Entrusted with providing top-quality systems, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) faced a major challenge: migrating an IBM Rhapsody SysML model, made of over 220,000 elements and 300 diagrams, to Cameo Systems Modeler/MagicDraw. The stakes were high, the deadlines short, and model integrity paramount. Our team of experts provided them with a unique plug-in on the market, Publisher for IBM Rhapsody. This tool automates the transformation of systems models between IBM Rhapsody and Cameo Systems Modeler, reducing what would have taken months or even years to a single day while preserving model quality and integrity. Too good to be true? Let’s see!
The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is responsible for providing the military forces needed to deter conflict and guarantee national security. It solves the most challenging problems in the fields of space, aeronautics, defense, and cyberspace.
Systems and software engineering, therefore, play a vital role in DoD operations, enabling the development and maintenance of the most advanced defense systems.
The DoD's engineering teams focus on the design, integration, and management of the most complex systems to meet mission requirements. In this context, modeling systems play a central role in the teams' efforts to visualize, analyze, and optimize system performance, ensuring that all elements work seamlessly together.
In engineering organizations and institutions where modeling practices such as Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) are implemented, it is now common to standardize the use of specific modeling tools. This practice aims to comply with industry regulations and/or to meet specific project mandates. Indeed, in highly demanding industries, customers, partners, and regulatory bodies increasingly require that large-scale models be converted and used with Cameo Systems Modeler (MagicDraw).
Our customer, the DoD, was in this very situation. They faced a daunting task: How to convert large SysML models to Cameo Systems Modeler, when for years, if not decades, they'd been designing and developing model libraries using IBM Rhapsody? So, the need for a reliable and efficient model conversion solution has become a necessity.
The DoD’s delivery to its customer required the transformation of an IBM Rhapsody SysML model with some 220,000 elements and 300 diagrams to a compatible Cameo Systems Modeler (MagicDraw) file format.
During our initial discussions with the DoD, it was clear that their main challenge was to handle this critical conversion task under tight deadlines without compromising the quality of the model elements.
Before we began collaborating, there was only one approach to solve this conversion issue: importing XMI files.
Is XMI import a viable approach?XMI (XML Metadata Interchange) is an OMG standard for the exchange of metadata information through XML. This format is used to export and import models and diagrams between different software tools. Most of the time, importing XMI files requires manual conversion of diagrams and models. When time is of the essence, as it was for our customer, an alternative that involves too many steps, a lot of manual work, and no protection against errors was not an option. These words from our customer perfectly summed up the impasse they had reached. Maxwell Yavaraski, Principal System Engineer, says: "In the past, when using XMI, sequence diagrams were generally empty and had to be drawn by hand.” ➡️ Read Converting models to Cameo Systems Modeler: Publisher vs. XMI import |
Once the customer’s business challenges were clearly identified, our team provided them with the Publisher for IBM Rhapsody. Publisher's primary function is to automate model migration from Rhapsody SysML models to Cameo/MagicDraw SysML models.
This plug-in generates complete MagicDraw models from Rhapsody, including all model elements, structure, and hierarchy, thereby saving engineering time, retaining data integrity, and reducing costs.
Their multiple SysML diagrams and elements were converted from IBM Rhapsody to Cameo Systems Modeler, with the guarantee of preserving the original content and layout while adopting Cameo's modeling style conventions.
Their converted files were stored directly in the DoD’s classified and highly secure environment. Publisher for IBM Rhapsody does not upload or process our customers' templates, which remain their sole property.
Publisher for IBM Rhapsody enabled our customer to identify, log, and report the slightest errors and mismatches directly in the source model. As our tool does not semantically constrain UML diagrams, it allows the DoD to detect invalid patterns. The thousands of hours of analysis and rework were now a thing of the past!
Publisher for IBM Rhapsody provides configuration files. They allowed DoD engineering teams to control and consistently apply predefined transformation methods and styles. These are layout rules that they applied only once at the time of conversion, minimizing manual actions once the conversion was done.
Once the model had been migrated to MagicDraw, it was sent to the original development team to check for integrity and completeness. Maxwell Yavaraski tells us what happened then. “There were some initial errors in translation, which were to be expected from the Proof-of-Concept testing. After performing the model migration, our software team, which spent hundreds to thousands of engineering hours developing, assessed the migration between the two software tools. I was able to clear out all the initial load errors with help from the support team through their JIRA ticket system and ultimately was able to import the converted software model into our main system model.”
Then it took Maxwell Yavaraski's team just two weeks to complete the majority of their data integrity assessment. The main elements to be cleaned up were differences in stereotypes and diagram presentation. The team also assessed whether the differences between the tools would impact development down the line to mitigate future development risks.
Publisher automates the conversion of systems models to Cameo Systems Modeler in the push of a button. It reduces what would take months or years to redo manually down to a few hours only.
It maintains data integrity during the conversion, leaving no room for errors. The model checker feature allows you to implement model checking to identify, log, and report inconsistencies in the source model so that you save time reworking or cleaning up your target models manually and improve model quality.
Publisher doesn’t keep or process any of your data. Everything happens securely inside your XMI file. Converted files are stored directly on your computer in your classified environment. Your data remains yours at all times.
One of the first things our customers noticed before even purchasing our solution was how useful the Proof-of-Concept trial was in helping to determine ROI. He adds, “The proof-of-concept trial definitely helped in the decision-making process, and we had a clear idea of what to do once we finally purchased the software.”
“We definitely like it and the management is very pleased. Redoing an entire model that months were spent on because of tool changes would have been a huge waste of resources. The transition from Rhapsody to Cameo/MagicDraw only took us one day after all the time it took to procure the software.”