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 maintain-ability. An example application is introduced to show how the profile can be effectively used to annotate activity diagrams, component diagrams and deployment diagrams.