A Rigorous Framework for Model Driven Development

Abstract. The Model Driven Architecture (MDA) is an initiative of the Object Management Group (OMG) to model-centric software development. MDA distinguishes different kinds of models: Platform Independent Models (PIM), Platform Specific Models (PSM) and code models. Metamodeling plays a key role in MDA. A combination of formal specification techniques and metamodeling can help us to address Model-Driven Developments (MDD). In this paper we describe a MDA framework that comprises the NEREUS metamodeling notation, a system of transformation rules to bridge the gap between UML/OCL and NEREUS and, the definition of MDA-based components and model/metamodeling transformations. NEREUS can be viewed as an intermediate notation open to many other formal languages. In particular, we show how to integrate NEREUS with algebraic languages such as CASL.