UML Tools - Rhapsody

We use IBM Rational Rhapsody®, to design and build software for our customers. Rhapsody creates large proportions of code in a variety of programming languages directly from the models that it manages.

With Rhapsody we are able to simulate and review a system under construction and to undertake experiments. This results in a robust design which has been verified at an early stage helping to ensure that errors are corrected at the earliest opportunity in the development cycle; reducing costs and the risk of project failure.

Modelling with tools allows us to ensure that all parts of a specification are traced into the model. Conversely, all model artefacts can be linked back to specification. Such tracing, which is essential in the production of software for high reliability markets, such as the medical device industry, enables automated validation of many aspects of a system under development and also greatly helps in producing the documentation required in a regulated environment.

Rhapsody was primarily developed for the development of embedded software. It is by no means restricted to this sector, as it is very effective at creating designs and implementations for Windows and other systems. Its embedded software support comes through its ability to manage a UML based design that may be subsequently ported to a range of platforms.

Rhapsody uses an underlying applications framework that provides a generic interface between its own mechanisms and those of an operating system. Rhapsody has a variety of such application frameworks that range from the sophisticated to minimal, so that the resource demands of the modelling system may be tailored right down to support of minimally configured 8 bit machines.

Our paper on Software Modelling,, which considers this topic in more detail, is available on request.