A method and corresponding apparatus provide an interface between two
software products, i.e., data structures, to produce an effective
enterprise architecture (EA) tool set. The software products may be, for
example, System Architect.RTM. (SA) software product and Network Modeling
and Simulation software product, referred to as OPNET. The interface
translates extensible markup language (XML) files of, for example,
network diagrams between the two software products, such as SA and OPNET.
Specifically, the interface allows transfer of network diagrams from
OPNET software data structure into SA software data structure to expedite
the creation of enterprise architectures within SA. The interface further
allows transfer of network diagrams from SA software data structure into
OPNET software data structure, expediting the simulation of network
diagrams within OPNET.