Exercise 20-part8

H. Deployment diagram

I learn the deployment diagram from sparxsystems (2009) web site

H1. Scope of deployment diagram

A deployment diagram models the run-time architecture of a system. It shows the configuration of the hardware elements (nodes) and shows how software elements and artifacts are mapped onto those nodes.

H2. Elements of deployment diagram

• Node - A Node is either a hardware or software element. It is shown as a three-dimensional box shape. (See figure 1.)

Figure 1. Node symbol of deployment diagram.

• Node Instance - A node instance can be shown on a diagram. An instance can be distinguished from a node by the fact that its name is underlined and has a colon before its base node type. An instance may or may not have a name before the colon. The figure 2 which shows a named instance of a computer.

Figure 2. Node Instance symbol of deployment diagram.

• Node Stereotypes - A number of standard stereotypes are provided for nodes, namely «cdrom», «cd-rom», «computer», «disk array», «pc», «pc client», «pc server», «secure», «server», «storage», «unix server», «user pc». These will display an appropriate icon in the top right corner of the node symbol. (See figure 3.)

Figure 3. Node Stereotypes symbol of deployment diagram.

• Artifact - An artifact is a product of the software development process. That may include process models (e.g. use case models, design models etc), source files, executables, design documents, test reports, prototypes, user manuals, etc.
  An artifact is denoted by a rectangle showing the artifact name, the «artifact» keyword and a document icon(See figure 4.).

Figure 4. Artifact symbol of deployment diagram.

• Association - In the context of a deployment diagram, an association represents a communication path between nodes. The following diagram shows a deployment diagram for a network, depicting network protocols as stereotypes, and multiplicities at the association ends. (See figure 5.)

Figure 5. Association symbol of deployment diagram.

• Node as Container - A node can contain other elements, such as components or artifacts. The following diagram shows a deployment diagram for part of an embedded system, depicting an executable artifact as being contained by the motherboard node. (See figure 6.)

Figure 6. Node as Container symbol of deployment diagram.

References:

Sparxsystems (2009). "UML 2 Deployment Diagram". Received 5th May, 2009 from URL -http://www.sparxsystems.com.au/resources/uml2_tutorial/uml2_deploymentdiagram.html