Modeling with UML: Component and Deployment Diagrams

Component diagram

In Unified Modeling Language (UML), a component diagram depicts how components are wired together to form larger components or software systems. They are used to illustrate the structure of arbitrarily complex systems.

A component diagram allows verification that a system’s required functionality is acceptable. These diagrams are also used as a communication tool between the developer and stakeholders of the system. Programmers and developers use the diagrams to formalize a roadmap for the implementation, allowing for better decision-making about task assignment or needed skill improvements. System administrators can use component diagrams to plan ahead, using the view of the logical software components and their relationships on the system.

Diagram elements

The component diagram extends the information given in a component notation element. One way of illustrating the provided and required interfaces by the specified component is in the form of a rectangular compartment attached to the component element. Another accepted way of presenting the interfaces is to use the ball-and-socket graphic convention. A provided dependency from a component to an interface is illustrated with a solid line to the component using the interface from a “lollipop”, or ball, labeled with the name of the interface. A required usage dependency from a component to an interface is illustrated by a half-circle, or socket, labeled with the name of the interface, attached by a solid line to the component that requires this interface. Inherited interfaces may be shown with a lollipop, preceding the name label with a caret symbol. To illustrate dependencies between the two, use a solid line with a plain arrowhead joining the socket to the lollipop.

Deployment diagram

A deployment diagram in the Unified Modeling Language models the physical deployment of artifacts on nodes. To describe a web site, for example, a deployment diagram would show what hardware components (“nodes”) exist (e.g., a web server, an application server, and a database server), what software components (“artifacts”) run on each node (e.g., web application, database), and how the different pieces are connected (e.g. JDBC, REST, RMI).

The nodes appear as boxes, and the artifacts allocated to each node appear as rectangles within the boxes. Nodes may have subnodes, which appear as nested boxes. A single node in a deployment diagram may conceptually represent multiple physical nodes, such as a cluster of database servers.

There are two types of Nodes:

1. Device Node
2. Execution Environment Node

Device nodes are physical computing resources with processing memory and services to execute software, such as typical computers or mobile phones. An execution environment node (EEN) is a software computing resource that runs within an outer node and which itself provides a service to host and execute other executable software elements.