Modeling tools..

Microsoft has just announced a perview release for its DSL tools that can be downloaded here. Should be interesting to see how it turns out. I am not gonna try it out right now since it is a competitors tool :( IBM Rational's tool Rational Software Architect(RSA) can be downloaded here or from the linked site. RSA exploits UML tooling and UML profiles for modeling while Microsofts tools have a DSL approach. Other interesting tools are Meta Programming System from JetBrains. For business modeling IBM has a the WebSphere Business Integration Modeler which allows business analysts to model business processes without using UML since business analysts typically do not want to get entangled in knowing UML. These models are similar to UML activity diagrams and the user can associate costs with each business task in the process. The models can then be simulated and subsequently optimized based on the simulation results. When the analyst is done with the business modeling the model can be imported into RSA as a UML model for use by architects and developers during the implementation phase of the processes. There are pretty interesting days ahead in the modeling space.