The Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) [Fra03] is an initiative by the Object Management Group (OMG) to define an approach to software development based on modeling and automated mapping of models to implementations. The basic MDA pattern involves defining a platformindependent model (PIM) and its automated mapping to one or more platform-specific models

Model transformations are touted to play a key role in Model Driven Developmente. Although well-established standards for creating metamodels such as the Meta-Object Facility exist, there is currently no mature foundation for specifying transformations among models. We propose a framework for the classification of several existing and proposed model transformation approaches. The classification framework is given as a feature model that makes explicit the different design choices for model transformations. Based on our analysis of model transformation approaches, we propose a few major categories in which most approaches fit.

We present a new approach to building secure systems. In our approach, which we call Model Driven Security, designers specify system models along with their security requirements and use tools to automatically generate system architectures from the models including complete, configured access control infrastructures. Rather than fixing one particular modeling language for this process, we propose a general schema for constructing such languages that combines languages for modeling systems with languages for modeling security. We present several instances of this schema that combine (both syntactically and semantically) different UML modeling languages with a security modeling language for formalizing access control requirements. From models in the combined languages, we automatically generate access control infrastructures for server-based applications, built from declarative and programmatic access control mechanisms. The modeling languages and generation process are semantically well-founded and are based on an extension of Role-Based Access Control. We have implemented this approach in a UML-based CASE-tool and report on experiments. 1

A testability transformation is a source-to-source transformation that aims to improve the ability of a given test generation method to generate test data for the original program. This paper

Like any piece of software, model transformations must be validated to ensure their usefulness for the intended application. Properties to be validated include syntactic correctness as well as general requirements such as termination and confluence (i.e., the existence of a unique result of the transformation for every valid input). This paper introduces the idea of systematic validation and then focusses on validation of syntactic correctness for rule-based model transformations.

The metamodel techniques and model transformation techniques provide a standard way to represent and transform data, especially the software artifacts in software development. However, after a transformation is applied, the source model and the target model usually co-exist and evolve independently. How to propagate modifications across models in different formats still remains as an open problem. In this paper we propose an automatic approach to synchronizing models that are related by model transformations. Given a unidirectional transformation between metamodels, we can automatically synchronize models in the metamodels by propagating modifications across the models. We have implemented a model synchronization system supporting the Atlas Transformation Language (ATL) and have successfully tested our implementation on several ATL transformation examples in the ATL web site.

A model refactoring is a model transformation that preservers some behavioral properties of a model. Equally important, a model refactoring should only affect a previously chosen subset of the source model. In this paper, we discuss how to define and execute model refactorings as rule-based transformations. We also present an experimental tool to execute these transformations.

The OMG’s Model-Driven Architecture is quickly attracting attention as a method of constructing systems that offers advantages over traditional approaches in terms of reliability, consistency, and maintainability. The key concepts in the MDA are models that are related by model transformations. However, for the MDA to provide an adequate alternative to existing approaches, it must offer comparable support for software engineering processes such as requirements analysis, design and testing. This paper attempts to explore the application of the last of these processes, testing, to the most novel part of the MDA, that of model transformation. We present a general view of the roles of testing in the different stages of model-driven development, and a more detailed exploration of approaches to testing model transformations. Based on this, we highlight the particular issues for the different testing tasks, including adequacy criteria, test oracles and automatic test data generation. We also propose possible approaches for the testing tasks, and show how existing functional and structural testing techniques can be adapted for use in this new development context. 1

Model transformations are increasingly recognised as being of significant importance to many areas of software development and integration. Recent attention on model transformations has particularly focused on the OMG's Queries / Views / Transformations (QVT) Request for Proposals (RFP). In this paper I motivate the need for dedicated approaches to model transformations, particularly for the data involved in tool integration, outline the challenges involved, and then present a number of technologies and techniques which allow the construction of flexible, powerful and practical model transformations.

these concepts related? It is striking to see that, though MDE is supposed to be about precise modelling, MDE core concepts are usually described in natural language or at best, using sketchy "à-la " UML diagrams. These diagrams are very often inconsistent and too vague to reason about. Most of the time, they are neither validated, not even used by their authors. When precise descriptions are provided, it is only to describe a