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Background


Object-oriented analysis is a well-known and popular technique for understanding a problem and analyzing a system. There are many different versions of object-oriented analysis published as different methods in various books. The Object Management Group (OMG) has agreed upon a standard language for object-oriented methods and tools - the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and its notation ([37], [38]).

SDL [24] and MSC [26], on the other hand, are standardized notations used for specification and design of systems. They have a solid foundation in terms of support for design, formal verification and code generation. Especially for distributed, reactive, real-time applications SDL and MSC has a successful track record.

The scope of this volume is to present a method that integrates object-oriented analysis and SDL design with a special focus on application areas where SDL is known to be suitable. The intention is of course to provide developers with the best of both worlds: The strength of the object oriented analysis in the early phases together with the strong back-end provided by SDL and SDL tools.

The method has been given the name SOMT (short for SDL-oriented Object Modeling Technique). As the name indicates the method is essentially an adaptation of OMT to the requirements given by the special application area of distributed, reactive, real-time systems together with the usage of SDL for the design.

Another object-oriented analysis method that has provided input to SOMT is the Objectory method by Jacobsson [19]. In particular, the idea of use cases that originated from this method has been incorporated into SOMT.

A special focus of SOMT is to provide solutions that can be directly applied in a development project. For instance, it provides guidelines about how to apply OMT in a way that enables a smooth transition between analysis and design.

The volume is focused on how to use the different notations and concepts of object-oriented analysis and SDL and does not provide a detailed description on the specific notations. It is therefore recommended that you are at least reasonably familiar with both the general concepts of object-oriented analysis, the OMT notation and SDL before reading this report. [21] is a good introduction to the OMT notation and there exist several text books on SDL, for example [27].

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