Contact:
Stephanie Covert
Object Management Group
+1-843-225 8419
pr@omg.org

New Board Members, Standards Advancement Work
Highlight OMG Meeting in Anaheim, Calif. September 25-29, 2006

Needham, MA, USA - October 13, 2006 - Members of the Object Management Group™ (OMG™) met in Anaheim, California, USA during the week of September 25-29, 2006, sponsored by Walt Disney Parks & Resorts, Inc. At this meeting, three new standards completed member evaluation and started the series of votes leading to official adoption.

Additional meeting highlights included the election of four new members to the OMG Board of Directors, including Larry Johnson, Principal, TethersEnd Consulting, Djenana Campara, CEO, KDM Analytics; Dr. Gerardo Pardo-Castellote, CTO, Real-Time Innovations, Inc.; and Cory B. Casanave, CEO and President, Data Access Technologies. In addition, the BPM Steering Committee elected Phil Gilbert, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Lombardi Software as Chair.

Modeling and Middleware Specifications Move Forward
The Board of Directors voted to adopt the WSDL - C++ Mapping specification. This specification provides a mapping for Web Services applications developed in C++ environments. It will result in an increase of productivity, as programmers won't need to write specialized code to deal with various types of XML and Web Service documents. The Board also adopted a revision to the CORBA® Binding for WSDL Specification, further promoting machine-to-machine communication between CORBA services and those described using WSDL - the Web Services Description Language.

Other specifications that moved forward in the adoption process include:

• The MOF™ Model to Text proposed specification intends to standardize the transformation of models into a textual representation, supporting the transition step in the MDA® process that generates usable artifacts from models, including documentation and platform specific code.

• The UML® Profile for CORBA® and CCM is designed to facilitate the representation of concepts that are needed to represent a pure CORBA or CORBA Components PSM. Its purpose is to propose modeling concepts and facilitate communication of design intent between developers in a standard way and to enable interoperability between various analysis and design tools that are open to automation.

• On the middleware side, the Robotic Technology Component (RTC) proposed specification provides a Platform Independent Model (PIM) and a CORBA Platform Specific Model (PSM) of composeable software components for robotics that specify common interfaces to transfer data and commands and a set of minimum common states and transitions.

Four New Specifications Initiated
OMG members initiate a new standards effort by issuing a Request for Proposals (RFP). Any company, organization, or government agency is welcome to join OMG and submit a draft proposal in response to an RFP.

• Modeling: UML Profile and Metamodel for Services (UPMS)
• Modernization: Software Metrics Metamodel
• Middleware: UML Profile for DDS
• Middleware: Extended View of Time 2.0 (RFC)

Processes Open for Participation
OMG is an open-membership organization and welcomes any organization, government agency, or university to join and contribute to our specifications. Each adoption is open to new participants until its Letter-of-Intent deadline. The four new specifications just described are currently open to participation. In addition these following processes, known as the Request for Information (RFI) and papers, are also currently open to new participants for review and comment:

• Event Driven Architecture (EDA) and its Relationship with SOA & BPM RFI
  This RFI seeks information from industry that will guide the OMG in the development of modeling standards for Complete Life Cycle of Events (Event Metrics); Ontology of Events; Sense and Respond Services; and Processing of complex events.

• MDA Tool Capabilities RFI
  This RFI requests information on what capabilities (functionalities, methodology definition and process guidance) of MDA tools that the MDA user community currently use for their projects, and which capabilities they would like to have.

• Business Process Maturity Model (BPMM) Discussion Paper
  This paper discusses BPMM, a conceptual model based on "best practices" that are in actual use in a domain (for example, marketing, banking operations, manufacturing, finance, or IT operations). It describes the essential elements of effective processes providing a foundation for quantitative control of the process, which is the basis for continuous process improvement. It describes an evolutionary improvement path that guides organizations in moving from immature, inconsistent processes to mature, disciplined processes.

• OMB Federal Transition Framework White Paper
  While documenting minor refinements of the pilot Federal Transition framework Metamodel, this paper establishes the process through which the Office of Management and Budget and OMG's Government Domain Task Force will coordinate their dissimilar time-cycles and use the OMG Community Process to create a consensus specification of the OMB's Federal Transition Framework Metamodel.

Non-members may download any RFP from http://www.omg.org/public_schedule. For some processes, member votes have extended the LOI dates beyond the deadline stated in the RFP. For more information on any RFP, send an email to info@omg.org. 

Meeting Sponsor Presentation, Tutorials and Information Days
During a lunchtime plenary, Allen Fazio, Vice President and CIO of Disneyland Resort, spoke on Disney's support for OMG and the OMG process, and the importance of driving decisions that provide business value.

During the meeting week, OMG members and staff presented six half-day tutorials on the group's various specifications. The Space DTF hosted an Information Day on "Is There a Roadmap in Space?" and the Data Distribution Service SIG presented "Data Distribution Service: a Foundation of Real-Time Data Centricity."

Next Meeting; Links to Additional Information
OMG members will meet next in Washington, D.C., USA, during the week of December 4-8, 2006, co-sponsored by Real-Time Innovations, Inc., Data Access Technologies and Sparx Systems. Members and non-members are invited to attend the seven Information Days that will be held during the meeting week. Information Days introduce OMG processes and standards activities. Topics in Washington, D.C. include Service-Oriented Architecture, Government, Business Process Maturity Model, C4I, Data Distribution Service, Software Assurance and the UML Profile for DoDAF/MoDAF. Visit http://www.omg.org/news/meetings/tc/special_events.htm for details.

Interested non-members may attend OMG Technical Meetings as observers; for an invitation see http://www.omg.org/tcguest. Members may register for the meeting at http://www.omg.org/registration. All OMG specifications may be downloaded free of charge from http://www.omg.org/specifications. 

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About the Object Management Group
OMG is an international, open membership, not-for-profit computer industry consortium. OMG Task Forces develop enterprise integration standards for a wide range of technologies, including: Real-time, Embedded and Specialized Systems, Analysis & Design, Architecture-Driven Modernization and Middleware and an even wider range of industries, including: Business Modeling and Integration, C4I, Finance, Government, Healthcare, Legal Compliance, Life Sciences Research, Manufacturing Technology, Robotics, Software-Based Communications and Space.

OMG's modeling standards, including the Unified Modeling Language™ (UML®) and Model Driven Architecture® (MDA®), enable powerful visual design, execution and maintenance of software and other processes, including IT Systems Modeling and Business Process Management. OMG's middleware standards and profiles are based on the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA®) and support a wide variety of industries.

More information about OMG can be found at www.omg.org. OMG is headquartered in Needham, MA, USA.

Note to editors: MDA, Model Driven Architecture, OMG Logo, UML, UML logo and CORBA are registered trademarks, and OMG, Object Management Group, MOF, MDA Logos, OMG SysML and Unified Modeling Language are trademarks, of Object Management Group. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.