A System Composer™architecturerepresents a system of components and how they interface with each other structurally and behaviorally. You can represent specific architectures using alternate views.

Different types of architectures describe different aspects of systems:

A System Composermodelis the file that contains architectural information, including components, ports, connectors, interfaces, and behaviors.

Perform operations on a model:

A System Composer model is stored as an SLX file.

Acomponentis a nontrivial, nearly independent, and replaceable part of a system that fulfills a clear function in the context of an architecture. A component defines an architectural element, such as a function, a system, hardware, software, or other conceptual entity. A component can also be a subsystem or subfunction.

Represented as a block, a component is a part of an architecture model that can be separated into reusable artifacts.

Aportis a node on a component or architecture that represents a point of interaction with its environment. A port permits the flow of information to and from other components or systems.

There are different types of ports:

Connectorsare lines that provide connections between ports. Connectors describe how information flows between components or architectures.

A connector allows two components to interact without defining the nature of the interaction. Set an interface on a port to define how the components interact.

Aviewshows a customizable subset of elements in a model. Views can be filtered based on stereotypes or names of components, ports, and interfaces, along with the name, type, or units of an interface element. Create views by adding elements manually. Views create a simplified way to work with complex architectures by focusing on certain parts of the architectural design.

You can use different types of views to represent the system:

A viewpoint represents a stakeholder perspective that specifies the contents of the view.

Anelement groupis a grouping of components in a view.

Use element groups to programmatically populate a view.

Aqueryis a specification that describes certain constraints or criteria to be satisfied by model elements.

Use queries to search elements with constraint criteria and to filter views.

Acomponent diagramrepresents a view with components, ports, and connectors based on how the model is structured.

Component diagrams allow you to programmatically or manually add and remove components from the view.

You can visualize ahierarchy diagramas a view with components, ports, reference types, component stereotypes, and stereotype properties.

There are two types of hierarchy diagrams: