SBVR vs OCL: A Comparative Analysis of Standards
This is an incremental study for software and business modellers seeking to integrate constraint standards.
The paper tackled the problem of comparing SBVR and OCL standards for writing constraints in business and software modelling, aiming to find a mechanism for automatic transformation from SBVR to OCL, with results highlighting their similarities, differences, and key parameters for interoperability.
In software modelling, the designers have to produce UML visual models with software constraints. Similarly, in business modelling, designers have to model business processes using business constraints (business rules). Constraints are the key components in the skeleton of business or software models. A designer has to write constraints to semantically compliment business models or UML models and finally implementing the constraints into business processes or source code. Business constraints/rules can be written using SBVR (Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Rules) while OCL (Object Constraint Language) is the well-known medium for writing software constraints. SBVR and OCL are two significant standards from OMG. Both standards are principally different as SBVR is typically used in business domains and OCL is employed to compliment software models. However, we have identified a few similarities in both standards that are interesting to study. In this paper, we have performed a comparative analysis of both standards as we are looking for a mechanism for automatic transformation of SBVR to OCL. The major emphasis of the study is to highlight principal features of SBVR and OCL such as similarities, differences and key parameters on which these both standards can work together.