The component model consists of the components, configurations,
folders, and files to which you can map various design constructs
of the software model.
Components
Components are binary‑level
entities that
are the result of compilation. Libraries (.lib files)
and executable programs (.exe files) are the final
output of the build process with the source files generated by IBM Rational Rhapsody
Configurations
Configurations define
various flavors of a
component. For example, by defining several configurations you can
generate different versions of the same component for various target
environments, with instrumentation enabled or disabled, and in debug
or release versions.
Mapping files to different folders IBM Rational Rhapsody creates
a folder with the name of the component, and under this folder is
another one with the name of the active configuration.