Enterprise Modeling with ODP and UML

Abstract

RM-ODP is a standard defining a framework for the specification of large distributed systems that is based on solid foundations, and that defines five generic and complementary viewpoints for structuring the system specifications in order to deal with their inherent complexity. One of these viewpoints, the enterprise viewpoint, focuses on the purpose, scope and policies for the system and its environment. This viewpoint is independent from any computational and platform-specific concerns, and provides a well-defined approach to enterprise modelling. However, the fact that RM-ODP does not define any notation for describing its viewpoint languages has traditionally hampered its wide adoption by many industrial sectors. On the other hand, UML is a widely accepted notation for system specification, but lacks formal semantics and has limited structuring mechanisms for dealing with large and complex system specifications. In this paper we describe how ODP and UML can be combined for enterprise modelling, showing how enterprise viewpoint specifications can be written in UML to obtain the major benefits of both approaches. The work described here is part of an ISO/IEC and ITU-T initiative to define the use of UML for ODP system specifications.