EA SPECIFICATIONS AT OMG
OMG’s Enterprise Architecture Specifications
As organizations look into Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) to make their infrastructure more agile, they increasingly
employ models to get a better understanding of how all the parts of their agile enterprise work together. A complete collection of models describing aspects of an organization is commonly called an “Enterprise Architecture.”
A substantial number of Enterprise Architecture Frameworks exist, differing widely in their conceptual coverage and formal
rigor. About a quarter of all enterprise architectures are based on the Zachman Framework, which provides the fundamental concept, but no formalism. DoDAF, MODAF and their combination in UPDM™ provide a strong formal framework
with a broad conceptual coverage and full Model Driven Architecture® (MDA®) integration. They are the most compelling
frameworks with the best tool support and represent about 15% of framework usage. Another quarter of all EA users have
created their own custom framework, often using the Architecture Definition Methodology from The Open Group’s TOGAF,
which has been proven effective in conjunction with MDA in developing enterprise architectures.
Regardless of the choice of framework, underlying models must be capable of representing all aspects of the enterprise
architecture in a consistent and integrated way, from requirements and business rules all the way to detailed specifications for implementation and operational behavior. OMG’s family of modeling languages and domain specific modeling
specifications provide the enterprise architect with a powerful toolbox, implemented in a wide collection of tools. All of
OMG’s modeling specifications are rooted in MOF™, the Meta-Object Facility and provide the standard XML Metadata
Interchange (XMI®) model-exchange format. More specific languages and models, including the Unified Modeling Language™ (UML®), are built on top of this platform, are fully interoperable, and are the foundation of OMG’s Model-Driven
Architecture (MDA).
1 See the TOGAF ADM / MDA Synergy Project interim report at http://doc.omg.org/doc/2006-11-01.
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G1010115
EA SPECIFICATIONS AT OMG
OMG Standards Cover the EA Space
There is no one-size-fits-all template for Enterprise
Architectures. However, the Zachman Framework is widely
acknowledged to encompass all the concepts necessary
to describe an organization. OMG® specifications provide
modeling support for almost every cell in Zachman’s classic
two-dimensional architecture classification. This note lists
several relevant OMG specifications:
Business Motivation Metamodel (BMM)
Implementing Enterprise Architecture typically starts with
documenting goals, strategy and business plans. BMM is
specifically designed for this, and for relating these goals
and plans to the associated rules and processes.
Business Process Definition Metamodel
(BPDM) & Business Process Modeling Notation™ (BPMN™)
BPDM is a framework for understanding and specifying
an organization’s processes independently of notation or
methodology, allowing processes captured through any of
the popular process improvement techniques to be communicated and re-used. BPDM supports OMG’s popular
BPMN notation, allowing BPMN diagrams to be integrated
into an enterprise’s overall architecture.
Unified Modeling Language (UML)
Perhaps OMG’s best-known specification, UML is an integrated family of 13 graphical modeling notations, designed
to represent different aspects of software design during the
development process.
Populating the Zachman Framework with OMG modeling specifications
Semantics of Business Vocabulary and Business Rules (SBVR)
It is widely supported by dozens of sophisticated tools.
UML’s profiling mechanism allows the creation of specialized UML-based languages for representing a wider range
of enterprise concerns.
Unified Profile for DoDAF and MODAF (UPDM)
This unified combination of the architecture frameworks
from DoD and MOD is the most powerful Enterprise Architecture framework available. It provides fully integrated
support from initial concepts all the way to organizational,
operational and implementation details.
SBVR provides an elegant way to represent business vocabulary, business facts and business rules as precise logic
expressed in formal natural language.
Common Warehouse Metamodel (CWM™)
CWM provides a formal model of data for the enterprise.
Using CWM, developers can generate specific data models, including relational tables, records or structures, OLAP,
XML and multidimensional database designs. OMG is
also working on the Information Management Metamodel
(IMM™), an extensive revision to CWM.
Enterprise Distributed Object Computing
(EDOC)
This component-oriented MOF metamodel and UML profile
is the grandfather of modern Enterprise Architecture.
UML Profile for Modeling Real-Time and Embedded systems (MARTE)
MARTE extends UML to model and manipulate time and
temporal aspects of (primarily real-time) computer systems.
About the Object Management Group
OMG is an international, not-for-profit collaborative industry
consortium established in 1989 to create open standards
for computer system interoperability. Today it maintains and
develops a number of families of interoperability standards
for a wide range of application domains.
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• Phone: +1 781-444-0404 •
Fax: +1 781-444-0320