Is there a language to define (state) the generic structure of systems? (E.g., all systems at our company must have a certain structure...)

Question

re: Is there a language to define (state) the generic structure of systems? (E.g., all systems at a company must have a certain structure...)

A dumb question perhaps… So far, I have used the UML / SysML graphic modeling language to model (define ?) ‘actual’ SW object structures / systems.

But what if I want to define (make a statement of definition of) a generic system structure?

E.g., I want to define that all systems at my company must comprise one “system” object, where “system” comprises one or more “subsystem” objects. And so on…

Can I do that in UML or SysML? UML or SysML does not seem appropriate (because they immediately label everything as a class or a block).

Maybe there is a different language for that? (Last time I needed to do something like this, I used Visio…)

Maybe that I need the Entity Relationship Language?

Thanks Avi

Answer 1

This is what a composite structure diagram or internal block diagram is for! Such a diagram defines more-specific types for properties that refer to things that must be connected in a particular way.