A comparative study of UML modeling tools

Abstract

This article characterizes the environment of CASE modeling tools, especially those that are supported by UML, a specification language for object oriented modeling. The different aspects of UML modeling tools were classified in four groups: (a) Procedure approach, which describes the support of the tool to the process (b) Support to architectonic modeling, which analyzes the degree of support of the tool for the definintion of the architecture of the system, (c) Repository support, which describes the way the tool supports the services of storage, exchange, and element recovery and (d) Functional approach, which groups the desired characteristics of this type of tool. Five of the most well known UML modeling tools were chosen (ArgoUML, Rational Rose, WithClass, Together and Poseidon) with the purpose of validating in them the application of the concepts. The analysis is complemented with the characterization of AR2CA, a tool that is currently under development by the Software Engineering Group of Universidad EAFIT.