Systems engineering with Innoslate

Lately I've been hearing a lot about a tool called Innoslate. Innoslate promises "The Future of Model-Based Systems
Engineering" in a completely web-based environment.

Innoslate promises complete coverage of development, from requirements to design. Reason enough to take a closer look.

30 days trial

Innoslate can, like many modern tools, can be tested for 30 days. The following report is based on this trial. Registration is easy, and after a few minutes I can log in.

Projects are then created in Innoslate, with the guided tour also offering to use one of three sample projects. This shows that Innoslate is suitable for both software and system projects with aspects of functional safety.

The next step in the tour shows the different areas covered by Innoslate:

The Innsolate database

Innsolate sees itself as a "database" that contains structured data. There is a database view that makes this data directly visible. However, this is mainly intended for overarching work and not for development work. There are various views for this, including simple documents, requirements models and 23 diagram types. Some of these, such as activity diagrams, can also be simulated:

Many of the diagrams appear to be based on standardized modeling languages, but do not fully support them. There are diagrams based on SysML, diagrams based on LML (Lifecycle Modeling Language), as well as others that cannot be clearly assigned to a specific notation.

For the user there are - to put it simply - documents and diagrams.

What we can do with the data

Once a system has been described, documents can of course also be generated. Versioning is also available, as is the option of drawing baselines.

Traceability can be analyzed with the help of Excel exports and corresponding diagrams.

Furthermore, under the "Intelligence" label, it is possible to analyze the data according to certain criteria. The results of the analysis are warnings or errors - or can simply be ignored.

Configuration

An important question is often how far a tool can be adapted to the needs of the user. Innoslate offers the option of extending "Labels", "Classes", "Relations" and "Workflows" for this purpose.

Conclusion

Admittedly, I have only taken a superficial look at Innoslate. At first glance, the tool looks very interesting for companies that want a simple complete solution for their system development.

However, "pragmatic" decisions seem to have been made in many places that severely limit the tool. This includes, for example, the aforementioned limitations of SysML. What is offered here is not comparable with MagicDraw or Enterprise Architect.

I can't really assess how Innoslate scales. For example, I have not been able to find a "classic" suspect feature, i.e. the automatic marking of linked elements as suspect when one of them is changed.

However, if that is enough, then Innoslate could be an interesting solution that provides you with "everything from a single source". This would tend to be smaller teams. For larger teams, I can imagine that the limits of the tool are quickly reached.

Image: Innoslate screenshot