SE 3140

SYSTEM DESIGN AND

MODELING

Prepared by: Dams Gabriel Fall 2021

ICT University
 CHAPTER 1:
Introduction to
Software Modeling

SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 2

 Topics Overview
• Understanding basic modeling terms
– Software Design Methods
• Software Process
– Software Model
– Software Architecture
– Software Design
• Why Modeling is Necessary?
• The Need for Model
• Impact of Software Fault
– Software design issues
• Overview of object-oriented analysis
and design with UML
SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 3
 Understanding Basic Terms
• Components that makes up a software
design method
Software Design Methods

Software Model

Software
Software Process
Architecture

Software Design

SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 4

 Understanding Basic Terms Contd..
• What is a software model?
– Abstractions that allows representation of various
layers of complex information regarding our
software.

– It can be anything that uses abstraction to capture

pieces of a software.

– The models are used to create the software

architecture.

• Modeling tool to be used

– Microsoft PowerPoint
– Microsoft Visio
– Unified Modeling Language
SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 5
 Understanding Basic Terms Contd..
• Why UML?
– It is more than just a diagram (unlike
PowerPoint engineering or using Visio)

– Structured Models have the graphical

elements and a well-defined semantics to go
with it.

– It combines the visuals and some sort of

specifications at the backend

SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 6

 Understanding Basic Terms Contd..
• What is Software Architecture?

– It is the overall structure of software system

in terms of components and connections.

– Basically, it captures the components and the

connections of the software

– The components and connections helps to

enforce design decisions that are made at the
lower level

SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 7

 Understanding Basic Terms Contd..
• What is Software Design?

– Activities involved in conceptualizing, framing,

implementing, commissioning, and ultimately
modifying complex systems

– Activities following requirements

specification and before programming.

– Describes the overall architecture and

blueprint of software to be constructed.

SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 8

 Understanding Basic Terms Contd..
• What is Software Design
– One of the main components of software design
is the software requirements analysis (SRA).
• SRA is a part of the software development process
that lists specifications used in software engineering

– Two forms of Software Design

1. Process
– sequence of steps that enables the designer to describe
all aspects of the software for building
2. Model
– blueprint of software to be constructed (usually what is
given to developers to write the code)

SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 9

 Understanding Basic Terms Contd..
• What is a Software Process?

– How do you know when to create/design

software?

– Activities for designing, implementing, and

testing a software system

– It is a lifecycle approach to development.

– It tells us the flow of activities in the software

development. Is it waterfall, iterative etc.?

SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 10

 Understanding Basic Terms Contd..
• What is a Software Process?
– representation of the order of activities of
the process and the sequence in which they are
performed.

– To provide guidance for controlling and

coordinating the tasks to achieve the end
product and objectives as effectively as
possible.

– It helps us to organize our project

– lifecycle process controls the flow of activities

SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 11
 Understanding Basic Terms Contd..
• What is a Software Design Method?

– This is usually documented in a software

document plan (SDP) before starting a
software development project.

– The combination of the lifecycle process

model with design/modeling guidelines for
clear guidance on which artifacts should be
produced.

– Also provides heuristics for how to develop

and evaluate artifact
SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 12
 Why is Modeling Necessary?
• Why don’t we consider some basic
requirements and then go straight to
programming?

• Programming in the small is no longer

feasible for most application.

• Software size is increasing exponentially

SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 13

 Why is Modeling Necessary?
• Example from Windows OS
Year Operating System SLOC
(OS) (Million)
1993 Windows NT 3.1 >4
1994 Windows NT 3.5 >7
1996 Windows NT 4.0 >11
2000 Windows 2000 >29
2001 Windows XP >45
2003 Windows Server 2003 50
Current Windows Multi-million

• The example makes abstraction essential

so as to contain the complexity
SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 14
 Why is Modeling Necessary?
• Most problems with software systems
occur when different pieces have to
interact.

• Still a poorly understood problem

• Problems are often discovered late with

great cost.

• Often leads to performance issues too

SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 15
 The Need for Models
• A model is an abstraction, representing
varying layers and views of complex
information.
– Standard practice in nearly every engineering
discipline.

• Model helps us
– Organize
– Communicate
– Reason
– Analyze our system.
SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 16
 The Need for Models
• We use models to develop large scale
systems, organize them into manageable
pieces and to communicate what we are
building to our customers.

• With the models, we will reason and

analyze the systems we are building
before we begin writing a line of code.

SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 17

 The Need for Models
• We could analyze how the system will
work by simulating the execution before
writing the code.

• We can see the performance

characteristics to get out of the system.

• It is easier and cheaper to fix errors in

software design level models than to fix
things when coding
SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 18
 Impact of Software Fault

• Key:
• Where faults are introduced
• Where faults are found
• Estimated cost factor for fault removal
SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 19
 Impact of Software Fault

SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 20

 Impact of Software Fault
• Basically the model is the primary
software engineering artifact at this
point.

• Model-based software engineering

approaches provide a consistent, unified
model supporting analysis from the
earliest stages of the software
engineering lifecycle.

SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 21

 Unified Modeling Language (UML)
• UML is the standard modeling language for
object-oriented software designs.

• (Just as Java or C++ is the programming

language used for implementing your
software in programming, so is UML used
for building a software design and
implemented in a programming language
that is object-oriented.

• That implies that UML is considered to be

an object-oriented modeling language.
SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 22
 Unified Modeling Language (UML)
• UML is essentially the de-facto
standard for software model in the
world.

• It is controlled by the object

management group (OMG)
– Version 1.x – deprecated – lax semantics
– Version 2.x – most UML tools support this
version – stronger semantics

SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 23

 Unified Modeling Language (UML)
• Provides three basic types of models:

1. Use Case Models (Requirement oriented

models)

2. Static Models (complementary set of design

models)

3. Dynamic Models

• The three models represents different

viewpoints of the model
SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 24
 Unified Modeling Language (UML)
• Use Case Models
– Captures the requirements of a system.

– Captures outside view of a system.

– Identify the external and internal factors

influencing the system.

– Show the interaction among the requirements.

– It is the overall big picture of the

requirements and what the system has to do.
SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 25
 Unified Modeling Language (UML)
• Static Models
– It tells us what information we have in the
system and what a sub-system needs to know
about another sub-system.

– Captures basic structure and static elements

such as:
• what type of classes do we have in the system
• what information do we have in the classes
• what do the classes need to know about each other
etc.

SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 26

 Unified Modeling Language (UML)
• Dynamic Models
– It tells us how things work in response to
generating events coming into the system.

– Captures behavioral elements (how the system

works). It will use the classes defined in the
static models to create instances of those
classes called object.

– It will show how the objects will communicate

back and forth to satisfy the use cases

SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 27

 Q&A

SE 3140 - System Design and Modelling Prepared by Dams G. L. Chapter 1: Slide 28