Model-Driven Applications
Using Model-Driven Mechanism to Bridge the Gap between Business and IT
1
Tong-Ying Yu
Independent Consultant, China
Abstract. How to bridge the gap between business and information technology (IT) has always been a
critical issue for both the developers and IT managers. The individualized, differentiated demands by
different customers and situations, the constantly changing in both business and IT are great challenges to
the applications for enterprises. In this chapter, we respectively discuss the problems from the left side
(computer) in software engineering, with object-orientation (OO), model-driven engineering (MDE),
domain-driven development (DDD), Agile, etc., and the right side (the real world) in enterprise engineering
(EE) with enterprise modeling (EM) and enterprise architecture (EA), of the gap. It is shown there are some
fundamental problems, such as the transforming barrier between analysis and design model, the
entanglement of business change and development process, and the limitation to the enterprise engineering
approaches such as EA by IT. Our solution is concentrated on the middle, the inevitable model as a
mediator between human, computer and the real world. We introduce model-driven application (MDApp)
which is based on model-driven mechanism (MDM), operated on the evolutionary model of the target thing
at runtime; it is able to largely avoid the transforming barrier and remove the entanglement. Thus, the
architecture for enterprise model driven application (EMDA) is emerged, which is able to strongly support
EE and adapts to the business changing at runtime.
1 INTRODUCTION
The context of this chapter is the applications of information technology (IT), mainly, the software which
supports the comprehensive operations (business and management) of an enterprise
i
, i.e., the
“applications for enterprises” or “enterprise (business) applications”; another conventional name is
information system (IS). For many software developers, “enterprise applications” means a series of
technical characteristics, but our focus on the demand, the applying targets and objectives, the
environment, as well as the openness and collaboration between computers and humans, in particular the
essential functional requirements including the adaptation to business changing.
IT and the applying enterprise / business are mutually independent fields, which have its own ecosystem,
though IT should always services business in our context. It is not surprising that, there is an innate gap
between them which can be appeared in anywhere the IT needs to be aligned with the business; this is the
basic issue we must face. Empirically, the biggest challenges to enterprise applications come from the
differences and changes in the demands, also the running environment and the IT itself. First, there are
some conflicts between the different needs from different customers, different situations, and developer’s
pursuit to generic a solution; the latter is also a factor what makes the product to be bloated and
complicated. Second, the uncertainty, constant and rapid changing of business requires the application
system has higher flexibility and capability to evolve in runtime; this is a huge challenge to the existing
software techniques. Third, IT itself is one of the most complex and rapid changing fields, which leads to
an increasing requirements to the maintenance, governance, and the adaptation to the operating
environment. Furthermore, in such the applying context, the problems that require solving by the
application system is open; this will make a significant impact on the development and the whole life
cycle of the application. Moreover, between the business and IT camps, and also the different roles in
various phases, there are always the problems to the communication and understanding with the different
1
This is author’s final manuscript of the chapter accepted with Progressions and Innovations in Model-Driven Software
Engineering, Díaz, V.G., et al. (Eds.), IGI Global, 2013 (in press). For you personal study and review only.
Yu, T.-Y. (2013-08). Model-driven applications: Using model-driven mechanism to bridge the gap between business and IT. In Díaz, V. et al. eds, Advances
and Application in Model-Driven Software Engineering, ch. 3, pp. 53-72, IGI Global. https://thinkinmodels.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/yu2013-mdapp.pdf
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