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LGASE Tools Stron

H € evolve from the planning phase to con-
' Im this, the

V tional character'! | available. Keep in mind the following:

istics you should. e Some CASE tools support: only analy:
look for in these '.; sis and design components and do not
tools. A, contain business:planning, ot; strategic-
Perhaps the ' planning components." )/i; 0. |
v best way to dis- 6 Some are code generatorš with sepa:
cuss the life cy- rate planning, analysis or design tools.
| de of an ICASE -

6 Some analysis and design. tool kits
| have a process-oriented view of develop-
ment with no data-modeling capability.

tool is to resort
z toan illustration.
zati s As you see,
we've chosen a pyramid. < si
'The life-eycle process, as the pyramid
shows, consists of four phases: strategy: '.
planning, analysis, design and construc- ai
tion. You'l notice that the figure depicts
a fully integrated development, method:'" '
ology, supporting all phases of the life,
cycle process. ; seb:
At the top is strategic planning, which''
encompasses the business strategic plan-'''
| ning functions that are the foundation"
for subseguent phases of the develop-''
ment process. The next level is analysis, '
wherein a model is built of the funda-"'
mental data and the processes needed toj
run the particular enterprise. From this v!
analysis the systems need is deter- Yi
mined. The third level is design with "€;
CASE tools. Designs are expressed in rig-",
orous, complete detail. The bottom level
is construction, where systems are actui! |
ally built. čis iN ibiei st S ii li
On the left side of the pyramid is
data; on the right are activities (or p
cesses). Both data and activities are'"
managed from a highlevel, manage'
ment-oriented view at the top through '
to implementation at the bottom.
At the strategic level on the data sid
an overview of the information needed

Levels of
Data

entity-relationship diagram. At the data.
analysis level, this is extended into a''

overview model of the enterprise is cre''' '':
ated, and planning tools are used to re: /
oe age problems, critical success peči
so on to the functions in the -

enterprise. At the analysis level, a model: ; CASE tools,
of the processes is created and linked to

model "et iso! Sodupeš«
- At the design level, specifications for
procedures are created and filled out in "'
K sufficent detall to drive a code gener: vi, ri.)

bina Te ea EN VA OE A

|| "Tools reguired at tnis level include

|
[P RPELJED INTELIGENCE

N APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT

ngly Aflect

/ tools and the generator, so that code is

' " struction, with the knowledge acguired |
fifth of six col- | in one phase being used in;the next
umns on I-GASE , phase. There also should be'h seamless
technology, we''' : interface between the phases.

| look at the func- A wide variety of CASE tools are

Integrated CASE Life-Cycle Process

are used for the four
|! Specification of applications should. evolve wi
4 h P h with the

vy tools pen CASE tools are listed below.

- Remember: A tool
ampk SA 1 should not be re-

FEBRUARY 6, 1989

l
]

|

the Development Cycle

tegration; between the CASE front-end e Enable the user to employ multiple
types of diagrams representing different
facets of an analysis or design.
H e Enable the user to draw program pro-
| cedures with diagrams, showing condi-
i tions, loops, case structures and other
constructs of structured programming.
e Enforce structured modeling and de-
sign of a type that enables accuracy and
consistency checks to be as complete as
possible.
e Coordinate the information on multi-
ple diagrams, checking that they are
consistent, have accuracy and integrity
and are complete.
e Store the information built up at
workstations in a central repository
shared by all analysts and designers.
e Coordinate the information in the cen-
tral repository, ensuring consistency
among the work of all analysts and de-
signers. :

Characteristics of ICASE Too:
CASE tools provide a much higher
level of component integration than ba-

sic CASE products. The activities of
planning, analysis, design and construc-
tion are supported by separate and dis-
tinct workbench tools. These work-
benches are fully integrated so that one
workbench directly employs the infor:
mation from another.

A code generator is fully integrated
with the design workbench (as opposed
to having a bridge to a separate code
generator with its own separate syn-
tax). The code generator utilizes the
same encyclopedia as the front-end
planning, analysis and design com-
ponents.

The code generator employs the facili-
ties of reguisite operating systems and
database-management systems, including
the data dictionary. It automatically
generates the reguired database state-
ments and job-control language. The out-
put of the generator may be fed into an
optimizer, which adjusts the code and
database accesses to give optimal ma-
chine performance. Thorough documen-
Še tation is generated automatically.

H David Hamum 'The components of an I-CASE tool

( support all phases of the project life cy-

: ž ge m VE aaa manner. In addition,
H it provides

stages of IS development. enterprisewide planning, data modeling

and process modeling to create a frame-

work that fits many different types of

project life cycles. These powerful facili-

j ties permit I'CASE tool kits to be uti:

| lized for corporatewide information-engi-

s pozje soplacena as opposed to

pojeta software-engineering appli-

Next week, we'll discuss the im
ment in productivity that can be TESEN
ized with the use of CASE tools. 8

automatically generated from the front:
end tools (' )

Integration Is Key
The term I-CASE should be used only
to deseribe products that are fully inte-
grated and that support all parts of the
pyramid./This implies that the front-end
tools and the back-end code genetator
use the same eneyclopedia. A common
eneyclopedia should be used to generate
program icode, database code, dočumen-
tation and project-management infor-
mation. | k

Levels of
Activities

igh to construction.
characteristics of GASE

as CASE if it does not
basic functions: pam

The James Martin Productivity Series,
an information service a ti guar-
terly, is available a High Pro-
Software Inc., of Marble-
head, Mass. 1-(800) 2421240. For. in-

(in te alba Sita God Cosi,

|
inology Transfer Institute, 741 |
t

| 10th St, Santa M:
(219) BORBO Tn ro o ca
a a aaa
ja enih United Ki (0524) 734