A UML approach to the design of open distributed systems

The design of distributed systems is a highly complicated and non-trivial task. Introduction of multiple types of media into distributed systems causes a dramatic increase in the complexity of design. To deal with the inherent complexity of systems, two approaches have received considerable attention; ODP and UML. Open Distributed Processing (ODP) is a joint ITU/ISO standardisation framework for constructing distributed systems. Unified Modelling Language (UML) is a de facto standard for visualising, specifying, designing, and documenting object-oriented systems. This paper presents a case study using a UML approach for the design and specification of distributed systems based on ODP. The purpose of the case study is to try this approach on a large system containing multiple types of media. The case study is carried out on an Interactive Multimedia Kiosk (IMK) example. IMKs integrate different types of media such as text, graphics, audio, video, animation and sound in the form of a large system; this provides an ideal subject for case study.