Diff-based model synchronization in an industrial MDD process

Models play a central role in model-driven software engineering. There are many different kinds of models during the development process, which are related to each other and change over time. Therefore, it is difficult to keep the different models consistent with each other. Consistency of different models is maintained manually in many cases today.

This paper presents an approach for automated model differencing, so that the differences between two model versions (called delta) can be extracted and stored. It can then be re-used independently of the models it was created from to interactively merge different model versions, and for synchronizing other types of models.

The main concern was to apply our concepts to an industrial process, so usability and performance were important issues.