Hello,
In Capella, in the Physical port editor, one field refers to 'Realized Physical Ports".
What are they exactly ? Despite further investigations, I couldn’t figured it out.
I imagine using such concept to describe a communication stack, for example (the example below is just for illustration purpose and is probably wrong, because I am in no way a communication stacks expert!):
in the system engineering model, if you want to express that :
- an interaction between two behavioral components is implemented through web services,
- these web services are built over TCP/IP (would it make any sense),
- and this TCP/IP-based communication is routed through Ethernet cables and routers between two computers running the behavioral components,
then you could consider modelling it this (simplified) way:
- resource implementation components (nodes in Capella): web server and clients, inside (or beside) TCP/IP daemons, themselves inside different computers;
- web services physical links and ports (to which your behavioral component exchanges and ports will be allocated);
- TCP/IP connections through physical links and ports, realizing the former (hence the ‘realize’ relationship between physical ports);
- Ethernet physical links and ports on the computers and on the routers, realizing the former;
- the behavioral components could then be allocated to the web server and clients, and their behavioral ports allocated to web server and client physical ports.
To be discussed !
What baffles me a bit is a possibility to connect Logical Components through Physical Links. If Logical Component Exchange is not enough, Logical Link would be more consistent within Logical Architecture and then Physical Ports could realize Logical Ports.
Yes, but Logical Components that communicate with external actors could have some physical constraints!
This is why even at System Analysis level, you can declare Physical Links between the System and a subset of Actors which impose strong external physical interface requirements