Chapter 1. About this Book

openMDX is an advanced implementation of the OMG Model Driven Architecture (MDA) initiative (also see [20]). openMDX is an industrial-strength, open, model-driven runtime engine and framework for platform independent models (PIMs). Unlike most commercial tools, openMDX does not implement the generative PIM-to-PSM-mapping approach. Instead, openMDX provides a generic, distributed object engine which serves as a PIM platform. Business logic (derived and behavioral model elements) are added as plug-ins.

openMDX implements the OMG MDA standards MOF, UML, XMI, JMI and inherits many concepts and patterns from other standards, e.g. from Java Data Objects (JDO). An early version of the framework was used for the implementation of a MOF-compliant CORBA Interface Repository which was presented at the OMG meeting 1999 in Philadelphia (see [38], [39]). Since then, the framework has been extended and refined in all aspects. Today, the framework is powerful enough to run real business applications. openMDX allows the development of platform-independent, distributed component-based, model-driven applications. The basic design-principles are:

• 100% commitment to standards defined by OMG, Sun/J2EE and W3C.

• Adoption of public, well-documented, proven and accepted design patterns.

• No use of features which are not absolutely necessary. Make it as lightweight and powerful as possible.

• Make the framework open and pluggable wherever possible.

• Support for flexible deployment-scenarios: in-process to fully distributed applications.

• Provide a platform and transport abstraction to support for any type of service-oriented platforms such as EJB, CORBA, WebServices, etc.

• Follow the model-driven architecture (MDA) approach: "The model is the implementation".

• Support for extremely fast development and deployment roundtrips.

This document gives an overview and introduction to openMDX. It explains the main functions, concepts, building blocks and standards which openMDX is built on. For more detailed information about openMDX please refer to the following documents:

• openMDX Modeling Guide [54]. openMDX is a framework which is based on the OMG MDA (Model Driven Architecture) standards, namely MOF, UML, XMI and JMI. Hence, platform-independent models are an important and basic concept when building openMDX applications. This guide gives an introduction in modeling openMDX applications.

• openMDX Developer's Guide [52]. The target audience of this guide is the application developer. It explains the openMDX concepts in more detail, explains APIs and how to implement clients and application plugins.

• openMDX Administrator's Guide [53]. This guide explains how to install openMDX and how to deploy and manage applications built on the openMDX application framework.