Deployment diagrams are one of the two ways you can model the physical aspects of a system. A deployment diagram is a graph of nodes connected by communication associations and it shows the physical architecture of the hardware and software of the system.
If you need to learn how to create new diagrams in a project, or the techniques for placing elements and drawing links, consult the User's Guide topics found under "Working with Diagrams: Basic Diagram Techniques" in the Table of Contents. See Related Topics below.
Deployment diagrams usually contain:
Nodes, representing a processing resource
Relationship links:
Association
Dependency
Deployment diagrams in Together can also show:
Components, that live on nodes and they may provide realization of interfaces
Interfaces
Objects, that may live in processes that live in components
Nodes
A Node is a run-time physical object and may include not only computing devices but also human resources or mechanical processing resources. Basically, nodes are things that execute something and they represent locations upon where others elements are deployed.
Components
Though components are a lot like nodes, they are things that are executed by nodes. Components typically represent a package of other logical elements and they can be deployed on one or more nodes.
Interfaces
Interfaces are used to specify a service of a component and they may be imported or exported by them, therefore an interface specifies a contract that a component (or a class) must carry out.
Together uses the most common way to show a relationship between a component and its interfaces - through an elided (hidden) realization relationship.
Links
Association: usually
they represent a communication between two elements. Use a
stereotype to indicate the nature of the communication.
Dependency: represents a connection between two components (sometimes through interfaces)
Deployment Diagram Tips
Using the Clone command on the context menu of the navigation pane node, you can quickly create a new diagram with the same content as the existing one. The new diagram has a unique name and is created in the same package.
UsingAdd Existing command on the diagram's context menu, you can reuse any already created elements in other state diagrams. Note: Elements imported this way are independent copies of the existing ones.
Organize components by specifying the relationships among them.
Objects and components can migrate from one component instance to another component instance, respectively from one node instance to another node instance. In this case, the object (component) will be on its component (node) only for a part of entire time. To show that, use the dependency relationship with a becomes stereotype.
A component may reside on nodes. You can represent that in two ways: using the support stereotype and the dashed arrows, and by graphically nesting the component symbol within the node symbol.
Related topics