ArchiMate Metamodel
Behavior in the Application Layer is described in a way that is very similar to Business Layer behavior. Also here, a distinction is made between the external behavior of application components in terms of application services, and the internal behavior of these components; i.e., application functions that realize these services.
An application service is an externally visible unit of behavior, provided by one or more components, exposed through well-defined interfaces, and meaningful to the environment. The service element provides a way to explicitly describe the functionality that components share with each other and the functionality that they make available to the environment. The concept fits well within service-oriented application architecture. The functionality that an interactive computer program provides through a user interface is also modeled using an application service, exposed by an application-to-business interface representing the user interface. Internal application services are exposed through an application-to-application interface.
An application function describes the internal behavior of a component needed to realize one or more application services. In analogy with the Business Layer, an application process models an ordering of application behavior, as a counterpart of a business process. Note that the internal behavior of a component should in most cases not be modeled in too much detail in an architectural description, because for the description of this behavior we may soon be confronted with detailed design issues.
An application interaction is the behavior of a collaboration of two or more application components. An application interaction is external behavior from the perspective of each of the participating components, but the behavior is internal to the collaboration as a whole.
Class | Summary |
|---|---|
An application event represents a state change that influences application behavior. | |
An application function represents automated behavior that can be performed by an application component. | |
An application interaction represents a unit of collective application behavior performed by (a collaboration of) two or more application components. | |
Internal behavior element in the application layer. | |
An application process represents a sequence of application behaviors that achieves a specific outcome. | |
An application service represents a service that exposes automated behavior. |