SAS, OMG partners demonstrate Common Warehouse Metamodel.

Business Editors/High Tech Writers

CARY, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 18, 2000

Vendors share and use metadata transparently, using the XML-based

meta data model

SAS Institute, the market leader in e-intelligence and data warehousing took part in the first joint effort between Object Management Group (OMG) participants to demonstrate the import/export of XML-based metadata.

OMG members included IBM, Hyperion, SAS, Computer Associates, Meta Integration Technologies Inc. and Oracle. Demonstration of the Common Warehouse Metamodel (CWM) standard comes nearly three years ahead of industry expectations. CWM based products should be available to customers sometime during 2001 from each of these vendors.

"SAS understands the need for open metadata standards and is committed to providing customers with the best possible technology," said Frank Nauta, data warehousing program manager at SAS. "While many vendors are not yet participating in development of the CWM standard, SAS and its OMG partners are moving ahead. SAS is committed to supporting the CWM, because a single standard will allow users to exchange metadata between different products from different vendors freely, minimizing the risk and cost associated with the heterogeneous software environments found in all organizations."

In this technology showcase, SAS and its partners demonstrated the ease of sharing metadata between a wide array of each vendor's ETL, metadata management, modeling and exploitation tools.

"Metadata interchange is essential to the continued growth of e-business, as data from increasingly diverse sources and applications needs to be exchanged both within the enterprise, and more importantly, outside the enterprise. One unified standard, supported by the leading vendors in the industry, will go a long way toward developing more effective applications," said Doug Laney, vice president of the META Group, an information technology advisory services firm.

The Object Management Group's Common Warehouse Metamodel (CWM) builds on various standards, including OMG's UML(TM) (Unified Modeling Language), XMI(TM) (XML Metadata Interchange) and MOF(TM) (Meta Object Facility), and on the (former) Meta Data Coalition's OIM. The CWM was developed by a number of companies, including IBM, Oracle, Unisys, Hyperion, Genesis, NCR, UBS, and Dimension EDI, and is an adopted OMG standard.

About The OMG

With the support of its membership of software vendors, software developers and end users, the OMG's CORBA is "The Middleware That's Everywhere(TM)." OMG goal is to provide a common architectural framework for object-oriented applications based on widely available interface specifications. The OMG is headquartered in Needham, Mass., and has international marketing offices around the world. More information on the OMG and CORBA is available at http://www.omg.org and http://www.corba.org . To get involved in the effort to complete the CWM, please send e-mail to [e-mail] .

About SAS

SAS is the world leader in e-intelligence software and services, enabling its customers to turn raw data - including the vast quantity generated by e-business - into usable knowledge. Software from SAS, the world's largest privately held software company, is used at more than 35,000 business, government and university sites in 110 countries. SAS' 1999 revenues totaled $1.02 billion. Please visit SAS on the Web at http://www.sas.com .

SAS and all other SAS Institute Inc. product or service names are registered trademarks or trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the USA and other countries. (R)indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are trademarks of their respective companies Copyright(c)2000 SAS Institute Inc. Cary, NC, USA. All rights reserved.