Multi-platform MDE Workbench Architecture

A growing expectation from the users of a Model Driven Engineering (MDE) workbench is to have a unified engineering environment that is oblivious of the specificities of the used modelling tools. This issue is key for large industrial organisations such as Thales, where mastered, proven, robust and stable engineering methods and practices cannot easily and safely rely on commercial modelling tools that continuously emerge, evolve and disappear. This paper addresses the multi-platform MDE workbench architecture solution that gives the workbench the ability to be modelling-tool independent, that is to be able to substitute a modelling tool by another at any time. This achievement is presented through a set of lessons learned we have acquired in terms of development cost evaluation, architecture benefits and drawbacks, implementation main difficulties, constraints on the production chain and impacts on the development team. An insight is finally given of what the extension of the multi-platform workbench architecture to other engineering domains can bring for defining and implementing interoperability at engineering disciplines level instead of tool level and obtaining platform independent engineering ecosystems.