Model Management Tools for Models of Different Domains: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Objective: The goal of this study is to present an overview of industrial and academic approaches to cross-domain model management. We aim at identifying industrial and academic tools for cross-domain model management and describing the inconsistency types addressed by them as well as strategies the users of the tools employ to keep consistency between models of different domains. Method: We conducted a systematic literature review. Using the keyword-based search on Google Scholar we analyzed 515 potentially relevant studies; after applying inclusion and exclusion criteria 88 papers were selected for further analysis. Results: The main findings/contributions are: (i) a list of available tools used to support model management; (ii) approximately 31% of the tools can provide consistency model checking on models of different domains and approximately 24% on the same domain; (iii) available strategies to keep the consistency between models of different domains are not mature enough; (iv) explicit modeling dependencies between models is not common in the industry. However, it is considered as a requirement by academia if one wishes to manage inconsistency between models of different domains. Conclusion: This study presents an overview of industrial practices and academic approaches about the cross-domain model management. The results presented in this study can be used as a starting point for future research on model management topics, and also for further improvement of actual model management tools.