Object Management Group (OMG) is a consortium, originally aimed at setting standards for distributed object-oriented systems, and is now focused on modeling (programs, systems and business processes) and model-based standards. Founded in 1989 by eleven companies (including Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Sun Microsystems, Apple Computer, American Airlines and Data General), OMG tried to create a heterogeneous distributed object standard. The goal was a common portable and interoperable object model with methods and data that work using all types of development environments on all types of platforms.
CORBA
At its founding, OMG set out to create the initial Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) standard which appeared in 1991. As of March 2003, the latest standard is CORBA 3.0. OMG has also developed a core set of standards adapting CORBA for embedded and real time systems. Implementations of real time CORBA are widely used in control systems in ships and aircraft.
Data Distribution Service
Data Distribution Service for real-time systems (DDS) is a specification of a publish/subscribe middleware for distributed systems created in response to the need to augment CORBA with a data-centric publish-subscribe specification. As of December 2005 the latest standard is DDS 1.2, with version 1.3 currently available to OMG members.
MDA
OMG evolved towards modeling standards by creating the standard for Unified Modeling Language (UML) followed by related standards for Meta-Object Facility (MOF), XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) and MOF Query/Views/Transformation (QVT). These together provide the foundation for Model Driven Architecture (MDA), and related set of standards, building upon the success of UML and MOF.
System Modeling Language (SysML), a modeling language based on UML for use in Systems Engineering, has been standardized in collaboration with INCOSE.
Significant progress has also been made in bringing the world of UML modeling and the Semantic Web together through the adoption of the Ontology Definition Metamodel which relates UML models in a standard way with RDF and OWL models.
Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Rules (SBVR) is a landmark for the OMG, the first OMG specification to incorporate the formal use of natural language in modeling and the first to provide explicitly a model of formal logic. Based on a fusion of linguistics, logic, and computer science, and two years in preparation, SBVR provides a way to capture specifications in natural language and represent them in formal logic so they can be machine-processed. SBVR is an integral part of MDA.
As of June 2006 the latest version of UML is 2.1, MOF is 2.0 and XMI is 2.1.
In 2006 the BPMN language specification was adopted as a standard by OMG.
ADM
ADM is the reverse of MDA. It also means Architecture Driven Modernization. ADMTF is an OMG group similar to ADTF with high potential.
Knowledge Discovery Metamodel (KDM), a common intermediate representation for existing software systems and their operating environments. Knowledge Discovery Metamodel is designed as the OMG's foundation for software modernization and software assurance. Knowledge Discovery Metamodel uses Meta-Object Facility to define an XMI interchange format between tools that work with existing software and an abstract interface for the next-generation assurance and modernization tools.
Abstract Syntax Tree Metamodel (ASTM), a modeling language for fine grained reverse engineering.
Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Rules (SBVR) and KDM are designed as two parts of a unique OMG Technology Stack for software analytics related to existing software systems. KDM defines an ontology related to software atrifacts and thus provides an initial formalization of the information related to a software system. SBVR is further used to formalize complex compliance rules related to the software.
Domain models
Business models
OMG has started to work on standards for business modeling, starting with the Business Motivation Model and the Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Rules (SBVR) specifications.
Verticals
Considerable progress has also been made in developing vertical model-based standards in the healthcare, finance, telecommunications, manufacturing, software-defined radio, space/ground systems communications and some dozen other technology areas.
Software assurance and regulatory compliance
New activities have been initiated to address important concerns of Regulatory Compliance and Software Assurance, building upon the base standards of MDA.
Certification
OMG offers a professional certification program, the UML Certification Program.
Implementations
OMG does not provide implementations, only specifications. But before a specification can be accepted as a standard by OMG, the members of the winning submitter team must guarantee that they will bring a conforming product to market within a year. This is an attempt to prevent unimplemented (and unimplementable) standards.
Other private companies or open source groups are encouraged to produce conforming products and OMG is attempting to develop mechanisms to enforcing true interoperability.
See also
External links
- Object Management Group website
- Model Driven Architecture website
- Architecture-Driven Modernization website
- Software Assurance website
- UML Certification Program
This article is based on material taken from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing prior to 1 November 2008 and incorporated under the "relicensing" terms of the GFDL, version 1.3 or later.