SIMF Team Introduction OMG Meeting – March 2012

Model Driven Solutions - Cory Casanave, Ed Seidewitz, Tom Digre PNA Group - Sjir Nijssen, Mathieu Klinger, Koen van Leeuwen, Jean Paul Koster, Inge Lemmens TIBCO – Paul Brown TMForum - Alex Zhdankin (Cisco), Nigel Davis (Ciena) European Space Agency - Serge Valera Laboratory for Applied Ontology (Brazil) – Giancarlo Guizzardi Deere – Roger Burhart Agile Birds SPRL - Sylvain Guérin ABN AMRO Bank - Andre Le Cat Turien Insurance - Jos Rozendaal Large Dutch bank - Lex Bruil Pension Fund - Jos Vos Individuals - Miriam Wesseling SIMFTeam Introduction – who we are

Members are actively engaged in applied information federation – may be tool vendors, consultants or users The membership is not closed, new members invited by consensus of the group We meet weekly (11AM Mondays), have a mail list and actively exchange documents & models We do not, as yet, have a single vision or draft submission – we have spent time understanding each others positions We have decided to work as much as possible from written documents (or models) and to utilize examples to validate approaches through out the process We consider our approaches and viewpoints sufficiently consistent to work together towards a joint submission, we are in the process of converging SIMFTeam Organization

PNA - An Architecture Ecosystem for the Whole Systems Perspective, SIMF Working Paper, Several Examples Paul Brown - Towards a unified semantic model Giancarlo Guizzardi – Multiple OntoUML Papers MDS – Federated Modeling Test Cases, Preliminary SIMF Meta Model Specific materials thus far

Largely agree with the RFP requirements and approach The SIMF foundation must be grounded in a formal logic, we don’t know which one yet What we have now isn’t good enough “as-is” for SIMF – this includes UML, MOF, OWL, CL, ER, XSD, Etc. Conceptual models are the foundation for quality federatable information models – there is still some wiggle room about what constitutes a conceptual model and how general it is. Theories have to be proven by real (user driven) test cases and ultimately by implementation The type/instance relation applies to everything – “things”, actions, relations, properties, assertions, etc. SIMF should be usable at and across all “meta levels” We need multiple views and viewpoints Things we generally agree on

Combining multiple independently conceived data sources and using them together for analytics and other purposes. Example: A sales department may want to combine public, internal and external information about prospect companies as part of their CRM system Key term: Independently conceived Different data sources may use different structures, technologies, vocabularies, identifiers or theories when expressing information about the same things. Sharing information between potentially independent organizations (and their independently conceived systems). Example: U.S. Government Information Sharing Environment (ise.gov) initiative to combat terrorism and other threats to the U.S. What is Information Federation?

Enabling collaborative processes that may cross organizational boundaries. Example: An agency wants to outsource human resources but needs to understand how the processes, services and information of their internal department can be satisfied by an external provider. Information federation is essential. Service Oriented Architecture Mediation and Brokering Example: U.S. States provide services to access healthcare information but each State’s service is different. The federal government as well as other states need to interact. Some level of mediation is required across these independently conceived services. Information exchange and federation is the essence of SOA. What is Information Federation?

The conceptual pivoting approach A common and growing approach to the data problem leverages abstraction: Defining a domain focused vocabulary with integrity rules and assertions as part of a conceptual model that captures domain semantics. Federation and integration is achieved by relating various logical and physical information structures to the conceptual model Information federation and integration is achieved via a “pivot” through this conceptual semantic layer This approach is used, in part, in existing standards such as CCTS (Core Components), ISO and is currently being utilized in OMG for finance. In the majority of cases the “tool” used to represent these common semantics and links is a spreadsheet, but UML and OWL are also used. Pivoting through a conceptual model

Cory Casanave 240 Excel UML XML There is an actual “Person”, Cory Casanave There is a concept of this person shared in this room, right now Here is one representation of him “Person” is a shared concept, independent of data structures There may also be shared agreement that Cory is a person and some other “facts” “Cory Casanave” is a name for this person He weighs 240 LBS There are multiple data representations about Cory Casanave which may or may not agree Those representations can be grounded in concepts (semantics), assisting federation Example of “Pivoting” through a conceptual model Concept of “Cory Casanave” Concept of a “Person”. Representations

We understand that all these representations and data structures are not “the thing” in the world But sometimes we loose site of this A conceptual domain model is a model of the things, not the data. You may also call this an ontology. A logical information model is a logical model of the data. So what is a data or information model? A model, for a specific purpose, of data about something else, that something else and that purpose are unstated. This is the root of the problem. Things Vs. Representations of Things “This is not a pipe” René Magritte Cory’s Pipe 0.02 This isn’t either

It must be easy to use and understand – suited to mainstream adoption! Does not require “deep” semantics, it does require well defined concepts No assumption of the same name or “matching” representations There can be any number of shared concept “theories”, no single “ring to bind them all” SIMF will be federated with other languages, so existing models in existing languages can also be federated How automated can it be? Some pivoting will be manual – but the manually asserted information saved Some will be assisted with “human in the loop” Some will be fully automatic There may be some tool variation in the automation, but not the representation Other semantic technologies will be needed to “project” the data based on the models and provide the federated information capability, completing a semantic mediation platform. There is no 100% solution – and that is not what we need. Even a minor improvement in federation capabilities could make an impact at the level of the gross national product*. More on Pivoting * Joe Bugajski, Visa International

Conceptual modeling with relations to structural models is not new It is done with a variety of representations UML, OWL, RDFS, E/R, Spreadsheets, FOL Ontologies, SBVR With a variety of linking and transformation mechanisms Code, XSLT, FOL, OWL, Rules, QVT, Proprietary What seems to work now – working with what we have Conceptual UML models with extensions for linking, transformed to RDF-LOD RDFS models with rules and a bit of OWL Structured English (i.e. SBVR) representations of conceptual models A bit of structural mapping, some proprietary solutions None of these approaches seem ideal for the task and all require substantial expertise, more than is practical for mainstream adoption. But, they can inform SIMF “built for purpose” standards and tools. Semantic Federation Today