Executive
Overview
Model
Driven Architecture™
The Architecture of Choice for a Changing World™
Computing infrastructures are
expanding their reach in every dimension. New platforms
and applications must interoperate with legacy systems.
Virtual enterprises span multiple companies. The Internet
is imposing new integration challenges as it extends
into every corner of every organization. New implementation
platforms are continually coming down the road, each
claiming to be "the next big thing." Those who architect
computer systems, whether for banks or battleships,
face daunting technology choices. To protect their
investments and maximize flexibility, they buy hardware
that implements open interconnection standards like
Ethernet and USB, and software that uses open interface
standards like CORBA®. It's the only sensible course
in today's rapidly changing, multi-vendor computing
environment.
But as computers and networks become faster and cheaper,
even interconnection standards must evolve. New technologies
constantly appear for new application niches. One
need look no further than the recent rise of XML to
see how quickly this can happen. How can organizations
ensure that their mission-critical information systems
are rooted in standards that will adapt to new hardware
capabilities and software platforms?
Now, the Object Management Group™ (OMG™) addresses
this reality with MDA™, the Model Driven Architecture™.
MDA supports evolving standards in application domains
as diverse as enterprise resource planning, air traffic
control and human genome research; standards that
are tailored to the needs of these diverse organizations,
yet need to survive changes in technology and the
proliferation of different kinds of middleware. The
OMG Model Driven Architecture™ addresses the complete
life cycle of designing, deploying, integrating, and
managing applications as well as data using open standards.
MDA-based standards enable organizations to integrate
whatever they already have in place with whatever
they build today…and whatever they build tomorrow.
Building on a Solid Foundation
The product of OMG's proven,
open standards adoption process, MDA represents a
significant-though evolutionary-step forward. It is
built on the solid foundation of well-established
OMG standards, including: Unified Modeling Language™
(UML™), the ubiquitous modeling notation used and
supported by every major company in the software industry;
XML Metadata Interchange (XMI™), the standard for
storing and exchanging models using XML; and CORBA™,
the most popular open middleware standard.
The OMG MDA™ separates the fundamental logic behind
a specification from the specifics of the particular
middleware that implements it. This allows rapid development
and delivery of new interoperability specifications
that use new deployment technologies but are based
on proven, tested business models. Organizations can
use MDA to meet the integration challenges posed by
new platforms, while preserving their investments
in existing business logic based on existing platforms.
MDA addresses the challenges of today's highly networked,
constantly changing systems environment, providing
an architecture that assures:
- Portability,
increasing application re-use and reducing the cost
and complexity of application development and management,
now and into the future.
- Cross-platform
Interoperability, using rigorous methods to guarantee
that standards based on multiple implementation
technologies all implement identical business functions.
- Platform
Independence, greatly reducing the time, cost and
complexity associated with re-targeting applications
for different platforms-including those yet to be
introduced.
- Domain
Specificity, through Domain-specific models that
enable rapid imple-
mentation of new, industry-specific applications
over diverse platforms.
- Productivity,
by allowing developers, designers and system administrators
to use languages and concepts they are comfortable
with, while allowing seamless communication and
integration across the teams.
Bottom-line Benefits
The
benefits of MDA are significant-to business leaders
and developers alike:
- Reduced
cost throughout the application life-cycle
- Reduced
development time for new applications
- Improved
application quality
- Increased
return on technology investments
- Rapid
inclusion of emerging technology benefits into their
existing systems
MDA
provides a solid framework that frees system infrastructures
to evolve in response to a never-ending parade of
platforms, while preserving and leveraging existing
technology investments. It enables system integration
strategies that are better, faster and cheaper.
Model Driven Architecture:
The CIO Problem Solver
You have a critical opportunity
to impact your organization's bottom line performance:
integrating your internal business systems with an
architecture that takes the long view. You know you
need to integrate what you've built, with what you're
building, with what you will build in the future-and
integrate your systems along with those of your customers,
suppliers and business partners.
Adopting appropriate industry standards is a vital
decision, since the business integration strategy
must provide a technology- and vendor-neutral platform
that future-proofs you for at least the next twenty
years, while at the same time allowing existing business
operations to continue and evolve.
Unfortunately, today there are multiple industry standards-CORBA,
EJB/J2EE, .NET, XML/SOAP, and many others to come.
Now, with the OMG MDA initiative, the OMG has solved
the challenge of selecting and reconciling standards
based integration with a common umbrella approach.
OMG's MDA both endorses and captures existing standards
initiatives and easily facilitates the automatic integration
of subsystems which are built using different baseline
technologies.
OMG Model Driven Architecture:
How Systems Will Be Built. 
MDA provides an open, vendor-neutral
approach to the challenge of interoperability, building
upon and leveraging the value of OMG's established
modeling standards: Unified Modeling Language (UML);
Meta-Object Facility (MOF); and Common Warehouse Meta-model
(CWM). Platform-independent Application descriptions
built using these modeling standards can be realized
using any major open or proprietary platform, including
CORBA, Java, .NET, XMI/XML, and Web-based platforms.
As new platforms and technologies emerge, MDA enables
rapid development of new specifications that use them,
streamlining the process of integration. In this way,
MDA goes beyond middleware to provide a comprehensive,
structured solution for application interoperability
and portability into the future. Creating Application
and Platform Descriptions in UML provides the added
advantage of improving application quality and portability,
while significantly reducing costs and time-to-market.
The architecture encompasses the full range of pervasive
services already specified by OMG, including Directory
Services, Event Handling, Persistence, Transactions,
and Security. The core logic of many of these services
is already available for multiple implementation technologies;
for instance, Sun's J2EE platform uses Java interfaces
to CORBA's long-established transactions and security
services. MDA makes it easier and faster to design
similar multiple-platform interfaces to common services.
Most importantly, MDA enables the creation of standardized
Domain Models for specific vertical industries. These
standardized models can be realized for multiple platforms
now and in the future, easing multiple platform integration
issues and protecting IT investments against the uncertainty
of changing fashions in platform technology.
OMG: Leading the Way
The Object Management Group
(OMG) is an open membership, not-for-profit consortium
dedicated to producing and maintaining specifications
for interoperable enterprise applications. Our membership
roster includes many of the most successful and innovative
companies in the computer industry, as well as those
at the forefront of using technology to gain a competitive
edge in their business. All have made the commitment
actively to participate in shaping the future of enterprise,
Internet, real-time, and embedded systems.
OMG has developed some of the industry's best-known
and most influential specifications, including CORBA,
OMG IDL, IIOP, UML, MOF, XMI, CWM, the OMA, and Domain
Facilities in industries such as healthcare, manufacturing,
telecommunications, and many others. The Model Driven
Architecture (MDA) builds on these successes, providing
a comprehensive interoperability framework for defining
the interconnected systems of tomorrow.
For more information on the Model Driven Architecture
(MDA), please contact the
Object Management Group (OMG) at www.omg.org/mda
The Architecture of Choice for a Changing World™
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