Call for Participation in Joint Workshop on Standards for the Use of Models that Define the Data and Processes of Information Systems
This is to announce a joint Workshop on the role and direction of standards for the use, integration and exchange of models of data and processes in the development and management of interoperable information systems.
Location
The Workshop will be held Monday, September 9, through Thursday, September 12, 1996, in Bellevue, Washington, USA, just across Lake Washington east of Seattle.
Facilities for the Workshop are provided through the generous support of The Boeing Company.
Problems to be Addressed by the Workshop
There is a perception among the participants in international standards organizations, and across industry in general, that there is a significant amount of disharmony among the standards that address the use and exchange of models in the development of information systems. Among the apparent problems are the following:
- Multiple and often incompatible standards are being developed for the same components of information systems.
- Labor is often expended in standards organizations in trying to solve problems that have already been solved, either because there is no adequate visibility of what other standards are doing, or because participants disagree with minor details of other standards.
- Industry cannot implement an architecture that takes full advantage of products that conform to the standards, because there is no overall perspective that defines the relationships of those standard components.
- There are significant gaps in the standards needed to implement an architecture of interoperable standard components.
Illustrative and symptomatic of these apparent problems are the following (the order is arbitrary and does not represent any form of ranking; nor is this in any way intended to be a complete list):
- STEP developed its data own modeling technique (EXPRESS), even though many vendors provided modeling tools that were being integrated through the export/import format of the EIA CDIF standard.
- IRDS , PCTE, PLIB (Parts Library, ISO TC184/SC4) and BSR (Basic Semantic Repository, ISO) are independently developing standards for dictionary/repositories to manage definitions of different aspects of systems (and several others are talking about doing the same).
- IRDS, CSMF and ISO CDIF (SC7/WG11) are all developing techniques for the integration of models of aspects of information systems. None has committed the resources to provide a standard to address the semantic integration of different aspects of information systems, for example, data models and process models.
- STEP developed its own export/import format for product data exchange, and its own application programming interface (the Standard Data Access Interface or SDAI), with its own bindings to C++ and IDL, independently of the remote database access and export/import facilities being developed by JTC1/SC21/WG3.
- There is no clear responsibility for assuring that tools that conform to the standards for specific domains will interoperate with one another, although STEP has begun to consider whether that is a problem within its own family of standards.
- There is no clear responsibility for defining the kinds of data and process models that an enterprise needs to develop and exchange, what business processes are supported by those models, or what the semantic relationships are among those models.
Objectives
Each of the sponsoring organizations seeks to develop standards that enable the interoperation of components of the information systems of enterprises around the world. Furthermore each of these organizations has adopted an approach to that goal that emphasizes the use or exchange of models of aspects of information systems, particularly data and processes. The mission of the joint Workshop is to support that goal by achieving the following objectives:
- To promote mutual understanding of the objectives, architectures and directions of the sponsoring standards organizations.
- To achieve a commitment by those organizations to a common framework of terminology and assumptions about the role of standards in the promotion of interoperable information systems.
- To achieve a commitment to complementary standards and programs of work that eliminate incompatible standards, reduce redundant activities and facilitate the availability to industry of interoperable information systems components that conform to all the relevant standards.
- To identify as yet unmet needs for standards for the exchange of models that enable interoperable information systems.
Benefits
The benefits to industry of achieving the above objectives include but are not limited to the following:
- Reduce cost and time to implement information system requirements by
- Improved reuse of proven standard product and software components
- Improved accuracy in the use of models to support change impact analysis
- Improved availability of standard products
- Reduction of non-value added interfaces to be built and maintained
- Leveraging investment in research and development through use of expertise of standards organizations
- Increased ability to generate software from models
- Reduce cost of long term data retention by improved convertibility of data between standard products
- Reduce cost and time to implement effective partnerships by
- Reliance on standard data models that are incorporated into enterprise data models
- Reliance on implemented data exchange standards
- Reliance on standard products
- Improve product quality by
- Improved reuse of proven product and software components
- Improved accuracy of change impact analysis
- Improved communication with customers and suppliers
Deliverables
The Workshop will publish a set of Proceedings on the World Wide Web that includes the contributions of participating standards organizations and industry experts, and minutes of the discussions on the topics of the Workshop.
In addition the Workshop will prepare the following for submission to the sponsoring technical committees, subcommittees, working groups and rapporteur groups:
- Resolutions of the workshop on issues raised by discussion of national body contributions
- Recommendations for actions to be taken to promote complementary standards and programs of work
- Proposals to ISO and IEC for new work items to complement existing programs of work.
Return to: JSW Home Page.
Edited by: JG Nell, NIST. Updated 30 September 1996.
br> Send message to: nell@nist.gov, or jfulton@atc.boeing.com , or both .