Application Architecture

When you have applications made up of thousands of components, it can be tricky to get an overall view of the applications and all the interactions between functional domains and sub-domains.

We, at ARCAD software, have found an elegant solution to solve this issue, and we have created a totally unique tool: The Macroscopic View. These views provide a graphical representation of overall information system functionality in several layers. It lets you navigate through an application’s internal architecture and presents all the dependencies between various functional modules.

This system is based on ARCAD’s functional tree feature. Applications are placed into a three-level structure:

• Sub-systems
• Functions
• Sub-functions

Once you have defined your functional tree, the next step is to attach software components to each of the functional branches. Thanks to two tools included in the solution, this task is no longer a difficult one. These tools are:

• Cross-references, which allows you to easily create groups of interdependent components.
• The list manager, which lets you apply a mass attachment of these groups of components to the branches of the functional tree.

Once this is complete, the macroscopic view editor will allow you to explore your systems links at the functional level and navigate through the different functional dependencies of your applications. By right clicking on a particular link, you will see the components that serve as an interface between these different application domains.

THE ADVANTAGES

This system is extremely useful when you need to isolate functional domains in your applications so you can upgrade them with new technologies. If your project is to adapt your application to an SOA architecture, you can save a huge amount of time with these synthetic views of your applications.