A UML profile for modeling software applications based on grid services

Grid environments and software applications based on Grid Services are currently receiving a strong consideration. Nevertheless the development of such applications is still difficult and error-prone because of the lack of appropriate notations based on widely used languages such as UML. This paper introduces a classification of services that interact in Grid environments and proposes an UML extension for Grid service-oriented applications. The extension is carried out by use of a UML profile, that is a lightweight standard extension mechanism that allows to specify the roles of the different services within UML diagrams and that can easily be incorporated into UML-based integrated development environments. The proposed profile facilitates the development of applications based on Grid Services and increases their reusability and maintainability. An example application is introduced to show how the profile can be effectively used to annotate activity diagrams, component diagrams and deployment diagrams.