The Unified Modeling Language is the successor to the dozens of OO A&D notations of the early ’90s. Result of an OMG adoption begun in ’96 and completed in ’97 Complemented with repository (MOF) and XML Metadata specs (XMI) Standardization primed the market Over 100 books Dozens of commercial tools Widely available training Supported by an open process UML 2.0 process under way now