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Borland Software is expected to announce an upgrade to its Together 2006 for Eclipse enterprise modeling product on Sept. 6.
Borland, based in Cupertino, Calif., is scheduled to highlight the new version of its Together modeling tool at the EclipseWorld conference in Cambridge, Mass., which runs from Sept. 6-8. Together 2006 for Eclipse Release 2 brings new capabilities to support architects, Java and C++ developers, UML (Unified Modeling Language) designers, business process analysts and data modelers across the entire software delivery life cycle, company officials said.
In addition, Together 2006 for Eclipse Release 2 is based on the open-source Eclipse 3.2 framework for software development and works directly within the Eclipse 3.2 shell, said David Hauck, director of product marketing at Borland. In addition, Together 2006 for Eclipse Release 2 is integrated with Borlands recently introduced Caliber DefineIT requirements definition tool, Hauck said. This integration enables users to quickly build systems from requirements by creating UML and BPMN (Business Process Modeling Notation) models, he said.
Moreover, the integration with Caliber DefineIT “is a way to help analysts define requirements through storyboarding,” Hauck said.
“We use Together to help us understand our existing code base and augment it as new requirements and features are designed,” said Paul Hudgins, an application architect at Ciena a Linthicum, Md., networking company and longtime Together customer, in a statement. “Driving system design through models is key for us; especially as new customer requirements arise, as is leveraging Together to facilitate tighter communication between our distributed development teams. New features in this release can help companies more completely leverage models across the lifecycle, which can ultimately drive greater business value in finished applications.”
Meanwhile, along with its BPMN support, Together 2006 for Eclipse Release 2 also includes MDA (Model-Driven Architecture) support, support for code-level and model-level audits and metrics, and support for SOA (service-oriented architecture) management through Togethers UML-based view of the overall system.
Borland also included several performance and scalability increases, such as improvements in the performance of the products “modeling surface” and the performance of the products overview diagrams, Hauck said.
In addition, with its new Together release, Borland is not offering separate versions for designers, architects and developers but is instead providing one version for all three to use. This “allows developers, designers and architects to more easily exchange models,” Hauck said.
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Moreover, Borland will continue to invest in and leverage technology developed through the Eclipse Modeling Project for future releases of Together, Hauck said. The project, which promotes and develops model-based technologies within the Eclipse community, is being co-led by Borland and IBM.
“The role that Borland is taking to drive modeling advancements within Eclipse will not only benefit the larger community, but also allows us to create a highly advanced, standardized foundation upon which to build our commercial products,” said Richard Gronback, Eclipse Modeling project co-leader and chief scientist at Borland, in a statement. “We expect our use of Eclipse modeling technologies will give customers a greater degree of flexibility, usability, and richness without the risk of a proprietary platform.”
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