Marshaling and Unmarshaling Models Using the Entity-Relationship Model

Software systems are usually designed and documented with the aid of visual modeling notations. Visual modeling notations keep evolving over the years in tandem with visual modeling tools, and the tight binding in between impedes the exchanging of modeling assets, which causes a spatial isolation of the models. Another problem with legacy software models is that they are isolated temporally in the early phases of the software engineering life cycle without reaching out to the later phases. This paper presents an approach for breaking both spatial and temporal isolation of software models by marshaling and unmarshaling models using the Entity-Relationship ER model, thus providing a promising way for evolving model-driven software development.