds to the event a selection of six, three hour training sessions on a variety of subjects from BPMN to TOGAF and Model Curation.

Location

Code Node, 10 South Place, London, EC2M 7BT

Get Directions

Agenda; Thursday 18th May

You can find information on these training sessions over at the EA User Group website.

Agenda; Friday 19th May

You can find a synopsis for each of these presentations over on the EA User Group website.

How to buy your tickets...

Tickets for the event are available directly from the EA User Group website and are priced as follows:

• Full two day event ticket; £550.00 +Vat
• Friday only ticket; £75.00 +Vat

We recently published Panorama 360 Insurance and Wealth Management Enterprise Business Architecture Framework as a book (456 pages) which is globally available on Amazon. It covers all functional  (Capabilities) and informational aspects of the industry. This enterprise business model is also available on Sparx Enterprise Architect.

Here is a link to an article that was published by Insurance Innovation Reporter's Anthony R. O'Donnell relative to the value of Panorama 360.

http://iireporter.com/panorama-360-insurance-enterprise-business-model-qa-with-author-pierre-gagne/

For any questions on the Panorama 360 Enterprise Business Model and the Sparx Enterprise Architect version, contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Regular contributor to SD Times, Lisa Morgan, has published an in-depth piece titled 'Navigating the endless ALM river', she investigates alternative solutions to some of the premium offerings within the marketplace.

Lisa investigates the latest thinking within this space, gathering insight from senior subject matter experts, who describe contemporary thinking in this fast-paced sector.

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is included within a list of highly-valued software solutions that facilitate continuous delivery, deployment and integration processes.

We encourage you to read the full article at the SD Times website.

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect has been honored with a Silver medal for Software Architecture excellence in this year's Visual Studio Reader's Choice Award.

This follows on from winning a Bronze award in 2015 for outstanding solutions in the Software Design, Frameworks, and Modeling Tools category.

"For Sparx to place in the tight Software Architecture solutions category means readers are paying attention. It can only mean good things in the future for this builder of model-driven software development."

- Michael Domingo, Editor in Chief, Visual Studio Magazine

The Reader's Choice Award has been conducted by Visual Studio Magazine for 23 years, with winners selected from a pool of over 400 product and sevices within 36 categories.

A media announcement has been released by Sparx Systems, please visit the company News Room for more.

For more details about the Reader's Choice Award, please visit the Visual Studio Magazine website. 

ArchiMate 3.0

by Phil Chudley, Principal Consultant at Dunstan Thomas Consulting

  The Open Group released the official specification of ArchiMate 3.0 in June 2016, and this new specification is supported in Enterprise Architect version 13. This article summarises the new features and changes within ArchiMate 3.0 and provides an example of how to migrate an existing ArchiMate 2.0 model to ArchiMate 3.0 model using Enterprise Architect v.13.

Summary of Changes

The following is a summary of the changes made within ArchiMate 3.0:

• Motivation Extension;
  • New element for modelling Outcomes.
  • New set of Strategy Elements, Resource, Capability, Course of Action.
• Business Layer;
  • Representation of the Contract element modified so as to be different from the Business Object Element.
  • Location element removed (although Enterprise Architect has re-located this element to the Technology Layer – Physical Extension).
• Application Layer;
  • Two new elements added, Application Process and Application Event
• Technology layer;
  • Elements called Infrastructure in ArchiMate 2.0 are now called Technology in ArchiMate 3.0.
  • Four new elements added, Technology Process, Technology Interaction, Technology Event and Technology Collaboration.
  • New set of Physical Elements, Equipment, Facility, Distribution Network and Material. These elements are known as the Physical Extension.
• Implementation and Migration Extension;
  • One new element added, Implementation Event.
• Relationships;
  • Representation of Assignment modified to have a directional arrow.
  • Bi-directional Access relationship added.
  • Plus (positive) and Minus (negative) symbols added to Influence Relationship.
  • New relationship, Serving.

Detail of Changes

The following tables provided an example of the changes for each of the sections listed in the Summary of Changes above.

Motivation Extension

Element	Definition	Notation
Outcome	An end result that has been achieved.
Resource	An asset owned or controlled by an individual or organisation.
Capability	An ability that an active structure element, such as an organisation, person, or system possesses.
Course of Action	An approach or plan for configuring some capabilities and resources of the enterprise, undertaken to achieve a goal.

Business Layer

Element	Definition	Notation
Contract	A formal or informal specification of an agreement between a provided and consumer that specifies the rights and obligations associated with a product.

Application Layer

Element	Definition	Notation
Application Process	A sequence of application behaviours that achieves a specific outcome.
Application Event	An application behaviour element that denotes a state change.

Technology Layer

Element	Definition	Notation
Technology Collaboration	An aggregate of two or more nodes that work together to perform collective technology behaviour.
Technology Process	A sequence of technology behaviours that achieves a specific outcome.
Technology Event	A technology behaviour element that denotes a state of change.
Technology Interaction	A unit of collective technology behaviour performed by (a collaboration of) two or more nodes.
Equipment	One or more physical machines, tools, or instruments that can create, use, store, move, or transform materials.
Facility	A physical structure or environment.
Distribution Network	A physical network used to transport materials or energy.
Material	Tangible physical matter or physical elements.

Implementation & Migration Extension

Element	Definition	Notation
Implementation Event	A behaviour element that denotes a change of state related to an implementation or migration.

Relationships

Element	Definition	Notation
Assignment	Expresses the allocation of responsibility, performance of behaviour, or execution.
Serving	Models that an element provides its functionality to another element.
Access	Models the ability of behaviour and active structure elements to observe or act upon passive structure elements.
Influence	Models that an element affects the implementation or achievement of some motivation element.

Implications to existing ArchiMate models

If an organisation has modelled their Enterprise Architecture using Enterprise Architect and ArchiMate 2, and are now using Version 13 of Enterprise Architect, they have two courses of action:

1. Continue to model using ArchiMate 2.0. In this case no action is required either for Enterprise Architect or the model repository. An organisation would continue to model using ArchiMate 2.0 if they do not wish to make use of any of the new features in ArchiMate 3.0.
2. Migrate their existing ArchiMate 2.0 model to ArchiMate 3.0, and then continue to model using ArchiMate 3.0. An organisation would continue to model using ArchiMate 2.0 if they wish to make use of any of the new features in ArchiMate 3.0.

My own personal opinion is that an organisation should consider moving to Enterprise Architect version 13 (mainly due its new feature of “Time Aware Modelling”) and ArchiMate 3.0. One of the main reasons, is due to inherent ambiguity (due to the lack of direction indication) in the assigns relationship in ArchiMate 2.0, which has been eliminated in ArchiMate 3.0 by making the assigns relationship directional.

Migrating an ArchiMate 2.0 model to ArchiMate 3.0

Enterprise Architect version 13 provides a migration script for this purpose. The following steps are used to perform the migration:

1. Take a backup copy of the existing model repository.
2. Using the Configure | Manage Technology ribbon, ensure that both ArchiMate 2.0 and ArchiMate 3.0 MDG technologies are enabled.
3. Using the Code | Scripting ribbon, make the scripting window visible:
   
4. Select the topmost package (or view) that contains the model to migrate:
   
5. Select the script Migrate ArchiMate 2 to ArchiMate 3 in the scripting window.
6. Right-click and select Run Script from the menu.
7. The progress of the migration, together with any errors / warnings will be displayed in the system output window.
8. Review the diagrams (you may have to tidy some of the relationships).
9. Turn off the MDG ArchiMate 2.0 using the Configure | Manage Technology ribbon.

NOTE: It appears that composition relationships are NOT HIDDEN, when using nested structures in ArchiMate 3.0. I suspect this is an Enterprise Architect version 13 issue. This is likely to be fixed and should not deter migration, as these relationships can always be hidden using the Visible Relations function in Enterprise Architect. (Layout | Manage ribbon and select Show and Hide Relationships… from the menu).

Phil Chudley
Principal Consultant
Dunstan Thomas Consulting
@SparxEAGuru

You'll find lots of useful Enterprise Architect videos on our YouTube Channel.

This webinar will show you how to make the most of Dynamic Documents to create simple, yet effective reports.The 'Dynamic Document' tab of the Document Window helps you to instantly generate a document on a selected element, using one of a range of templates. A style template consists of one or more command lines, each of which defines an element type (or all element types) and the document template to apply to the generated document.

In this LIVE webinar session, you will learn how to:

• Create your own style templates and document templates
• Understand how selectors and style templates work
• Use the Template editor to create rich and engaging document templates

We are trialling a new webinar technology based on YouTube Live streaming.

Visit Webinar Page - Watch live or catch up later!

Read Part 1 of this Case Study

We’re attempting a “crowdsourced bad driver reporting system” this semester, and because we need to be really productive, we’re using Enterprise Architect to model the project, field-test the Resilient Agile process, and to coordinate all of the student homework.  Students communicate with each other and with me using a shared EA model.

This semester I’m working with a group of 15 Masters students and an aggregate effective time budget of 80 student hours per week.  We’ve got about 12 usable weeks of student time, so it works out to a time budget of roughly 1000 student hours (that’s about half-a-person-year at 40 hours a week) over a 3 month schedule.

Resilient Agile is a flexible process in that it can be employed with traditional Scrum/Kanban sprints and backlogs, or alternatively we can leverage parallelism, and each student can be assigned a use case and develop their use case independently. 

I’ve been a big fan of leveraging parallelism in software development since I was a programmer at NASA/JPL way back in the 80s when I rescued a late project using a “divide-and-conquer” coding strategy, so we’re trying to see how far we can push the limits on massively parallel development with student projects at USC.  Communication and well-defined interfaces are key when team members are working in parallel, so the shared EA model is critically important.

Parallel modeling and development has also been a theme of our ICONIX JumpStart classes for the last 20 years, where we go into industry and work a client’s real project by splitting the class up into “lab teams”.  Typically in ICONIX JumpStart classes we put 3 or 4 students on a package of use cases, whereas on this project each student got a single use case.

If you’re going to leverage parallelism in development you have to do things a little bit differently.  Here’s an overview of the process we’re following:

1.     Plan for Parallelism (identify dependencies and architect for parallelism)

2.     Build the Right System (discover requirements, prototype areas of technical risk, and agree on conceptual designs)

3.     Build the System Right (carefully review detailed designs)

4.     Integrate as often as necessary

Enterprise Architect is a key enabler of the above process.   I would never attempt this approach without a good solid modeling tool at the heart of it. This article will show how we’ve used EA to accomplish the 4 steps above. 

 Read Part 3 of this Case Study