Deployment diagrams are used to model the configuration of run-time processing elements and the software components, processes, and objects that live on them.

In the deployment diagram, you model the physical nodes and the communication associations that exist between them. Each node can contain run-time component instances, indicating that the component lives or runs on the node. You can optionally model the objects that are contained within the component.

Deployment diagrams are used to model only components that exist as run-time entities; they are not used to model compile-time only or link-time only components.

You can also model components that migrate from node to node or objects that migrate from component to component using the dependency relationship with the becomes stereotype.