News

OMG task force OKs UML 2.0

• By Rich Seeley
• April 2, 2003

The proposed latest version of the Unified Modeling Language, dubbed UML 2.0, has been recommended for adoption by the Object Management Group's (OMG) Analysis and Design Task Force, the Needham, Mass.-based OMG disclosed this week.

The new UML 2.0 Infrastructure -- the Object Constraint Language and Diagram Interchange Protocol -- are scheduled to be formally adopted at the next full OMG meeting in June, according to Jon Siegel, the consortium's vice president of technology transfer. The new infrastructure will include an updated version of OMG's XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) standard, which provides for interoperability required in transporting models from one tool to another, Siegel said.

"The Model Driven Architecture [MDA] depends on this," Siegel said, "relying as it does on a series of models ultimately feeding into a code-generation step in the final stage of the development process."

Look for UML 2.0 and the related technologies to be incorporated into leading modeling tools, including those from Microsoft, Borland and IBM's recently acquired Rational, said Jason Bloomberg, analyst at ZapThink LLC (http://www.zapthink.com), Waltham, Mass. He said UML is a key part of a spreading trend in development organizations to utilize the so-called Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA).

Other major vendors participating in the OMG's UML standards work include Computer Associates, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Iona, Oracle and SAP.

The OMG's Siegel said the approval of the Analysis and Design Task Force was a milestone for UML 2.0 because, while ratification is required by several additional groups within OMG, the standards are now considered to be in their final form.

After final approval, the new OMG standards will be published this summer at http://www.omg.org/.