Fundamental Modeling Concepts: Effective Communication of IT Systems

A must–have book for systems analysts, architects and managers interested in enhancing successful communication in their organisation.

• Provides detailed examples of how to understand and implement ‘fundamental modeling concepts‘ for IT–systems communication
• Provides an already successfully implemented model that has been used at: Siemens, Alcatel, SAP and others
• Benefits from extensive theoretical and practical research
• Provides guidelines on how ‘fundamental modeling concepts‘ can be used to support UML, OO, MDA and Architectural Patterns

From the back cover:

To develop information processing systems requires effective and efficient communication between many people. In order to understand requirements and design decisions, there is a need for a common conceptual model of the system: one that represents the architecture of the system. Communication between experts from different domains requires a common terminology and notation that is easy to apply.

This is where Fundamental Modeling Concepts (FMC) steps in. Primarily FMC is a consistent and coherent way to think and talk about information processing systems. It enables people to communicate the concepts and structures of complex information systems in an efficient way.

FMC provides you with a powerful tool for the early stages of system analysis and design. It is independent of any application domain or platform technology. It can be applied to business systems, to embedded systems or interactive systems, to systems which are implemented by programming computer systems, to wiring hardware components, to organizing the workflow between humans or to combined solutions.

Starting from a simple example, you will become familiar with the different types of system structures and their graphical representation. The authors‘ unique approach presents mappings between conceptual and implementation models and provides you with guidelines for the identification of system structures.

About the Author:

Dr. Andreas Knöpfel is an FMC expert and learnt much about its practical value during his four years at SAP. He now works as a system analyst and requirements engineer.

Dr. Bernhard Gröne worked at SAP for 5 years as system analyst and architect. Following that, he completed his PhD at the Hasso–Plattner–Institute at the University of Potsdam. His research topics are analyzing and modeling complex systems and patterns.

Dr. Peter Tabeling has several years of industrial and academic experience in the modeling of complex systems, among them SAP‘s R/3 system. He is currently Assistant Professor at the Hasso–Plattner–Institute at the University of Potsdam, where he researches and gives lectures on FMC and other topics.