Model-Driven Software Development: Technology, Engineering, Management

Chapter 12

The MDA Standard

This chapter describes important aspects of the MDA, although we do not address all details here, because external literature [Fra02], as well as other resources and the standard itself are available.

12.1 Goals

Model Driven Architecture (MDA) is a term with several different meanings. In the context of this chapter, when we speak of MDA we mean the standardization initiative of the OMG in respect to MDSD. Since MDA does not yet cover the whole MDSD spectrum, one can also think of it as a specific flavor of MDSD.

MDA is a young standard established by the Object Management Group [OMG]. The OMG was founded in 1989 and is an open consortium currently of about 800 companies worldwide. The OMG creates manufacturer-independent specifications to improve the interoperability and portability of software systems. Traditionally the OMG is a platform for middleware and tool manufacturers, serving the synchronization and standardization of their fields of activity. CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) and IDL, UML (Unified Modeling Language), MOF (Meta Object Facility), and XMI are popular results of this process. MDA is the OMG’s new flagship.

According to the OMG’s directive, the two primary motivations for MDA are the interoperability (independence from manufacturers through standardization) and portability (platform independence) of software systems – the same motivations that resulted in the development of CORBA. In addition, the OMG postulates ...