Describing an Artifact
An artifact is any type of physical element outside the application or organizational domain (organizational including persons). An artifact can represent a hardware system, sub-system, platform or component, or simply a physical element with specific characteristics.
You can describe components of an artifact in an artifact assembly diagram.
You can insert in this diagram:
• artifacts,
• application hosts,
• communication ports and channels,
• service and request points,
• interactions.