This document presents an approach for practically extending meta-models to create modeling language profiles. It discusses challenges in telecommunications service design and the need for domain-specific modeling languages. The approach involves matching concepts between an initial meta-model (e.g. ArchiMate) and a domain meta-model, then merging them based on generalization, transitivity of relationships, and pattern matching. This practical extension approach is applied to create a telecommunications-specific extension of the ArchiMate modeling language.

1. Practical meta-model extension
for modeling language profiles
An enterprise architecture modeling
language extension
for telecommunications service
creation
Ph. D. st. (3rd year) Vanea Chiprianov
Supervisor : Yvon Kermarrec
Co-supervisor : Siegfried Rouvrais
07/06/11

2. Agenda
1. Telecommunications Service Design Challenges
in a Software World
2. Meta-model Extension
3. Practical Approach for Meta-model Extension
4. Applying our Approach to Telecommunications
5. Conclusions and Perspectives
page 2 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

3. Telecommunications Service Design
Challenges in a Software World
 Telecommunications market deregulation
 Telecommunications-Internet convergence
 Increased envolvement of end user
 Increased competition for ex-national
telecommunications service providers
• Internet giants (Skype, Google, Yahoo, etc)
page 3 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

4. Needs of Service Providers
 To remain competitive, service providers have to:
• produce high quality services at
• low prices within
• short periods of time,
• in a software world.
 Service
Creation Environment (Software Integrated
Development Environment)
page 4 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

5. Requirements of Service Providers for a
Service Creation Environment
• Req. 1 Overall model: An overall graphical model of
service construction taking in all business,
management, and technical activities ;
• Req. 2 Domain specificity: Tools specialized for the
task and domain ;
• Req. 3 Rapid prototyping: Providing a rapid
prototype of a service to have feedback from end
user;
[Hållstrand1994]
page 5 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

6. Meeting the Requirements of Service
Providers
 Req. 1 Overall model:
• Applying an Enterprise Architecture approach: TOGAF
• Choosing an adapted Modeling Language: ArchiMate
[Chiprianov et al. 2011 ICSOFT]
 Req. 2 Domain specificity:
• Extending the Modeling Language with specificity for
Telecommunications service creation [Chiprianov et al. 2011 IDM]
 Req. 3 Rapid prototyping:
• Using MDE for defining the Modeling Language profile
and constructing the tools [Chiprianov et al. 2010 FlexiTools]
page 6 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

7. Extending Modeling Languages
Meta-Models for Language Definition
after [Clark2001]
page 7 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

8. Extending Modeling Languages
page 8 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

9. Agenda
1. Telecommunications Service Design Challenges
in a Software World
2. Meta-model Extension
3. Practical Approach for Meta-model Extension
4. Applying our Approach to Telecommunications
5. Conclusions and Perspectives
page 9 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

10. Meta-model Extension
[Barbero2007]
Fragment
Model (Mf)
Resulted
Extend Model (Mr)
Initial
Model (Mi)
page 10 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

11. Meta-model Extension
[Barbero2007] [France2007]
Fragment
Model (Mf)
1° Match
Resulted
Extend Model (Mr)
2° Merge
Initial
Model (Mi)
page 11 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

12. Meta-model Extension
 Approaches like [France2007] are intended for
automatic extension of large models
BUT
 Meta-models are:  Extending meta-models
• Small • No need for automatic
approach
• Much more important • Great need for
than any one model accuracy
 An
expert-driven approach is more adapted for
meta-model extension
page 12 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

13. Agenda
1. Telecommunications Service Design Challenges
in a Software World
2. Meta-model Extension
3. Practical Approach for Meta-model Extension
4. Applying our Approach to Telecommunications
5. Conclusions and Perspectives
page 13 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

14. Our Practical Approach for Meta-model
Extension
 Practicalprinciples to guide experts in matching
and merging meta-models:
• Match: equivalence → similarity
(=/≠) (0<t<~<1)
• Merge: 3 principles:
1.Generalization of similarity of nodes
2.Transitivity of similarity for edges (nodes)
3.Pattern matching
• Priority of principles
page 14 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

15. Generalization of Similarity of Nodes
~
Mf
P1. Generalization Mr
Mi
page 15 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

16. Generalization of Similarity of Nodes
~ ~
Mf
P1. Generalization Mr
Mi
page 16 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

17. Transitivity of Similarity for Edges
~ ~
Mf
P2. Transitivity Mr
Mi
page 17 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

18. Pattern Matching
Mf
P3. Pattern Mr
Mi
page 18 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

19. Priority of Principles
 P1.Generalization, P2. Transitivity
• Looser node semantics => more matching
possibilities.
 P3. Pattern
• The most difficult to fulfill => last.
• Global semantics, more important than semantics of
individual nodes => minor changes should be
allowed to fulfill it.
page 19 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

20. Agenda
1. Telecommunications Service Design Challenges
in a Software World
2. Meta-model Extension
3. Practical Approach for Meta-model Extension
4. Applying our Approach to Telecommunications
5. Conclusions and Perspectives
page 20 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

21. Extending a Modeling Language with
Telecommunications Service Specificity
 ArchiMate meta-model (Mi)
 Telecommunications specific model (Mf)
 Practical principles
~f
M ~ ~
Mf ~ Mf
P1. Generalization Mr Mr P3. Pattern Mr
P2. Transitivity
Mi Mi Mi
page 21 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

22. ArchiMate Meta-model
[TheOpenGroup2009]
page 22 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

23. Telecommunications Specific Model
[Bertin2009]
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24. Similar Nodes
page 24 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

25. P1. Generalization
page 25 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

26. Similarity of Edges
page 26 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

27. Similarity of Edges
page 27 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

28. Similarity of Nodes
page 28 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

29. Dissimilarity
page 29 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

30. Dissimilarity
page 30 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

31. ArchiMate Meta-model Extended by the
Telecommunications Specific Model
page 31 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

32. Discussion
 Model inheritance
• Add new nodes only through derivation of existing
nodes => more restrictive than model extension.
 Compatibility
[Kühne2010]
page 32 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

33. Discussion
 P1. Generalization and P2. Transitivity
• Keep the impact of Mf on Mi at a minimum => enable
forward compatibility
 Domain specificity
• Inherent dissimilarity => breaks forward compatibility
 The ArchiMate meta-model is totally contained in
the extended meta-model =>
backward compatibility
page 33 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

34. Agenda
1. Telecommunications Service Design Challenges
in a Software World
2. Meta-model Extension
3. Practical Approach for Meta-model Extension
4. Applying our Approach to Telecommunications
5. Conclusions and Perspectives
page 34 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

35. Conclusions and Perspectives
 Approach for practical meta-model extension
• Manual application on small meta-models
• Guiding rules
- Uniformity
- Justification of decisions
 Perspective:the basis of a decision aid system
• Working groups for language profiles
page 35 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

36. Publications
1.[Chiprianov et al. 2011 ICSOFT] Chiprianov V., Alloush I., Kermarrec Y., Rouvrais S.: Telecommunications
Service Creation: Towards Extensions for Enterprise Architecture Modeling Languages. In: Proc. of the 6th Intl
Conf. on Software and Data Technologies (ICSOFT), Seville, Spain, (in press) , (2011) - rank B [ERA].
2.[Chiprianov et al. 2011 MOPAS] Chiprianov V., Kermarrec Y., Rouvrais S.: Towards semantic interoperability of
graphical domain specific modeling languages for telecommunications service design. In: Proc. of the 2nd Intl
Conf. on Models and Ontology-based Design of Protocols, Architectures and Services (MOPAS), IARIA,
Budapest, Hungary, pp. 21-24, (2011).
3.[Chiprianov et al. 2009 EUNICE] Chiprianov, V., Kermarrec, Y. and Alff, P.: A Model-Driven Approach for
Telecommunications Network Services Definition. In: Proceedings of the 15th Open European Summer School
and IFIP TC6. 6 WS on The Internet of the Future, LNCS, pages 199–207, Barcelona, Spain, (2009).
4.[RouvraisChiprianov2011CDIO] Rouvrais S., Chiprianov V.: Modeling and Architecting Educational Frameworks.
In: Electronic Proc. of the 7th Intl CDIO Conf., Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen, (to appear), (2011).
5.[Chiprianov et al.2010FlexiTools] Chiprianov, V., Kermarrec, Y., Rouvrais, S.: Meta-tools for Software Language
Engineering: A Flexible Collaborative Modeling Language for Efficient Telecommunications Service Design. In:
FlexiTools WS, 32nd ACM/IEEE Intl. Conf. on Soft. Engineering (ICSE), Cape Town, South Africa, 5 pp, (2010).
6.[ChiprianovKermarrec2009MtATL] Chiprianov, V., Kermarrec, Y.: An Approach for Constructing a Domain
Definition Metamodel with ATL. In: Model Transformation with ATL, 1st Intl. WS,Nantes,France, pp 18-33, (2009).
7.[Chiprianov et al. 2011 IDM] Chiprianov V., Kermarec Y., Rouvrais S.: Practical Model Extension for Modeling
Language Profiles. An Enterprise Architecture Modeling Language Extension for Telecommunications Service
Creation. 7émes Journées sur l’Ingénierie Dirigée par les Modèles, Lille, France, (to appear), 2011.
8.[ChiprianovKermarrec2009IDM] Chiprianov, V., Kermarrec, Y.: Model-based DSL Frameworks: A Simple
Graphical Telecommunications Specific Modeling Language. In: 5émes Journées sur l’Ingénierie Dirigée par les
Modèles, Nancy, France, pages 179–186, (2009).
page 36 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension

37. Bibliography
 [Barbero2007] Barbero M., Jouault F., Gray J., Bézivin J., « A practical approach to
model extension », in: Proc. of the 3rd European conf. On Model driven architecture –
foundations and applications, ECMDA-FA, Haifa, Israel, p. 32-42, 2007.
 [Bertin2009] Bertin E., « Architecture des services de communication dans un contexte
de convergence », PhD thesis, Institut National des Télécommunications et Université
Paris 6, 2009.
 [France2007] France R., Fleurey F., Reddy R., Baudry B., Ghosh S., «Providing
Support for Model Composition in Metamodels», Enterprise Distributed Object
Computing Conference (EDOC), Annapolis, USA, p. 253-264, 2007.
 [Kühne2010] Kühne T., «An Observer-Based Notion of Model Inheritance», in: D.
Petriu, N. Rouquette, O. Haugen (eds), Model Driven Engineering Languages and
Systems (MODELS), vol. 6394 of LNCS, Oslo, Norway, p. 31-45, 2010.
 [TheOpenGrup2009] The Open Group, «ArchiMate 1.0 Specification», 2009.
 [Clark2001] Clark, T., Evans, A., Kent, S., and Sammut, P., « The MMF approach to
engineering object-oriented design languages », in: Ws. on Language Descriptions,
Tools and Applications (LDTA), Genova, Italy, 2001.
 [Hållstrand1994] Hallstrand, J. and Martin, D., « Industrial requirements on a service
creation environment », in: Proc. of the 2nd Intl Conf. on Intelligence in Broadband
Services and Networks: Towards a Pan-European Telecommunication Service
Infrastructure, London, UK, p. 17– 25, 1994.
page 37 Chiprianov IDM 2011 Practical Meta-model Extension