Nesting Nodes and Devices

[khairop]

Hi
We noticed a strange behavior in Archi, and i would like to share with you for your feedback. the case is for put inside a device object into the node object and vice versa.

Case1. in View, we have a big device object and we are moving in the node object. Archi accepts this but there is no pop-up for relations, it looks like there is only at view level, no relation is created
Case2 (the opposite). In View, we have a big node object and we are moving in the device object. As expected a nested relatioship popup shows up to select the most appropriate relationship

My question is for case1 is this an expected behaviour (no popup shows-up). Is any way to create this relationship on the model when as a seprate step since i can see on the view

Thank you in advance
Kostas

[Phil Beauvoir]

Hi, in the case of nesting a Node inside a Device, this is the equivalent of creating a relationship connection from the Device to the Node.

The allowed relationships in this case are Serving, Triggering, Flow, and Association.

By default Archi proposes nested relataionships only for Composition, Aggregation, Access, Assignment, Realization, and Specialization so you won't see any nesting proposals in this case.

So you can either manually draw the desired connection between the Device and the Node before nesting, or you can change the default proposed relationships in Archi's Preferences in the "Connections - ARM" tab and select the required relationships in the top list.

[khairop]

In this case, may be there is a defect or a strrange behaviour. i am able to to create a nested relationship witih aggregation in reverse

More specifically i am following these steps

Create a device
Create a node
Using the magic connector select the device first with a target to the node , selcted the option aggregated by. This is correct (please see picture1)

Then i am moving the node inside the device, archi doesnt show any popup or any other message for prohibiting this action. Now there is a nest option with an aggrgation (please see picture 2).

Is this something i am doing in the wrong way or just hit a jackpot?
I was thnikg if its possible to export the relationship in CSV , change it and then import back. Just thinking loudly

Thank you in advance
Kostas

 

[Phil Beauvoir]

This is expected behaviour. You have created a "reverse" relationship that is simply hidden when you nest the elements.

All the options for nesting visibility are in the "Connections - ARM" tab in Preferences.

[Jean-Baptiste Sarrodie]

Hi,

I guess your reaction is because in previous version of ArchiMate specification, it was possible to create an aggregation or a composition from Device to Node. But this has been removed with ArchiMate 3.2 on which Archi 5.x is based.

BTW, such aggregation or composition was not making sens anyway because a Node is a very generic active structure (or Technology Component) which could be IT-based or Physical-based. A Device being an IT active structure, it can only aggregate or compose other IT active structure (other Devices or System Software), but not a Node (which would well be a Facility). This is a fundamental change of Node whic came with ArchiMate 3.0.


Regards,

JB

[khairop]

Thank you for the feedback and the clarifications