Lattix has released version 3.0 of their >LDM tool, a lightweight dependency modeling application. LDM provides a way to chart the causal links between the various pieces of an organization's architecture. This release adds support for capturing relationships between database elements and the code that communicates with them.
LDM can inspect your codebase and databases and search for violations of dependency rules. Likewise, architects can review the architecture and edit the structure to analyze possible architectures, then create design rules to communicate that to the developers.
This post provides a good summary of the release. RedMonk provides an overview of LDM, including some suggestions for improvements. The major new features in 3.0 include the ability to analyze database dependencies (including schemas, tables, views, stored procedures, etc), analyzing dependencies between domains (between .NET and Java applications), and an import tool to bring in an architecture defined in an XML file.
