Tool Support for Model-Driven Development of Security-Critical Systems with UML

Summary

The high-quality development of critical systems is difficult. We propose to use the Unified Modeling Language (UML), the de facto industry standard specification language, as a notation together with a formally based tool support for model-based critical systems development.

We introduce UML Machines, which is a formal notation designed to reflect properties of the UML execution semantics relevant to criticality requirements. We use it to define a foundation that puts models for the different diagrams into context and gives a precise meaning to mechanisms such as message passing between objects or components specified in different diagrams, while offering the possibility to analyze criticality requirements.

We present tool support for this approach developed at the TU München, which facilitates transfer of the methodology to industrial contexts.

This work was partially funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Technology (BMBF) in the framework of the Verisoft project under grant 01 IS C38. The responsibility for this article lies with the author(s).