Tool Mentor: Documenting the Process View

Purpose

This tool mentor describes how to represent the Process View and related artifacts in Rational Rose®.

Related Rational Unified Process Activities: Describe the Run-time Architecture

Overview

The following is a summary of steps that you perform to manage the Process View:

1. Creating the Process View in the Logical View

You represent the Process View by creating a package within the Logical View and naming it "Process View".

2. Representing Processes using 'Active Classes' in the Process Model

The UML represents processes and threads as Active Classes in the Process View. You create an active class in the Process View by creating a class and assigning it a stereotype of either <process> or <thread>.

3. Representing Process and Thread Life-cycles

You use Sequence Diagrams to represent process and thread life-cycles. Each process or thread should appear in the sequence diagrams that create and destroy it. In addition, it is useful to illustrate complex inter-process and inter-thread communication using additional sequence diagrams. These sequence diagrams should be organized with the Use Case Realization in which the behavior occurs.

When you create your sequence diagrams and the objects in them, consider a labeling convention where you show the initiator of the first message as the interface itself.

For more information about sequence diagrams, see the Sequence Diagrams (Overview) topic in the Rational Rose online help.

4. Allocating Classes to Processes and Threads

Classes and subsystems may be allocated to one or more processes and threads. Processes and threads are composed-of instances of classes and subsystems. To show this allocation, you create class diagrams that model the processes and threads as active classes. Use aggregation relationships to show the composition of the active classes. When you create the aggregation relationships use the Aggregation Specification to set the By Value containment for Role A.

Rational Unified Process