Relationship
A connection between a source and target concept. Classified as structural, dependency, dynamic, or other.

In addition to the generic elements, the ArchiMate language defines a core set of generic relationships, each of which can connect a predefined set of source and target concepts (in most cases elements, but in a few cases also other relationships).

Many of these relationships are ‘overloaded’; i.e., their exact meaning differs depending on the source and destination concepts that they connect.

The relationships are classified as follows :

  • Structural relationships, which model the static construction or composition of concepts of the same or different types
  • Dependency relationships, which model how elements are used to support other elements
  • Dynamic relationships, which are used to model behavioral dependencies between elements
  • Other relationships, which do not fall into one of the above categories
: Relationship (architecture_autodiagram)
Figure 36 : Relationship (architecture_autodiagram)
RelationshipConceptDependencyRelationshipDynamicRelationshipOtherRelationshipStructuralRelationship
Association
Description
to : Concept [0..1]
relationship destination
from : Concept [0..1]
relationship source