scope:

This guide describes the scope of application and interrelationships for the members of the IEEE 1175 family of standards, and it points the reader to the appropriate standards for clarifying issues involved in effectively integrating computing system tools into a productive engineering environment. The other members of this family are:

- IEEE P1175.2^™, Draft Recommended Practice for CASE Tool Interconnections-Characterization of Interconnections

- IEEE P1175.3^™, Draft Standard for CASE Tool Interconnections-Reference Model for Specifying Software Behavior

- IEEE P1175.4^™ , Draft Standard for CASE Tool Interconnections-Reference Model for Specifying System Behavior

- IEEE P1175.5^™ , Draft Standard for CASE Tool Interconnections-Syntax for Transferring Behavior Specifications

Purpose

To assist the users in the effective application of the IEEE 1175 family of standards, this guide provides an overview of the remaining members of this family. It describes the organization of this family, the focus of the individual members, and the logical interrelationships among the members. By addressing the fundamental concepts of computing system tool interconnections, this guide also establishes a framework for applying the recommended practice and the standards in this family.

The discussion of interconnections in this family actually has wider applicability to computing system tools in general, beyond only CASE tools. Most computing system tools have interconnections with organizations, users, platforms, and other tools, so consideration of these interconnections is important to them. Also, while most computing system tools do not need to communicate behavior descriptions of subject systems, their creators need to develop such descriptions for them.

In these standards, the word interconnection has an abstract connotation: it includes all ways in which successful operation of a computing system tool depends on its environment. Thus, an interconnection is an association between a computing system tool and something in the environment. This family of standards recognizes two forms of interconnections. A passive interconnection is an interoperability agreement. An active interconnection is an interaction mechanism. These standards address the characteristics of interconnections between computing system tools and their organizational context, their user context, their platform context, and the context provided by other tools. Interconnections between computing system tools are the principal focus of these standards.