Archi Forum

Archi => General Archi Discussion => Topic started by: johnnyx141 on May 19, 2016, 12:16:27 PM

Title: Best Practice for Modelling Data Objects & Association With Applications
Post by: johnnyx141 on May 19, 2016, 12:16:27 PM
Hi

I'm just getting to grips with Archimate and have a question (which will probably highlight my 'newbie' status!.

When it comes to modelling data objects ''product data" for example. I want to be able to understand which application (or it's DB) components hold a "product data".
Is best practice to have a single representation of "product data", rather than multiple per applications (or DB's), and this single instance of "product data" is associated with multiple applications/DB's?
If so, is there then a way of easily showing 'all applications/DB containing "product data"'?

Thanks
Title: Re: Best Practice for Modelling Data Objects & Association With Applications
Post by: Jean-Baptiste Sarrodie on May 19, 2016, 14:46:52 PM
Hi,

There are several ways to achieve your goal. Depending on your exact need I would choose between the two following solutions:

If your goal is to later link this information at the Business layer, the best approach is to have Application Components that access Data Objects that (in turn) realize Business Objects. In your context this means that you could have full traceability from Artifact (Database) to Business Object. I've attached a model snippet to this post. Using this approach you can easily walk through the realization relationship (using analysis tab or visualiser) to find which Applications/DB contain Data which are related to "Product".

Another approach if you really don't want to model at Business layer is to use per application Data Object but aggregate them into anoth more generic Data Object. This is not a perfect solution but can do the trick depending on your context.

Regards,

JB
Title: Re: Best Practice for Modelling Data Objects & Association With Applications
Post by: johnnyx141 on May 19, 2016, 17:03:19 PM
That's excellent guidance; thanks!
Title: Re: Best Practice for Modelling Data Objects & Association With Applications
Post by: Jean-Baptiste Sarrodie on May 19, 2016, 17:04:51 PM
You're welcome  8)
Title: Re: Best Practice for Modelling Data Objects & Association With Applications
Post by: Phil Beauvoir on May 19, 2016, 22:08:47 PM
That's really good info. Thanks, JB!  8)