The latest capabilities of software technologies such as Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) combined with the Open Source movement have changed the game for the large enterprise – government or corporate. These changes offer the potential to affect dramatic and systemic change within the organizations and communities that embrace them. ModelDriven.org has been formed to enable agility and efficiency through best-practice application of technology based on a funded Open Source business model.
ModelDriven.org is a community offering a portfolio of integrated and enterprise-ready open source software combined with support, services and compatible commercial offerings to enable the Agile Enterprise. Since ModelDriven.org has no product agenda, we are fully committed to the needs and agenda of our community. ModelDriven.org produces and supports what our members want and need based on our funded Open Source model and engages best-of-breed resources to fill those needs. ModelDriven.org members receive more than just Open Source, they will receive commercial product quality software packages that are integrated, tested and supported.
ModelDriven.org has a unique understanding of business needs and how to leverage advanced technologies. Recognizing that most Open Source efforts have focused on lower level infrastructure and tools, ModelDriven.org focuses on enabling enterprise solutions. We have built a core competency around the technologies and services that enable the Agile Enterprise:
- Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
- Enterprise Architecture (EA)
- Model Driven Architecture (MDA)
- Business Process Modeling, Engineering and Execution
- Semantic Web
- Ontologies
- Reusable Components
- Strategic Planning
- Web 2.0 Technologies
Central to ModelDriven.org is bringing together a community of users and providers – where the users set the agenda and the providers help to realize it, putting users in the driver seat.
ModelDriven.org offers a unified approach to using and integrating these technologies in support of the Agile Enterprise. Much of the foundation for ModelDriven.org has been developed in partnership with the General Services Administration as part of the OsEra project (http://osera.modeldriven.org ). One of the barriers to Open Source has always been the effort it takes to assemble and use Open Source assets and the difficulty of mixing Open Source with commercial products. ModelDriven.org takes a “product like” orientation to Open Source – this gives our user community the benefits of tested, supported and integrated solutions without sunk costs or being locked into any vendor’s infrastructure. On top of the Open Source foundation there are products and services from multiple vendors that work together to provide an enterprise solution. By making sure the underlying frameworks and information are fully open, users can take advantage of best-of-breed applications, tools and infrastructure.
Commercial vendors also provide the resource for funded Open Source and client specific development projects. ModelDriven.org is able to draw from the entire community – not just one vendor. Because of the commercial support opportunity, commercial vendors are more likely to donate assets to and participate in Open Source – to the benefit of the entire community.
ModelDriven.org is a membership organization. Membership fees support the organization and the development of Open Source assets. Members are able to direct part of their membership fee to support specific development projects. In addition to membership fees, ModelDriven.org makes a small fee on open source based commercial products located through or purchased through ModelDriven.org.
Both the business model and the financial model for ModelDriven.org are detailed later in this document.
The commercial software market has produced some great capabilities that have and will serve the enterprise well. This model works well for some kinds of software and less for others. The key problem facing IT today is integration. Integration at all levels from infrastructure, to applications, to architectures, to tools, to security to middleware. The commercial solutions to this problem have invariably led to lock-in to particular vendors products, and it is natural for a vendor to want to build such an integrated solution. However, this exasperates the very problem it is trying to solve – you can’t fix a stovepipe problem with yet another stovepipe (even one with a lot of little pipes attached).
Widespread adoption of open and interoperable solutions requires that these solutions be vendor neutral, technology neutral and pervasive. Since Open Source is free, it can be integrated into experimental and production efforts without excessive cost, commitment or lock-in. The ability to “try out” and then to utilize a new approach is critical for pervasive adoption. As an integration solution this must include government and the private sector at all levels – from the smallest department to world-wide initiatives. This is critical because the world wide initiatives must be able to embrace and include the hundreds and thousands of small business and governmental organizations that make up our society. Every individual and organization must have the ability to become part of integrated communities at all levels. This ability to integrate, to dynamically form open communities and to embrace large and small organizations is what ModelDriven.org is pursuing, and we believe an Open Source model is the only path to achieve it.
Software solution providers and vendors face problems as well, it costs millions of dollars and years to produce enterprise software and the sales and support infrastructure required. This up-front investment puts the vendor in a position of having to “sell what we got”, rather then what may be best for the customer. Innovation and adaptation to open and standards solutions is frequently restrained due to the legacy investment. Development in new technologies under the ModelDriven.org model is funded by users need, not perceived market opportunity – removing both the up-front investment and the down-stream lock-in to legacy investments. The funded Open Source model allows users and solution providers to have software and services provider focused on their needs.
The final – and maybe most persuasive - case for Open Source is industry momentum: there is a vast resource to be tapped in existing Open Source assets, not to mention the energy and enthusiasm of its supporters, as the industry transforms to this new model. Attempting to address these systemic problems with yet-another proprietary solution would be fighting rather than complementing industry directions.
While the ModelDriven.org assets are Open Source, commercial and proprietary software infrastructure and tools can be embraced, utilized and integrated. ModelDriven.org provides the ability for these solutions to work better together, to break-up the stovepipes. It is this capability that is Open Source, fully recognizing that commercial software will play an important part in our organizations.
The Open Source technology portfolio of ModelDriven.org is organized into a portfolio of assets supported by projects. A ModelDriven.org member can then select those projects they what to participate in and thus drive. project selection and progress is based on the needs, direction and participation of members. These projects reflect our commitment to a combination of industry directions Enterprise Model Driven Architecture, Service Oriented Architecture, Business Process Engineering, the Semantic Web. The theme of our technology portfolio is to bring these industry initiatives together, forming an integrated solution set. The ultimate goal of the portfolio is to provide integrated, supported, tested and indemnified Open Source capabilities made enterprise ready in the ModelDriven.org’s commercial software builds – but the technologies are not yet sufficiently mature to produce the commercial build, this requires additional development.
As members get involved it is expected that the shape of the technology portfolio will change over time. The member-driven Architecture Board shapes the technical direction of the projects while the member-driven Executive Advisory Board makes strategic and business decisions. Members directly affect the funding of projects by directing the disposition of their membership fees.
ModelDriven.org addresses three layers of Open Source assets;
Ø Business Solutions - Solution models, architectures and components including full applications for a variety of domains.
Ø Enabling the Model Driven Approach - Modeling Tools, MDA Tools and Metadata Management leveraging the Semantic Web. The modeling layer provides for the full life-cycle of solutions from high level business modeling to runtime services.
Ø Execution Frameworks and Infrastructure – including Business Process Execution Engines, Service Oriented Architecture Technologies, Application Servers, Enterprise Service Bus, Asset and Service Discovery and Supporting Infrastructure.
The specific projects to be pursued will be based on community interest and support. The following are candidate projects for ModelDriven.org.
Ø Business Blueprints – Business Blueprints are enterprise and systems architecture assets that help form the basis of business and solutions architectures. Blueprints will be available for a variety of domains. There are multiple blueprints already in the public domain (including OMG domain specifications) and acquisition of additional blueprints is currently under negotiation.
Ø Business Application Components – Implementation of business architectures using the model driven approach will provide ready to run application suites with the agility of model driven software.
Ø Intellectual Capital Platform – the ICP is a knowledge and metadata management platform and tool set based on the semantic web and OMG “Meta Object Facility”. The purpose of the ICP is to capture, manage, integrate and exploit enterprise information based on models. The ICP is in prototype development based on work done with GSA on the OsEra project (www.OsEra.gov), as well as open existing open source assets. Ø Service Oriented Architecture Provisioning – SOA-Provisioning enables the production of a web service based “Integration Architecture” predicated on high-level business service and process models. SOA-Provisioning brings the architecture to the SOA. SOA-Provisioning is in prototype development based on work done with GSA on the OsEra project (www.oOsEra.gov) , as well as open existing open source assets.
Ø Business Process Modeling and Execution – The BPM-Execution platform enables high-level business models to be directly executed on runtime platforms and integrated with the SOA infrastructure based on the upcoming OMG “Business Process Definition Meta model” standard. BPM-Ex is proposed and evaluating existing technologies based on work done with GSA on the OsEra project (www.OsEra.gov) , as well as open existing open source assets. Ø Ontology of Architecture The Ontology of Architecture (OoA) is the set of common concepts used across architectures expressed as a formal ontology. The OoA is used to bridge and integrate architectures from multiple sources using multiple tools, standards and methodologies. The Ontology of Architecture is implemented in the Intellectual Capital Platform. OoA was formally called the “Semantic Core” and is in its second revision based on work done with GSA on the OsEra project (www.OsEra.gov). Ø Component-X – Component-X implements the OMG “EDOC” standard for a Component Collaboration Architecture. Component-X is used for collaboration modeling at the business and technology levels. Component-X has been donated by Data Access Technologies and is available now.
Ø Reusable Asset Management – RAM is based on the OMG reusable asset specification and powers ModelDriven.org’s library of resources. RAM is also available as an Open Source asset. Acquisition of RAM is currently under negotiation.
Ø Business Rules Editor – The BRE implements the OMG’s “Business Semantics of Business Rules” specification to enable business rule extraction from documents. This forms the basis for capturing high level rules and requirements to feed into the MDA layers. Acquisition of BRE is currently under negotiation.
Ø Business Execution Framework – the integration of service oriented and business process based execution on top of the Java enterprise platform.
Ø Support for other platforms, such as .NET, will be supported based on community interest.
ModelDriven.org is deeply committed to following, influencing and implementing open standards. As such, world-class industry leadership and participation in standards efforts and representing the needs of our community is part of the ModelDriven.org value proposition. Being part of the standards development efforts and community processes also provides for some of the knowledge transfer that is part of ModelDriven.org’s methodology and services offerings. We are already involved in and influencing a wide variety of related standards and community efforts. The following is a representative set of where we are providing influence today:
- UML 2
- Business Process Definition Meta-Model (BPDM)
- EDOC
- Executable UML – Ed Seidewitz is an active member of the submission team.
- SOA
- eGovernment
- Member of the OMG Board of Directors
- Architecture Forum
- SOA Working Group
- TOGAF/MDA Alignment
- Vice Chair of the Architecture Forum
- FEA-DRM
- FEA-BRM
- SOA
- Member of the Enterprise Architecture Leadership Team
- Lleading the SOA Community Demo
- General Participation and presentations
In addition to the above, active participation is being planned for:
- W3C – Web services and Semantic Web
- Oasis – SOA, UBL and EbXML
It is broadly recognized that no technology will solve problems alone – instrumenting change in organizations is difficult and time-consuming. The Open Source technologies provided by ModelDriven.org are only part of the story, enabling the Agile Enterprise requires strategies, methodologies, training and support services. The ModelDriven.org team is ready to assist in enterprise transformation. This includes a full line of service offerings from the provider community, including;
- Strategic analysis and planning: Assistance in defining, developing and planning high level business and technology strategies that enable the transition of members to the Agile Enterprise
- Transition Strategies: Design and development of specific strategies that focus on the transition process for members to become an Agile Enterprise
- Enterprise, SOA and Solution Architectures: Design, development and implementation of Service Oriented, Enterprise Level, Business Focused Architectures that lay the groundwork for members to become an Agile Enterprise
- Technology Architectures: Design, development and implementation of the supporting Technology Architectures that will enable members to be an Agile Enterprise
- Business Processes: Design and development of the requisite Business Processes, information and rules that enable members to become an Agile Enterprise
- Data and Information Modeling: Design, development and implementation of the Data and Information infrastructure that will enable members be an Agile Enterprise
- Technology analysis and mapping: Assistance in the analysis and choice of the underlying technologies that support the business and architectures to enable members to become an Agile Enterprise
- Tooling: Design, development and implementation of the requisite tooling necessary to support members as they move to an Agile Enterprise
- Integration: Design, development and implementation of the integration strategy necessary to include (wrap) legacy solutions, new developments and external applications that provide members the holistic environment necessary for an Agile Enterprise
- Component development: Design, development and implementation of Service Level Components to support members in their quest for an Agile Enterprise
- Standards Development: Standards development provides users and vendors an avenue to directly affect the standards process though participation in standards efforts, authoring of requests for proposals, socialization and consensus and standards proposals.
- Mentoring: Provide members with guidance in both methodology and tooling as they develop their own, internal or community, Agile Enterprise development environments.
- Training: Provide formal training in the methodologies, tooling, infrastructure, components, etc. that will lead a member to become an Agile Enterprise
- Technology Development Tracking: Provide for the tracking, analysis and review of new technological developments that may have an impact on member’s ability to build and maintain an Agile Enterprise
- Consulting in today’s developing Frameworks, Standards and Technologies such as MDA, The Semantic Web, Ontologies, XML and Web Technologies, etc.
