Walkthrough: Designing Application Systems by Using a Bottom-Up Approach

This walkthrough guides you through designing an application system from the applications that you defined on the application diagram in Walkthrough: Defining Applications on Application Diagrams. In subsequent walkthroughs, you will evaluate the deployment of this system against a logical representation of a datacenter.

In this walkthrough, you will accomplish the following tasks:

  • Design an application system by using existing application definitions.

  • Provide access to members of an application system by adding proxy endpoints to the system.

A sample that demonstrates the outcome of this walkthrough is available on the Microsoft Download Center at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=40867.

To define a system from existing application definitions

  1. Open the Catalog.sln solution file you created in Walkthrough: Defining Applications on Application Diagrams.

  2. On the application diagram, select Catalog and CatalogDB.

    Note

    To select multiple shapes, press and hold the SHIFT key while you click the shapes. Avoid selecting the connection line between shapes.

  3. Click Design Application System on the Diagram menu.

    The Design Application System dialog box appears.

  4. In the System Name box, type CatalogSystem, and click OK.

    System Designer appears and displays a system diagram named CatalogSystem.sd. On this diagram, the shape that contains the applications that you selected represents a system definition. The name of the system definition appears in the upper left corner.

    The System View window appears docked with the Toolbox and contains existing applications and systems that you can add to the system definition.

You will now add a proxy endpoint to expose application behavior to the outside of the system.

To add a proxy endpoint for a member of the system

  1. Click the CatalogWebService endpoint

  2. Click Add Proxy Endpoint on the Diagram menu.

    A proxy endpoint appears on CatalogSystem. A dotted line extends from the CatalogWebService endpoint to the system border.

    Note

    You can create proxy endpoints for any endpoint on members within a system. You can connect a proxy endpoint to only one endpoint inside the system. For more information, see How to: Expose Behavior of Members in Application Systems.

To create a system definition containing an application and a system

  1. View the application diagram by clicking the Catalog.ad [AD] tab at the top of the system diagram.

  2. Right-click SalesSmartClient, and click Design Application System.

  3. Name the system SmartClientSystem and click OK.

  4. From the System View window, drag CatalogSystem to the diagram.

    For more information about how to open the System View window, see How to: Display the System View Window.

    CatalogSystem appears on the diagram as a rectangular shape. The proxy endpoint that you created previously appears as an endpoint on this shape. To view the members of CatalogSystem, double-click the shape.

  5. While holding the ALT key, drag the CatalogWebService endpoint on CatalogSystem to the consumer endpoint on SalesSmartClient.

  6. View the application diagram.

  7. Create a second system called WebClientSystem that contains SalesWebClient.

  8. From the System View window, drag CatalogSystem into WebClientSystem.

  9. While holding the ALT key, drag the CatalogWebService endpoint on CatalogSystem to the consumer endpoint (hollow endpoint) on SalesWebClient to connect them.

  10. Save the solution.

Next Steps

The next step is to load a logical datacenter diagram into the solution and apply some constraints to servers modeled on that diagram. To continue, see Walkthrough: Applying Constraints to a Logical Datacenter. Following that, you can validate the application system against a target deployment environment in Walkthrough: Validating an Application System for Deployment.

See Also

Tasks

Walkthrough: Defining Applications on Application Diagrams

Concepts

Workflow Across Distributed System Designers

Other Resources

Introductory Distributed System Designer Walkthroughs