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One Model, Many Interests, Many Views
Mapping for Interface and Physical N2 Diagrams
On these N2 diagrams, the child components are shown on the main diagonal forming an N x N matrix
of cells. Connections – either logical interfaces or physical links – that connect a pair of components
are shown on the off-diagonal. Since the diagram focuses on physical connection as opposed to
directionality, there are no arrows shown on the diagram. Instead, the diagram simply represents who
is connected to whom.
The lack of directionality means that half of the off-diagonal locations are redundant. If A is connected
to B, we know that B is connected to A. Rather than showing this information twice, only the upper half
of the diagram is used. The lower off-diagonal cells will be empty by definition.
As with the functional N2 diagram, you can manually change the order of the components on the
diagonal. This can be useful for clustering analysis. It is the raw simplicity and the clustering analysis
that is the primary value of the interface and physical N2 diagrams.