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Special Features:

OMG CHARTERS NEW SUBGROUPS, ELECTS ARCHITECTURE BOARD MEMBERS

Members of the Object Management Group met in Anaheim, Calif., during the week of Feb. 2-5 at a meeting sponsored by Compuware Corpt.

New Financial Payment Gateways Standardization Effort

A number of OMG members, including major banking and financial institutions, formed a working group to standardize models of interoperability and interfaces between payment and business systems. Bridging the gaps that separate systems with different protocols, the new standards will spread the adoption of electronic payments into all areas of banking and finance. Any interested company is welcome to join OMG and work on these new standards; for information e-mail info@omg.org.

New Subgroup Charters

Reflecting the group's expanding range of interests, OMG members chartered four new subgroups in Anaheim. The new Architecture-Driven Modernization (ADM) Platform Task Force (PTF) will standardize modernization of existing applications by specifying a knowledge-discovery metamodel, models for source and target platforms, and transformations between these models. The Open Collaboration Services Initiative Special Interest Group will work on standards for intra- and inter-enterprise collaboration based on OMG's Model Driven Architecture. The Information and Security Assurance Platform SIG will coordinate security architectures in current and future specifications. Finally, the Software Based Communications Domain Task Force (DTF) will standardize the architecture of software-defined radios used in military, telecommunications and other areas.

Architecture Board Election

Elected by the members, OMG's prestigious Architecture Board reviews each new standard before it is adopted to ensure that it conforms to the organization's architecture and is consistent with the group's existing standards. In Anaheim, Carol Burt of 2AB; Manfred Koethe of 88Solutions; Robert Kukura of Raytheon; Jishnu Mukerji of Hewlett-Packard; and Thomas Rutt of Fujitsu were elected to two-year terms.

New Infrastructure Standards

OMG issued Requests for Proposals (RFPs) stating the requirements and schedules for three new standards efforts. Two were initiated by the Real-Time, Embedded, and Specialized Systems PTF: A standard for power conservation will be based on OMG's Model Driven Architecture, defining a platform-independent model of a power-conserving system. The RFP requires the standard to also include a set of conforming interfaces for CORBA-based systems; interfaces for additional systems may be included as well. A high-assurance Object Request Broker standard will cover use of CORBA with certifiable high-assurance realtime operating systems. The third RFP, from the telecommunications industry, will standardize a MOF-compliant metamodel and UML 2.0 profile for modeling interactive dialogues in voice-based applications. These will enable developers to specify dialogues independently of the hardware and software that they run on, preserving their utility as platforms advance in this rapidly-changing field. Any company may join OMG and submit to these RFPs; for information, send e-mail to info@omg.org.

New Standards Votes

Members finished evaluations and started final adoption votes for two new standards: One standardizes a set of identifiers for quantities used in Life Science Research, facilitating interoperability among applications in biotechnology at multiple levels. The other standardizes a binding of the MetaObject Facility to OMG Interface Definition Language (IDL), defining a CORBA-based repository for MOF-based UML models.

Tutorials, Information Day, Sponsor Presentation And Software Demonstrations

On Feb. 5, an Information Day on Model-Integrated Computing for Embedded Real-Time Systems included five presentations. Wim Bast and Bruce Epstein of Meeting Sponsor Compuware Corporation spoke in plenary on "MDA and OptimalJ." OMG presented a tutorial "Survey of OMG Specifications." Eight member companies demonstrated their implementations of the group's specifications.

OMG Board Endorses New Standard

Following member evaluation and endorsement, a vote by OMG's Board of Directors makes a new standard official. Following work at the Anaheim meeting, the Board ratified adoption of a set of lightweight services ­- Naming/Directory, Events and Time ­- suitable for resource-constrained embedded CORBA systems.

Next Meeting; Links to Additional Information

OMG members will meet next in St. Louis, Mo., during the week of April 26-30. Interested non-members may attend as observers; for an invitation, see www.omg.org/news/meetings/tc/guest.htm. OMG's home page is www.omg.org. Information about the MDA is collected at www.omg.org/mda. All OMG specifications may be downloaded free of charge from www.omg.org/technology/documents/specifications.htm.

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