application architecture draw

Question

Yop

I would like to know what guys are using to make diagram of your application/service architecture ?

I would like to make diagrams representing the different layer of the whole application and for some parts go deeper (class level)

Visio is it a good deal for this?

thx in advance.

Answer 1

Enterprise Architect

Answer 2

I used dia, for couple of my small (300+ classes) projects, that I did for my school/work.

It is general enough so you can draw anything in it, and it even can generate code.

Answer 3

There are a lot of UML tools that can be used to draw UML diagrams. Some of them can also generate skeleton code etc but you don't have to bother with that if you don't want to.

Here's a couple of open source uml tools:
StarUML (windows)
UMLet (runs in java on windows, linux, mac)

edit: For the sortof diagram you are talking about - application/service architecture - you could draw a UML Deployment Diagram

edit2: For non-UML diagrams sounds like Dia is a good open source alternative to Visio

Answer 4

I use dia for this task

Answer 5

it's not really to make uml diagrams but more "general diagram" of the whole architecture of an application (which is more like a service compound of several application)

Answer 6

Visio

Answer 7

I use inkscape to visualize class interactions and architecture. It's a general purpose SVG editor, so you're free to be more creative and expressive in your diagrams than with Dia or Visio (both of which I've used).

The learning curve is gentle, it provides everything I've ever needed for building graphs and flow charts, and once you've got the hang of it, you've got a very powerful graphics editor in your arsenal.

Answer 8

we use Dabbleboard. It's great for remote team members. just give them a url and it updates on the fly. here is a link to one of our diagrams

http://dabbleboard.com/draw?b=135471&i=7&c=7b1781adc4a54887d5d414378575b890e38469de

Answer 9

There are many different modeling tools out there, I just discovered ArgoUML [http://argouml.tigris.org] which you might want to check out.

Answer 10

You can also use ARIS Express, which is free-of-charge. For example, you can use a system landscape model to describe your application architecture. Another interesting diagram might be IT infrastructure model, where you can describe the deployment of your application. Or you outline the main workflows of the application using a business process. ARIS Express also features a data model.