The Object Management Group Standardizes Telecommunications Service Ordering and Provisioning, Starts Work on Five New Standards.

Business/Technology Editors

NEEDHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 23, 2000

The Object Management Group (OMG) recently concluded its latest Technical Meeting week in Oslo, Norway, sponsored by SINTEF, Telenor, and mogul.com. Over 400 member representatives met to work on technology adoptions currently in process across a wide range of industries including Telecommunications, Life Sciences, Finance, Manufacturing, Utilities, and Healthcare. The five-day meetings provide a forum for the OMG members to carry out the standards-setting process that extend existing Object Management Architecture specifications including CORBA(R) and UML(TM).

The Domain Technology Committee (DTC) adopted a new Telecommunications Service Access and Subscription Facility. Recommended for adoption by OMG's Telecommunications Domain Task Force, this new facility unites the service-oriented world of the consumer with the technological and business worlds of telephone and Internet service providers, allowing businesses and households to order and modify their telephone, cable TV, and Internet services on-line.

Defined by many of the world's major telecommunications companies and others including Alcatel, AT&T, GMD Fokus, Hitachi, Lucent, Nortel Networks, and Siemens AG, and supported by such companies as Cisco Systems, IBM Telecommunications, and Sprint, the facility defines roles that allow a consumer to order services from a retailer who plays the role of consolidator, offering services from a number of telecommunications services vendors. Focused on the business side of the problem, the facility standardizes the computer-to-computer interfaces used by the participants to place and confirm orders, and leaves it to the retailer to define the on-screen presentation of service choices. The facility uses CORBAsecurity(TM) to secure transactions with both consumer and provider. Extension of its flexible infrastructure to billing would be straightforward.

Platform Technical Committee (PTC) Work

The PTC adopted a profile tailoring the OMG's UML to CORBA. Working with additional standards in process in the OMG's Business Object Initiative effort, this specification will help create an environment that unifies analysis, design, coding, deployment, and support of massive enterprise software projects.

In addition, the PTC issued an RFP to extend the CORBA infrastructure with a new Real-time Notification Service. This service will provide fast, guaranteed notification of events in systems that conform to the OMG's real-time specifications. Used in industrial process control, data acquisition, and computerized control systems, CORBA is the most widely used standard in distributed real time systems.

Domain Technology Committee (DTC) Work

The DTC initiated standards adoptions for a finance facility and Research & Development (R&D) Support. The financial facility will serve financial products and agreements. Supported financial products include high-profile financial instruments such as derivative and futures contracts, as well as bank accounts and mortgages. The Agreements Facility will support the buying and selling of financial products. Based on the OMG's newly-defined Financial Party Management Facility, these new services build on an established foundation.

Two new standards will support R&D. In the area of research, a Laboratory Equipment Control Interface Specification will standardize device-independent interfaces for laboratory equipment. By focusing on operations common to all equipment types such as identification, startup and shutdown, events and alarms, status requests, security, and maintenance, this effort will derive the maximum benefit possible from an initial standard. To support product development, the Manufacturing Task Force will standardize a CAD (Computer Aided Design) Services Facility.

Any company may join OMG and respond to these RFPs. To access the RFPs, see http://www.omg.org/schedule. For membership information, see http://www.omg.org/membership.

OMG Board of Directors Meeting

Following approval by an OMG Task Force, Architecture Board, and Technology Committee, a vote by the OMG's Board of Directors officially declares a new specification. The Board met in Oslo to give final approval to three new and eight revised technologies. New technology adoptions finalized include the Common Warehouse Metamodel (CWM) which eases the analysis of data from multiple warehouses; the Clinical Image Access Service (CIAS) for on-line medical care; and a set of interfaces that enable telecommunications companies to access and manipulate log and other files. OMG specifications are subject to constant maintenance. Previous work led to the adoption of revised versions of specifications mapping IDL to Java and to C++, and Java to IDL; CORBA Core and interoperability; the Interoperable Naming Service, and facilities for Distributed Simulation and Clinical Object Access.

Associated Meetings and Tutorials

In Oslo, the Workflow Management Coalition (http://www.wfmc.org) held a joint meeting with the OMG. Also, the OMG's C4I Special Interest Group (Command, Control, Computers, Communications, and Intelligence) held a Coalition Day for attendees from military branches of a number of different countries. Attendees heard presentations on architectures and standards that solve problems with computer interoperability in military environments.

OMG meetings also support a comprehensive tutorial program. About 100 attendees heard tutorials on basic CORBA, new additions to the standard in CORBA 3.0, the CORBA Component Model, CORBA Security, Real-time CORBA, the Unified Modeling Language (UML), the Meta-Object Facility (MOF) and XML Metadata Interchange (XMI).

Norway and Object Oriented Computing

Object oriented computing originated in Norway with seminal work on the language Simula by Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard; another distinguished contributor is Professor Trygve Reenskaug. In Oslo, OMG members heard a presentation by Prof. Reenskaug and honored all three of these distinguished gentlemen with special awards.

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)." Since 1989, the OMG has been "Setting The Standards For Distributed Computing(TM)" through its mission to promote the theory and practice of object technology for the development of distributed computing systems. The goal is to provide a common architectural framework for object-oriented applications based on widely available interface specifications. The OMG is headquartered in Needham, MA, USA and has international marketing offices in Bahrain, Brazil, Germany, India, Italy, Japan and the UK, along with a U.S. government representative in Washington, DC, USA.

For information on joining the OMG or additional information, please contact OMG headquarters by phone at [phone], by fax at [phone], or by email at [e-mail]. The OMG provides current information and services for Distributed Object Computing through The Information Brokerage(R) on the World Wide Web at www.omg.org and at www.corba.org.

Note to editors: CORBA(R), The Information Brokerage(R), CORBA Academy(R), IIOP(R) and the Object Management Group logo(R) are registered trademarks of the Object Management Group. OMG(TM), Object Management Group(TM), the CORBA Logo(TM), ORB(TM), Object Request Broker(TM), the CORBA Academy logo(TM), XMI(TM), MOF(TM), OMG Interface Definition Language(TM), IDL(TM), CORBAservices(TM), CORBAfacilities(TM), CORBAmed(TM), CORBAnet(TM), UML(TM), [[UML]](TM), the UML Cube Logo(TM), and Unified Modeling Language(TM) are trademarks of the Object Management Group. All other products or company names mentioned are used for identification purposes only, and may be trademarks of their respective owners.