Effective Ontology Development
using UML and Enterprise Architect
TDWG Technical Architecture Group – 17 Oct 2011
Sam Mancarella
Chief Technology Officer
Sparx Systems Pty Ltd
Overview
• Ontologies in Enterprise Architect
– MDG Technology for ODM
– OWL / RDF
• Challenges of Ontology development
– Collaboration, Maintenance, Reuse, Scale
– How Enterprise Architect meets them
…but first…
an introduction to Sparx Systems
and Enterprise Architect
Sparx Systems
• Established in 1998
• Leading provider of modeling tools
– Support for Integrated Development Environments (IDEs)
– Support for industry-standard modeling languages, technologies
and frameworks (UML, SysML, BPMN, SoaML, TOGAF)
• Representation in over 60 countries
– Value-added resellers (solution providers)
– Resellers, Training Partners
– Sister companies (Japan, Central Europe, Sth America, NZ)
• Headquartered in Creswick (central Victoria, Australia)
Enterprise Architect
• UML 2.3 powered, team-based modeling environment
– Full lifecycle management
– Business modeling, Systems engineering, Enterprise
architecture, Requirements management, Software design
– Scaleable, High-performance, Multiuser
– Visual Execution Analysis, Simulation
– Template-based reporting (RTF, HTML)
– Code generation/roundtrip support for > 10 languages
– Extensible, Customizable
• Over 250,000 active licensees worldwide
• Award Winning
Enterprise Architect
MDG Technology for ODM
• Based on Ontology Definition Metamodel
– OMG Standard (May 2009) V 1.0
– UML Profiles for RDF, OWL
– Diagram Types, Construct Toolboxes,
Import/Export Script
MDG Technology for ODM 2
Diagram
Type
Toolbox
Property Definition
Subtyping
Semantic
Relationship
MDG Technology for ODM 3
MDG Technology for ODM 4
MDG Technology for ODM 5
• Facts (ie: Things)
– owlIndividual Instances of owlClasses
Challenges of Ontology Definition
• Scale
• Ontologies can get really big!
– 30,000+ artifacts in NCI Thesaurus
• Difficult to Maintain
• Need to Reuse
Challenges – Scale 2
• What’s changed between revisions?
Challenges – Scale 2
•
Model Differencing (add, delete, change, move)
Challenges – Scale 2
• Visual Differencing
Challenges – Scale 3
• How can we reuse what we’ve already done again?
Challenges – Scale 3
• Model Patterns (reusable model fragments)
• Copy-paste between multiple instances
Challenges of Ontology Definition
• Teamwork
• Multiple people develop ontologies
– SMEs, Analysts, Practitioners, Stakeholders
• All have a say in ontology development
• Need to contribute value
• Need to use the ontology
Challenges – Teamwork 2
•
Team Review (conversations about the model, in the model)
Challenges – Teamwork 3
• Fully Customizable Environment
Challenges – Teamwork 4
•
Project Planning, Resourcing, Management
Challenges – Teamwork 5
• Project Audit (who changed what, when?)
Conclusion
• MDG Technology for ODM:
–
–
–
–
RDF & OWL support in Enterprise Architect
owlClass, owlObjectProperty, owlIndividual
Subclassing, Restriction (cardinality, value)
Semantics, Facts
• Ontology development challenges
– Scale (reuse, baselines, model comparison, manage change)
– Teamwork (team review, customize, audit, project management)
• Enterprise Architect provides best-of-breed tools to:
– Mitigate design complexity
– Enable greater stakeholder enablement
– Ensure design correctness/completeness/relevance
Learn More?
• Enterprise Architect 9.1 Trial
http://www.sparxsystems.com/products/ea/trial.html
• Reviewer’s Guide [whitepaper]
http://sparxsystems.com/downloads/whitepapers/EAReviewersGuide.pdf
• MDA Overview [whitepaper]
http://www.sparxsystems.com/bin/MDA%20Tool.pdf
• Deployment of EA [whitepaper]
http://sparxsystems.com/downloads/whitepapers/EA_Deployment.pdf
• Sparx Systems Community
http://community.sparxsystems.com/
• SparxSystems YouTube Channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/SparxSystems