logical & physical components

Question

For this group assignment we have to produce a design document which includes a decomposition of the system/intermodule dependencies as well as interprocess dependencies.

We are warned to be aware of the differences between logical and physical components. Could someone please explain to me what each is?

Thanks.

Answer 1

A component is a specialized class that has an external specification in the form of one or more provided and required interfaces, and an internal implementation consisting of one or more classifiers that realize its behaviors. (Thanks to the UML spec for that definition).

A physical component is platform-specific, something like a CORBA or .NET or WSDL component - something that exists in a concrete form in your system. A logical component is platform-independent (or platform-agnostic), a useful design artefact that may or may not be implemented as a physical component.