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Deployment Diagrams

Deployment diagrams are another model in the implementation diagram category. The Deployment diagram models the hardware used in implementing a system and the association between those hardware components. Components can also be shown on a Deployment diagram to show the location of their deployment. Deployment diagrams can also be used early on in the design phase to document the physical architecture of a system. 

Notation

The elements used in Deployment diagrams are Components, as we have seen in Component diagrams, Nodes, which represent the physical processing resources in the system, and Associations.

Component A component represents a software entity in a system. Examples include source code files, programs, documents, and resource files. On a deployment diagram, components are placed within nodes to identify their deployed location. A component is represented using a rectangular box, with two rectangles protruding from the left side, as seen in the image to the right.
Node A node represents a piece of hardware in the system. This entity is represented by a three-dimensional cube.
Association An association, drawn as a solid line between two Nodes, indicates a line of communication between the hardware elements.

For example, the following deployment diagram shows that the SiteConfig component is deployed onto the Web Server and the BaseDB component is deployed on an App Server. We also can determine that the Web Server communicates with the App Server, and the App Server communicates with the Database Server and a Printer.