11.6. Tools and How They Use Profiles

UML tools use profiles to provide a spectrum of solutions. Tools providing Model-Driven Architecture (MDA) solutions have transformations from the Platform-Independent Model (PIM) to Platform-Specific Model (PSM) and from the PSM to the application. See Appendix A for a fuller discussion of MDA.

The OMG conceived the MDA as a vision rather than a specified method. Each vendor has a different, sometimes radically different, approach to MDA. Consequently, although the concepts of the PIM and the PSM vary greatly from one vendor to another, any one vendor's concept of the PIM and the PSM is strict and concrete. The extra roles and information, introduced as the PIM is refined to the PSM and the PSM to code, must be well defined and well controlled. Profiles provide the definition of the information to be captured and the constraints on a valid model. Each tool validates conformity to a profile in its own way. The PIM needs only one profile because it can be used and reused for different platforms. Each PSM, on the other hand, potentially needs a different profile because each specific platform has different issues and transformations to arrive at optimal code.