Planning in Advance: CASSANDRA

Overview

On this page you will find the latest version of CASSANDRA, our engineering knowledge tool.


What CASSANDRA cando for you

CASSANDRA can support you as an assistant doing the following tasks:

What is CASSANDRA?

CASSANDRA is a research platform developed by KnowGravity Inc. in Zurich, Switzerland. It is assistant-based and guides the users through their tasks in business, systems and software engineering. It analyses project data from many familiar UML®-based CASE tools, generates the appropriate questions or proposes the next steps in order to move the process forward. CASSANDRA comes in two variants. CASSANDRA and CASSANDRA/CS. CS stands for Common Sense. the only difference between the two is that CASSANDRA/CS includes the more memory consuming KNOW component (see below). The following picture gives a quick overview of the main technological components of CASSANDRA's anatomy:


CASSANDRA's anatomy can be compared to the architecture of an operating system that provides basic services to various applications (CASSANDRA's Application Agents) and offers interfaces for various stores (CASSANDRA's Interface Agents). CASSANDRA is 100% implemented in WIN-PROLOG (Logic Programming Associates Ltd).

CORE

Provides basic functionality such as I/O (including GUI, XML and multi language support), speech output and agent support via Microsoft agent technology, configurability and personalization, persistency, licensing, etc. Furthermore, CORE includes the components REMEMBER, KNOW, and THINK described below.

REMEMBER

Is an active declarative database-based on the UML® meta model that stores all project information.

KNOW

CASSANDRA gets access to general knowledge through the integration of WordNet. WordNet is a "domain object model of the world" developed at the Princeton University, that consists of about 70'000 classes and their definitions, inheritance hierarchies and associations. Such a component is only available in the special version of CASSANDRA, called CASSANDRA/CS (for Common Sense).

THINK

Is a rule-based inference engine that generates suggestions from project information and explains these suggestions and findings. THINK is also able to deal with uncertain knowledge.

Interface Agents (IA1...IAn)

are interface components which adapt to various external applications like CASE tools. These components allow bidirectional information exchange and full remote control of these tools. Each interface component implements its own user interface and is controlled as plug-in by CORE.

Application Agents (AA1...AAn)

Service components that actually provide CASSANDRA's valuable services to the users by applying dedicated engineering know how.

Interface Agents

Currently, interfaces for the following CASE tools

and for access to CASSANDRA's own repository file format are included in CASSANDRAS delivery.

Furthermore, there are interfaces available on request:

Application Agents

Currently, the following Application Agents modules are available for CASSANDRA:

Simulation / Test of UML® Models (xUML)

With eXecutable UML (xUML) UML®- Modells can be simulated. So it is possible to review the specification before its implementation. We use this application agent also to review solution neutral specifications. E.g. a project of a railway syndicate which does specifications of safety critical systems.

CASSANDRA/xUML  

Project Effort and Cost Estimation

Creates a list of tasks for an IT project-based on a specification in a CASE tool plus a series of questions about project characteristics, team characteristics, and the intended implementation technology. Finally, the effort and costs for these tasks are estimated and a rough project as well as an increment plan is produced.

CASSANDRA/Estimator  

Business Motivation Manager

Supports structured elaboration of business and product strategies according to OMG's Business Motivation Model.

Business Rules Consultant

Asks a number of question on a particular business rules project and then determines the next steps recommended and provides some technology as well as product recommenations suitable for that project.

Review of Use Case Models

Reviews a given Use Case model and spots areas that need clarification or improved modelling and suggests and explains alternatives and possibilities of improvement.

Review of Domain Object Models

Reviews a given domain object model-based on common analysis patterns and raises domain-level questions that need to be clarified. It is not only able to identify obsolete classes and associations, but also missing classes and associations. Furthermore, it may suggest modelling alternatives and is able to explain these alternatives to the user.

Building Data Warehouse Models

Creates a multi-dimensional data model (cube design for a data warehouse) from the domain object model of a given operational application. It generates fact tables as well as dimension hierarchies by various levels of denormalization of the domain object model.

Elaborating Your Domain Object Model

This Application Agent helps you building a domain object model by giving you a constructive input like sub- or super classes, aggregations, synonyms or even descriptions for your objects. (available in CASSANDRA/CS)

Explain the Whole World to me

This Application Agent is based on "WordNet" from University of Princeton. Just type your query in the search box and you will get the answer you are looking for. (available in CASSANDRA/CS)

Project Information Export

Export project information to a file (packaged with the CORE Application).

Additional Information

The following papers describe CASSANDRA in general:

CASSANDRA The CASSANDRA flyer.
CASSANDRA/xUML Flyer on xUML
CASSANDRA/Estimator Flyer on effort and cost estimation
CASSANDRA Readme CASSANDRA's "read me" file

The following papers describe CASSANDRA more detailed:

CASSANDRA Overview Describes the functionality of CASSANDRA from a user's perspective.
CASSANDRA Insights Describes technical details like the implementation of CASSANDRA or the engineering know-how implemented in CASSANDRA.

Online Tutorial

See in this online tutorial how easy it is to simulate and test your UML model. Online tutorial for the xUML simulation module.

Download

Currently, CASSANDRA is a public domain "as is" product and no support is included. For support we can offer you our consulting. Just download the CASSANDRA and ask for a free personal licence key. The list of available components will be extended as development of CASSANDRA proceeds.

CASSANDRA 12 MB Ver. 2.1 June 17. 2008

CASSANDRA installation of
both versions & examples

The following technical requirements should be fulfilled in order to run CASSANDRA:

Application for a Personal License Key

  Order your personal licence key:
       
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  Application area:
  Information systems Technical systems