Common Mechanisms of UML

Forward and Reverse Engineering 

Forward Engineering 

To forward engineer a component diagram, 

• For each component, identify the classes or collaborations that the component implements 
• Choose the form for each component 
• The choice is between source code (a form that can be manipulated by development tools) or a binary library or executable (a form that can be dropped into a running system) 
• Use tools to forward engineer the models

Reverse Engineering 

To reverse engineer a deployment diagram, 

• Choose the target that you want to reverse engineer, in some cases, you'll want to sweep across your entire network; in others, you can limit your search 
• Choose also the precision of your reverse engineering, in some cases, it's sufficient to reverse engineer just to the level of all the system's processors; in others, you'll want to reverse engineer the system's networking peripherals as well 
• Use a tool that walks across your system, discovering its hardware topology 
• Record that topology in a deployment mode 
• Along the way, you can use similar tools to discover the artifacts that live on each node, which you can also record in a deployment model 
• Using your modeling tools, create a deployment diagram by querying the model 
• For example, you might start with visualizing the basic client/server topology, then expand on the diagram by populating certain nodes with components of interest that live on them