Sparx Systems tools for ISO Geospatial Community

12 August 2008, 11:54am

ISO/TC 211 committee decides to adopt Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect as modeling tool of choice for development of geospatial interoperability specifications.

At its 26th Plenary Meeting held at Copenhagen in May 2008, the ISO/TC 211 Technical Committee decided to maintain its geospatial reference models using Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect – an industry leading modeling tool for UML and related standards. ISO/TC 211’s decision was based upon recommendation of its Harmonized Model Maintenance Group (HMMG), following an earlier decision to develop future reference models using the latest UML 2 specification.

ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is the world's largest developer and publisher of International Standards. The ISO/TC 211 technical committee “aims to establish a structured set of standards for information concerning objects or phenomena that are directly or indirectly associated with a location relative to the Earth”. The HMMG was created to maintain all ISO19100 family models for use by the members of the ISO/TC 211 community in the creation of standards.

“In choosing Enterprise Architect, the HMMG considered the cost to users, the need to interact within the Technical Committee across development project boundaries, and the ability to support and interact with implementors of the standards. In the end and based on functionality and cost, Enterprise Architect was the only feasible choice”, said John Herring, Chair of the HMMG.

An active participant in key standards forums such as the Object Management Group (OMG), Sparx Systems was one of the first modeling tool vendors to provide UML 2 support. The company's continued responsiveness to its growing customer base and aggressive product development cycle in support of open standards, has positioned Sparx Systems as a leading vendor in the modeling tools space.

“It has been a pleasure working with the HMMG in realizing this outcome”, said Ken Harkin of Sparx Systems. “It reflects a strong trend by standards bodies, including UN/CEFACT, the ASC X12, OGC and many others, to use Enterprise Architect as a preferred tool for building and storing reference models”.

Enterprise Architect version 7.1 is available for download and evaluation from: www.sparxsystems.com

www.sparxsystems.com

Geo: International