06/29/2004

Members of the Object Management Group (OMG) started work on six new standards during the organization's Technical Meeting in Orlando, Florida, which was sponsored by Borland Software Corporation (www.borland.com) and Sun Microsystems (www.sun.com). In addition, a draft standard for IT Portfolio Management completed final evaluation and started the series of votes that will declare it an official OMG specification.

OMG provided these details:

During the Technical Meeting, OMG members issued Requests for Proposals (RFPs) defining requirements and deadlines for one new software infrastructure standard and five new domain standards. An update for Minimum CORBA® will support a wider variety of embedded systems through flexible configuration, incorporate Real-time aspects, and align better with CORBA 3. OMG's Business Enterprise Integration Domain Task Force (DTF) will standardize an Organizational Structure Metamodel, laying a common foundation for modeling an organizations' hierarchy.

Two RFPs from OMG's C4I (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence) DTF will define their Shared Operational Picture Exchange Services, allowing first responders, government, and military organizations to develop and share computer data (the "Operational Picture") describing, for example, a developing disaster or battle scene. One RFP will standardize an Information Exchange Mechanism; the other an Information Exchange Data Model. A third RFP from the C4I DTF will standardize a Combat Management System Application Management Facility. Finally, OMG's Space DTF will standardize interfaces for Space Satellite Real-time Monitor and Control. Any interested company may join OMG and submit in response to these RFPs.

Open Requests for Information Concerning Business Rules, C4I, Space, Finance, and Control Systems OMG issues a Request for Information (RFI) before starting work in a new area, to gather information about needs or offerings, existing or emerging standards, and anything else relating to its topic. Any interested party, OMG member or not, may respond to an RFI. In Orlando, OMG opened RFIs in four areas: Business Rules Management; Software Radar Interfaces; and two topics relating to Space: a Ground Operations Automation Language, and Space Ground Segment Resource Scheduling. Other open RFIs cover a financial e-Payment gateway, CORBA-based control systems for a wide variety of applications; and Common Services for software-based communications.

During the meeting week, OMG presented four half-day tutorials on its various specifications. Special events highlighted OMG standards work in Finance, Healthcare, Legacy Integration, and Security Access Management. Seven companies demonstrated software products implementing OMG specifications.

Thanh Tran, Vice President and General Manager, Enterprise Business Unit for meeting co-sponsor Borland Software, spoke on "CORBA – Past, Present, and Future." Ashwin Rao, Senior Product Manager for co-sponsor Sun Microsystems' Sun ONE Studio, and Jeff Bush of Embarcadero Technologies, spoke on "UML™ Modeling with Sun Java Studio Enterprise".

With well-established standards covering software from design and development, through deployment and maintenance, and extending to evolution to future platforms, the Object Management Group (OMG) supports a full-lifecycle approach to enterprise integration which maximizes ROI, the key to successful IT. OMG's standards cover multiple operating systems, programming languages, middleware and networking infrastructures, and software development environments. OMG's Modeling standards, the basis for the MDA, include the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and Common Warehouse Metamodel (CWM). CORBA, the Common Object Request Broker Architecture, is OMG's standard open platform with hundreds of millions of deployments running today.

Headquartered in Needham, MA, USA, with a U.S. government representative in Washington, DC, and international marketing representatives in Japan, the UK, and Germany, the Object Management Group is an international, open membership, not-for-profit computer industry specifications consortium. OMG member companies write, adopt, and maintain the organization's standards following a mature, open process.