Communication Associations
Figure 5-3 shows nodes associated with the project management system, but how are those nodes related? A specialized type of association, called a communication association, addresses the question of how nodes are related. (Associations are discussed in Chapter 3.)
A communication association between
nodes indicates a communication
path between the nodes that allows components on the nodes to
communicate with one another. A communication association is shown as
a solid-line between nodes. Figure 5-12 shows that
the Business-Processing Server has a communication
association with the Desktop Client,
Printer, and Database Server
nodes.
Figure 5-12. Communication associations
Figure 5-13 combines Figure 5-8
and Figure 5-12 to show how components are related
to nodes. Notice that if two components are related and reside on
different nodes, the nodes must have a communication association
between them to allow the components to communicate; otherwise, the
components are not able to communicate and be related to one another.
For example, if the communication association between the
Desktop
Client and
Business-Processing
Server
nodes was removed, the User
Interface component could not be related to the
IBusiness Processing interface and
Security component. If the communication
association between the Business-Processing
Server and Database
Server nodes was removed, ...
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