4th Generation Standard for Object Databases on its Way

The Object Management Group (OMG) in Needham, MA, has decided to develop the "4th generation" standard for object databases in order to facilitate broader adoption of standards-based object database technology. To this end, the OMG set up the Object Database Technology Working Group (ODBT WG) and acquired the rights to develop new OMG specifications based on the works of the disbanded Object Data Management Group (ODMG), which issued the last ODMG 3.0 standard in 2001.

During its meeting this week in Tampa, FL, the OMG's Platform Technology Committee (PTC) issued a Request for Information (RFI) to solicit input from academia, researchers, vendors, and users. Responses to this RFI will help guide the development of a family of Request for Proposals (RFPs) for future object database technology standards. The RFI is open to anybody (membership in OMG is not required) and available for free download here. The invitation stands to contribute and submit replies by the deadline of 6/1/2006.

The Object Database Technology Working Group (ODBT WG) is part of the OMG's Middleware and Related Services (MARS) Platform Task Force (PTF). The ODBT WG was formed to advance the standards for object databases and, through better standards, encourage broader adoption of object database technology. Chaired by Michael P. Card from Syracuse Research Corporation, members of the ODBT WG include users and vendors affiliated with companies such as MITRE, Boeing, RTI, Objectivity, Promia, Raytheon, Sparx Systems, and db4objects -- the latter represented by its CEO, Christof Wittig, who is also president of ODBMS.ORG e.V. (i.Gr.).

With well-established standards covering software from design and development, through deployment and maintenance, and extending to evolution to future platforms, the Object Management Group (OMG) supports a full-lifecycle approach to enterprise integration which maximizes ROI, the key to successful IT. OMG's Modeling standards, the basis for the MDA, include the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and Common Warehouse Metamodel (CWM). CORBA, the Common Object Request Broker Architecture, is OMG's standard open platform with hundreds of millions of deployments running today. The Object Management Group is an international, open membership, not-for-profit computer industry specifications consortium.

Contact ODBMS.ORG at editor@odbms.org.