When the Going Gets Tough: Real World XML
by Alan Kotok
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Pages: 1, 2
Is UML everything business needs?
While UML has shown itself to be a powerful tool for capturing business functions, activities, and objects, some observers question UML's ability to represent all of the important ideas businesses need to communicate with their stakeholders. Steve Wertheim of MEGA International, in a presentation prepared for the XML World conference, says that UML, designed for object-oriented software and retrofitted for business process modeling, has exposed some gaps in its capabilities. Wertheim notes that UML does not represent business goals and objectives, often expressed in financial terms or market share, which often drive the work of the entire enterprise. According to Wertheim, UML could also do a better job in coupling objects, a feature needed in highly synchronized business collaborations. He says that the Object Management Group, responsible for UML, is aware of these gaps and has proposals under consideration for fixing UML in version 2.0 for the standard.
Wertheim also notes that XML has become a basic tool for messaging, used in collaborations that define an increasing share of the activity in the business world. But messaging does not need to be confined solely to interactions between companies. Frank Ryan of Silverstream, in another presentation prepared for XML World, says that XML can provide a separate interface layer when working with integration servers in a corporate architecture. With this separate layer, companies can quickly develop XML messages for exchanges both between enterprises as well as among applications within a company. Ryan says in this environment, XML messages can help companies more easily integrate ERP and backend legacy systems, as well as with advanced portal functions using messages defined by SOAP or ebXML.
What it takes to meet the challenge
The kinds of capabilities described by Ryan and Wertheim highlight important features of a more flexible computing architecture demanded by these more difficult times. First, the use of modeling reduces, if not eliminates, dependence on a single platform or vendor solution. With the need to engage new partners in business more quickly, company information systems need to be able to communicate with many more and different systems than before. CEOs will simply not settle for explanations or excuses to the contrary.
Second, the lines between internal and external systems are blurring. When suppliers can monitor a customer's inventory levels, or when customers can track progress of a shipment in a transportation company's system, where does one draw the line between internal and external operations?
In fact, the coupling of company systems creates an inter-enterprise computing environment that highlights a third important ingredient: open standards. In a business world with so many challenges and changes, the investment in systems requires a continuing and stable base on which end-users and developers can depend. That base of stability is standards, developed in an open and transparent process, that represent the needs of end-users as well as the contributions of vendors.
XML has shown itself able to respond to times of rapid economic growth, due in large part to its origin as an open standard, and its ability to grow to meet the increasing demands of business. Now in these times of economic challenge, XML and related standards will be put to an even stiffer test, and the standards world will need to pull together -- shall we say collaborate? -- to a much greater extent than before.
- UML and IDEF
2001-10-28 11:48:19 Charles Savage - UML and IDEF
2001-10-28 11:41:15 Charles Savage
