An extension to UML components to consider distribution issues in early phases of application development

Distributed component-based information systems are becoming one of the major trends in software engineering. Whereas distributed component technologies enable the development of reliable, scalable and secure systems, existing component-based development (CBD) techniques and methods do not explicitly address distribution. The earlier distribution requirements are considered and integrated with functional requirements, the least is the risk that the developed component architecture does not reflect these requirements. UML components is a widely known CBD method composed of a number of phases targeted at the identification of domain components (system and business), their respective interfaces, and their interaction model to compose the system architecture. In this work, we propose to extend the UML components method to encompass distribution issues in early phases of application development, namely requirements and specification. The basic idea is to identify distribution requirements that can be mapped into common distributed services (e.g. naming, concurrency). The extended method includes new or refined activities that help identifying distribution services, their provision through distributed components, and the resulting architecture that integrates system, business, and distribution components.