[Discussion] Is there a way to represent physical ports/connections in the LA layer?

Capella
1

In architecture representations within the logical architecture (LA) layer, can I add physical ports? Sometimes I don’t really need the physical layer but just need a few ports or connectors in the LA representation.

For example, consider the following image.

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image867×347 9.51 KB

My system has two parts both of which are physically connected (maybe soldered or through some standard physical interface). A component exchange with suitable port shows that multiple functional exchanges can take place over the component exchange connection.

  1. Now what if I wish to also convey that these parts are physically connected, i.e., the component exchange happens over a physical connection in reality?

  2. I can place a physical port only on the logical system but not on any parts of the logical system. Capella architecture only allows the description of 1 logical system. So the concept of a physical port in LA is practically moot?

I would appreciate your thoughts on this. Thanks.

2

To quickly answer point 2: you can also create physical ports on Logical Actors but indeed not on sub-logical Components

  1. You cannot create Physical Ports on sub-Logical Components to the LA level. If you don’t want to go to the Physical Architecture, but still want to convey this information, this is going to be a matter of you deciding how you want to represent that at the LA level. You may for example consider that all your component exchanges are connected to Physical Ports, although they are Logical Ports. Or you may want to create another Component exchange / Component Ports with a special naming convention to convey this information (but I am not a fan of this one as you would be kind of duplicating some information maybe?).

Stephane