Integration of System Engineering Tools

摘要

Integration of tools is a major issue in the provision of a useable set of tools to support system engineering.. INtegration can be approached from different perspectives including: infrqstructures (middleware), and the integraton characteristics of individual tools. This paper concentrates on integration mechanisnms which a given tool might enjoy. A major portion of the paper looks at application programming interface (APIs) which provide the most complete range of integration possiblities: and the various dimensions of APIs are analyzed. Also discussed are internal programming languages, filter, modification of internal tool files and shared repositories. Tools enhancement techniques are mentioned in place beause they are so intertwined with integration. In order to make intelligent choices of tools to support systems engineering for a project or organization, it is necessary to understand a wide range of tool integration properties in detail.