So let's start by seeing how these activities and principles
are reflected in the key features of the Rational Unified
Process. First of all, the Rational Unified Process is a
software process model. So if you recall our introductory lessons,
that means two main things. The first one is that
it defines an order of phases that have to be
followed in the software process. And the second thing is
that it also prescribes transition criteria, so when to go
from one phase to the next. The second key
feature of RUP is that it is component based. And
also in this case, this implies two main things.
The first one is that a software system is defined
and built as a set of software components. So
software components are the building blocks of our software system.
And the second one is that there must be well-defined
interfaces between these components, interfaces
through which these components communicate.
In addition, the Rational Unified Process is
tightly related to UML. And in particular, it
relies extensively on UML for its notation, and
with respect to its basic principles. Finally, the
three main distinguishing aspects of the Rational Unified
Process are that it is use-case driven, architecture-centric
and iterative and incremental. So let's now look
in more detail at these three distinguishing aspects,
and we're going to look at each one of them individually.