Duration: 36:54

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An important question that typically needs to be answered by decision makers when selecting a modeling technology/tool is: UML or DSML?

With the release of Papyrus 1.0 last June as part of Eclipse Luna, we can now state that this question is no longer a primary concern as we can now have the best of both worlds. Papyrus 1.0 is a UML-based tool, which provides complete UML2 support, that provides for advanced DSML capabilities. As a UML-based tool, Papyrus 1.0 provides all of the key advantages associated with the fact that UML is an open standard (that resulted from the collaboration of top technology experts) supported by a large community of end-users, researchers, and suppliers. This allows reducing risks and costs, ensuring long-term evolution and viability, and reducing dependency towards a specific vendor (no vendor lock-in!). At he same time, Papyrus 1.0 also provides advanced DSML capabilities that can be used to customize the modeling language (for specific application domains), the tool environment (pallets, menus, and wizards), and workflows. This allows improving overall usability, reducing tool learning curve, and improving overall user productivity. As a result, Papyrus 1.0 constitutes a major step forward in modeling tool technologies which will contribute to position the Eclipse modeling solution as a leading-edge solution for the development of advanced DSML's in companies like Ericsson.

In the last year, Papyrus has been used at Ericsson to develop a domain-specific tool for Network Architecture Modeling, called NWA DSL. This tool is currently being actively used by a group of Ericsson network architects to document and evolve the target network architecture. In this talk, we will discuss why UML is important for Ericsson, show how the advanced DSML capabilities of Papyrus 1.0 have been used to customize the modeling language, the tool environment (pallets, menus, and wizards), and workflows, and discuss how we plan to leverage UML and the important body of work developed by the UML community over the years to evolve the NWA DSL. Among other things, it will allow leveraging evolutions of Papyrus capabilities regarding a broad range of UML-based technologies, as they are being developed and integrated, to support key aspects, such as advanced model validation, model and tool integrations, deployment analysis and validation, architectural exploration, and variation points and product line management. During this talk, we will also discuss the lessons learned through the development of the NWA DSL and discuss how those lessons will contribute to the definition of new domain-specific customizations of Papyrus and to improve the Papyrus technology.

Presenter: Ulf Olsson [Ericsson AB], Toni Siljamäki [Ericsson AB]