bilbo@fulcrum.bt.co.uk (Allan Statham [cs12]) (12/18/90)
I am currently considering the purchase of structured analysis and design CASE tools. I have been assessing the suitability of the offering from INSOFT KY called PROSA. I would be interested in any feedback from engineers who have practical experience of this tool and wether they found it to be benificial. Our initial requirement is to aid in the development of ORACLE database designs with the hope to eventually use it for applications, embedded systems and RTE designs. I would also be interested in information on similar CASE tools. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ bilbo@fulcrum.bt.co.uk ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
pcg@spl27.spl.loral.com (Paul C George) (12/22/90)
I just got done reviewing a large number of these tools for our corporate CASE program, though we were focused on RTSA & ASG's for realtime ada applications. I haven't seen PROSA, but the following are good. For Oracle database design, Oracle has CASE*Method, including support for definition of functions and flows. It is not strictly SA, but can accomplish the same function. The tools are MIS oriented, but applicable to other information handling (as opposed to algorithmic or computationl) applications. There is also strong support for reverse engineering, applications generation, and data management. For industrial stength CASE, the Cadre teamwork family is the best(at least for sun workstations & ada). It is solid and well integrated, with configuration management facilities. The information modeling (ERD) is a little weak, as it is sutable only for database design, not enterprise information modeling (all entities & relations are recorded as stores). It does not support SQL interactions or schema generation. I does support real time debugging and monitoring for C code on embedded processors. This was our selection for the design service. Texas Instruments markets a set of case tools for James Martin's Information Engineering. (data driven design in marketing clothes). I haven't evaluated it in depth, but it has received some good press. Mentor Graphics CASE Station provides strong SA, including a neat facility for converting DFDs to structure charts automatically, optimizing the hierarchy using coupling rules. Their product line for hardware design and test matches well allowing concurrent design and testing. If you are really focusing on embbeded systems, the best product from a technical standpoint (albeit expensive) was the Ready Systems CARDtools package. It uses knowledge of runtime kernals to allow packaging of software in tasks and simulating it's performance. For C applications it seems really powerfull. It does not support information modeling, though combined with the Oracle tools would provide a formidable environment. As a parting note, realize that the facilities needed for database design are very distinct from those for applications and realtime systems. In a technical sense classic SA does not address information definition except via BNF in a data dictionary. Tools are generaly strong in supporting schema and form generation, or in producing applications code. Database and software design tools tend to be the provence of different vendors. There is overlap, but one or the other tend to be weak.