FW: DRM Report - slightly off topic

Per Duane's request, here is a 
report on yesterday's US Federal Government Data Reference Model (DRM) Public 
Forum, with an emphasis on its relation to SOA. If you have any questions on 
this, please let me know - I am directly involved in this 
initiative.

 

Ken Laskey: Please feel free to add 
anything from your perspective. (Ken was in the audience)

 

(1) The DRM is the fifth of the 
Federal Enterprise Architecture's set of reference models, and its primary use 
case is to facilitate interagency information sharing. It will also facilitate 
the harmonization of data representation across the federal government, the 
creation/harmonization of data standards, and the establishment of authoritative 
data sources through its standard representation of the following 3 areas (note 
that "Data Sharing" is the strongest relation to SOA):

 

- Data Description (includes 
structured, unstructured, and semi-structured data, as well as data 
sources)

- Data Sharing (includes "exchange 
packages" and data access points)

- Data Context 
(taxonomies)

 

The notion for exchange packages is 
that federal agencies can use them to define their data exchanges. They can also 
use existing standards such as WSDL (see point #4 below).

 

(2) Yesterday's session placed 
emphasis on moving from abstract to concrete, with the notion of an "Executable 
DRM"

 

Please note: We all know that a 
reference model is an abstract representation, but yesterday we needed to send 
the message to agencies that they will have something that they can implement 
within their systems. So in essence, what was presented could be considered an 
implementation of the DRM.

 

(3) The public Wiki for the DRM is 
at:

http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?DataReferenceModel

 

It contains a link to yesterday's 
Public Forum program (see "Key Date(s) to Note")

 

(4) We have created a draft DRM XML 
Schema along with an accompanying specification, which is available at (also 
from the link to the Public Forum under "Draft FEA DRM 
Schema"):

 

http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/drm/schema/Draft_FEA_DRM_Schema.htm

 

Here is the presentation on the DRM 
XML Schema that I helped present yesterday:

http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/drm/PublicForum_2005-06-13/Daconta_DRM_Schema_Presentation_2005_06_13.ppt

 

In the section on external 
references, we describe how federal agencies can leverage open standards that 
they already use rather than creating representations according to the DRM 
vocabulary.

 

If you have any comments on this 
work, or suggestions for its improvement, please let me know and I will pass 
them on.

 

Thanks,

Joe

 

Joseph Chiusano

Booz Allen Hamilton

Visit us online@ http://www.boozallen.com