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Software Project Management Assignment )CASE Tool Study with its manual( Visual Paradigm : Submitted by Indranil Nandy Department of Computer Sc. & Engg MTech, 2007 Roll no. : 06CS6010

CASE & its scope:
A CASE tool is a generic term used to denote any form of automated support for software engineering. In a more restrictive sense, a CASE tool can mean any tool used to automate some activityassociated with software development. Many CASE tools are now available. Some of these tools assist in phase-related tasks such as specification, structured analysis, design, coding, testing etc., and others are related to non-phase activities such as project management and configuration management. The primary objectives of deploying CASE tool are: • To increase productivity • To produce betterquality software at lower cost History of CASE Tools: CASE tools began with the simple word processor which was used for creating and manipulating documentation. The seventies saw the introduction of graphical techniques and structured data flow diagrams. Up until this point, design and specifications in pictorial form had been extremely complex and time consuming to change. The introduction ofCASE tools to aid this process allowed diagrams to be easily created and modified, improving the quality of software designs. Data dictionaries, a very useful document that holds the details of each data type and processes within a system, are the direct result of the arrival of data flow design and structural analysis made possible through the improvements of CASE tools. Early graphics packageswere soon replaced by specialist's packages which enabled editing, updating and printing multiple versions of a design. Eventually, graphic tools integrated with data dictionary databases to produce powerful design and development tools that could hold complete design cycle documents. As a final step, error checking and test case generators were included to validate software design. All theseprocesses can know be integrated into a single CASE tool that supports all of the development cycle. Early 80's computer aided documentation computer aided diagramming analysis and design tools Mid 80's automated design analysis and checking automated system information repositories Late 80's automated code generation from design specification linking design automation Early 90's intelligent methodologydriver habitable user interface reusability as a development methodology

CASE tools were at their peak in the early 1990s. At the time IBM had proposed AD/Cycle which was an alliance of software vendors centered around IBM's mainframe. The three giants of the time were Atlanta based KnowledgeWare with their IEW (software engineering) and ADW tools and Texas Instruments with their IEF tool andNastec Corporation (later merged with Transform Logic Corporation) and their DesignAid and Lifecycle Manager Tool suites. These tools were full lifecycle and included Upper CASE and Lower CASE. With the decline of the mainframe, AD/Cycle and the Big CASE tools died off, opening the market for the mainstream CASE tools of today. Interestingly, nearly all of the leaders of the CASE market of theearly 1990s ended up being purchased by Computer Associates, including IEW, IEF, ADW, Cayenne, and LBMS. Some typical case tools are:      Code generation tools UML editors and the like Refactoring tools QVT or Model Transformation tools Configuration Management tools including revision control etc.

CASE environment:
Although individual CASE tools are useful, the true power of a tool setcan be realized only when these set of tools are integrated into a common framework or environment. If the different CASE tools are not integrated, then the data generated by one tool would have to input to the other tools. This may also involve format conversions as the tools developed by different vendors are likely to use different formats. This results in an additional effort of exporting data...