Enterprise Architect
Function overview
Enterprise Architect in a nutshell
Enterprise Architect (EA) is a comprehensive, stable and high-performance UML analysis and design tool. EA supports the modelling of all models specified in UML 2.5. In addition, EA offers further features to support the software development process, such as the collection of requirements and the creation of test and maintenance models. Enterprise Architect is a multi-user, Windows-based, graphical tool that supports you in creating robust and maintainable software. All models and diagrams created can be easily and conveniently transferred to documentation in various ways. The very comprehensive manual is included in the scope of delivery in English. We also offer training documents in German.
UML (Unified Modelling Language) is a language for describing various systems (mostly software systems) and helps to create consistent and comprehensible models of your system. Enterprise Architect provides a user-friendly and flexible modelling environment.
To get a first impression of the capabilities of Enterprise Architect, try the 30-day limited trial version.
Efficient project management
Project managers are able to use Enterprise Architect to:
- Allocate resources to elements
- Measure risk and effort
- Estimate project size and complexity
- Implement change control and maintenance
The Use Case Metrics feature in Enterprise Architect makes it easy to assess the relative complexity of the project in terms of the number and type of use cases within the model, the nature of the project, and the capabilities of the development environment.
With experience, use case metrics provide a very good way to quickly assess the scope of a project.
High-quality modelling
Enterprise Architect provides complete lifecycle modelling for:
- Business and IT systems
- Software and systems engineering
- Real-time and embedded development
With its integrated requirements management capabilities, Enterprise Architect helps you track high-level specifications to analyse, design, implement, test and maintain models using UML, SysML, BPMN and other open standards.
Enterprise Architect is a multi-user graphical tool designed to help your teams build robust and maintainable systems.
With high-quality, integrated reporting and documentation, you can deliver a truly shared vision easily and accurately.
Speed, stability and performance
Enterprise Architect users agree – Enterprise Architect is a spectacularly fast performer, loading extremely large models in seconds. Equipped with a high performance model repository, Enterprise Architect is easily deployed across large teams that share the same view of the business.
With tightly integrated version control capabilities, Enterprise Architect also enables globally distributed teams to collaborate effectively on joint projects.
End-to-End Traceability
Enterprise Architect provides complete traceability from requirements, analysis and design models through to implementation and deployment. Effective verification, validation and immediate impact analysis are possible throughout the lifecycle by utilising capabilities such as Enterprise Architect’s relationship matrix and hierarchy view.
Combined with integrated task and resource allocation, project managers and QA teams are equipped with the right information to deliver projects successfully.
Modelling, managing and tracing requirements
Capture and track formal requirements for design, build, deployment/deployment, and beyond.
Use impact analysis to trace proposed changes to the original requirements.
Enterprise Architect’s in-built requirements management capabilities can be used to:
- define an organised, hierarchical model of the requirements
- Trace the implementation of the system requirements to the model elements
- Search for requirements and create reports
- Analyse the impact of the proposed changes on the requirements
Manage complexity
Enterprise Architect helps individuals, groups and large organisations to model and manage complex information.
By integrating and connecting a variety of structural and behavioural information in visual form, you can build a coherent, verifiable model of what-is or what-will-be.
In-built tools to help you manage complexity:
- Diagrams for modelling concepts at strategic and business level
- Domain-specific profiles and reusable model patterns
- Baseline and version management for traceability and integration of changes
- Role-based security helps the right people get involved in the right way
Powerful document creation
Enterprise Architect offers powerful document creation and reporting tools with a full WYSIWYG editor. Templates now support headers/footers, table of contents, embedded images, title pages, complex nested tables and much more. Generate detailed reports with the information you need, in the format your company or client requires. With the click of a button, automatically create an HTML version of your model for easy distribution over your organisation’s internet or intranet.
Create documents
Flexible output options with filters and selection criteria. Word-compatible documentation for post-processing and linking in Word Master Documents. HTML report generator for creating detailed HTML reports Rich text documents can be linked to model elements and edited directly using the integrated rich text editor: Maintain document fragments with model scripts, SQL queries or filters, save and reuse document fragments.
Generation and reverse engineering of source code
Enterprise Architect supports the generation and reverse engineering of source code for many common languages, including:
ActionScript, Ada, C and C++, C#, Visual Basic, PHP, Verilog, Java, System C, VHDL, Python, Delphi, VB.Net and many more.
With the integrated source code editor, you can quickly navigate from the model directly into the source code in the same environment. The tight integration for Eclipse and Visual Studio . NET, developers have direct access to modelling functions directly from the IDE. Code generation templates allow you to generate source code according to your organisation’s specifications.
Visualise your applications
Enterprise Architect helps you visualise your applications by supporting reverse-engineering of a wide range of software development languages and database schemas.
Bring in complete frameworks and legacy systems from source code, JAR files or even .Net binary assemblies.
By importing frameworks and library code, you can maximise the reuse and understanding of your existing investments.
Advanced model-driven architecture
Enterprise Architect supports Model Driven Architecture (MDA) transformations with easily customisable and self-created templates.
With built-in transformations for:
C#, DDL, EJB, Java, JUnit, NUnit, WSDL, XSD
you can quickly develop detailed solutions from abstract models.
A single Platform Independent Model (PIM) can lead to the generation of multi-platform solutions for specific target groups – a significant increase in productivity.
Debugging, compiling and visualising executable code
Enterprise Architect allows you to create, test, debug, launch and execute deployment scripts – all from within the Enterprise Architect development environment.
With the ability to generate NUnit and JUnit test classes via MDA transformations from source classes, and integrate test processes directly into the Enterprise Architect IDE, you can now integrate UML modelling into the build/test/run/deploy process.
In addition to build/test and run, Enterprise Architect includes debugging capabilities for Java, . NET and Microsoft Native (C++, C and VB).
The in-built debuggers are specifically designed to allow the developer or tester to capture stack trace information as they ‘walk through’ the execution of code.
They can then use the final stack trace history to generate sequence diagrams in Enterprise Architect, converting the actual execution of the code into visual diagrams.
Automation options
The Automation Interface gives you access to models in Enterprise Architect.
Some examples of tasks that you could perform via the Automation Interface:
- Automatically creating and publishing a daily HTML report on your local intranet
- Scripting recurring tasks, such as changing properties for all model elements
- Generate code from a state machine or diagram
- Create customised reports
- Execute ad-hoc queries of the model
Any development environment that generates ActiveX COM clients can be used to connect to the Enterprise Architect automation interface.
Powerful database modelling
Enterprise Architect’s built-in data modelling profile extends UML to provide an intuitive mapping from database concepts such as tables and relationships to the concepts of UML classes and associations.
These extensions also allow you to model keys, triggers, constraints, and other relational database features.
Enterprise Architect supports the modelling of database schemas and the automatic generation of DDL scripts for eleven DBMS Objectives:powerful database modelling
• InterBase • DB2
• Informix • MySQL
• MS Access • Ingres
• Oracle • PostgreSQL
• MS SQL Server • Firebird
• Sybase ASE, ASA
System-Engineering and Simulation
The Ultimate and Systems Engineering editions of Enterprise Architect offer support for many high-end functions for system engineers through the integration of:
- SysML
- Parametric model simulation
- Executable code generation
- Model to code transformations for hardware description languages and ADA 2005
Business process modelling
There are many approaches that use UML as the underlying modelling language for business process modelling (BPMN). In particular, activity and object diagrams and custom profiles provide powerful modelling approaches for business analysts.
Enterprise Architect complements UML with BPMN support and advanced elements for analysis, requirements management and process management (e.g. change, feature and problem elements).
With Enterprise Architect’s business process modelling capabilities you can:
- Visualise business processes with a UML profile for BPMN
- Create executable BPEL scripts from BPMN models
- Perform validation of BPMN models
Full UML 2.5 support for all 14 diagrams
Behavioural diagrams include: Use Case, Activity, State, Interaction Overview, Sequence and Communication Structural diagrams include: Package, Class, Object, Composite, Component and Deployment.
The foundations of Enterprise Architect are built on the UML 2.x specification. Use UML profiles to extend the modelling domain, while model validation continues to ensure integrity.
Combine business processes, information and process flows into a single model with our free extensions for BPMN and the Eriksson-Penker profile.
Automation interface for scripting and writing your own plug-ins
Highly detailed automation interface with access to most element features and corresponding information. Most properties can be fully described using the automation client.
WSDL Engineering Support
Dedicated profile for WSDL to simplify the development of web services using UML. Convert simple models into XSD models using MDA transformations in order to generate XSD for the file.
Visual Execution Analysis
Testpoint Management offers the option of handing over application tasks. The test results can be viewed in real time while the programme is being executed. Results are saved and the behaviour is saved as a sequence diagram.
Enterprise Architect – UML tool for analysis, design and implementation
Object-orientated software development is much more than just drawing class diagrams. Enterprise Architect is the right UML tool for analysis, design and implementation.
Life-Cycle Software Design covers the entire development cycle:
Process analysis, system requirements, models for dynamic processes, components and their installation, project management, user interface design, testing, maintenance, etc.
With Enterprise Architect, requirements, analysis and design elements can be described easily and comprehensibly from an analysis model to the implementation and distribution model. By allocating resources to models, project managers and QA managers can track the status of projects in order to achieve the planned project goal at the desired time.
For change requests and the definition of tests, Enterprise Architect supports you in anchoring the planned change requests in the model. Reports can now be generated automatically based on this.
Manage complexity
Enterprise Architect helps you manage the complexity of your projects; by tracking dependency relationships, supporting very large models, versioning models in CVS or SCC, baselines to save a project snapshot, comparison functions to track changes in models, intuitive and easy to use menus to browse models.
Enterprise Architect has a powerful generator for creating documentation with a WYSIWYG template editor. This allows you to create complex and detailed documentation of your models with the formatting of your company or your customers.
Enterprise Architect supports the generation of source code from class diagrams for many common programming languages such as C, C++, C#, Java, Delphi, VB.Net, Visual Basic, ActionScript and PHP. With a freely available add-in, you can also create CORBA code. Enterprise Architect also provides its own source code editor with syntax highlighting. This allows you to view the generated code at the touch of a button. For users working with Eclipse or Visual Studio .NET, SparxSystems CE offers an integration to create, edit and generate code from EA models directly in their favourite IDE. This integration allows you to create and view all diagrams without having to start EA. Code generation templates allow you to customise the generated code to your company’s specific needs.
Enterprise Architect supports you in reverse engineering existing code and databases to obtain a graphical representation of your applications. The functionality to import binary code (.jar, .NET exe, .NET IL) allows you to import framework and library code to better understand and reuse these models. Enterprise Architect also offers the option of model-to-model transformation in order to realise Model Driven Architecture (MDA).
Predefined transformations are available for the following platforms: DDL, Java, C#, EJB, JUnit, NUnit, WSDL, XSD. This allows you to generate and synchronise various platform-specific models (PSM) from a platform-independent model (PIM).
Start Modelling
Our basic eLearning training ‘Start Modelling with Enterprise Architect’ offers you the perfect introduction to modelling. The training ends with a two-hour online Q&A session.
