Cross-Platform Real-Time Collaborative Modeling: An Architecture and a Prototype Implementation via EMF.Cloud

Abstract

Real-time collaboration in model-driven software engineering is gaining increasing attention from both the research and industrial community. This is due to its potential adverse effects on the efficiency of software modeling process. However, current approaches for real-time collaboration are tightly coupled to modeling platforms and language workbenches. To address this issue, we present BUMBLE-CE, the first extensible approach for cross-platform real-time collaborative modeling which is independent of both the modeling platforms and the domain-specific modeling language used by the modelers. One of the main characteristics of BUMBLE-CE is that it allows modelers to work on the head revision of their models as usual and, when necessary, they can start and terminate on-demand real-time collaborative modeling sessions. This paper reports on the requirements driving the design of BUMBLE-CE, its architecture and underlying design decisions, implementation of BUMBLE-CE using EMF.Cloud technologies and an example application of BUMBLE-CE to state machine models realized in Eclipse EMF and Jetbrains MPS.