Sparx Systems

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent; a part of the main;"

 - John Donne

Connectedness:

As the impact from the digital industrial economy takes effect, not only will it inform enterprise how to successfully leverage globally interconnected technology to deliver results according to the mission and vision of the company - the impact will drive the need to digitally renew the business. A connected world eliminates silos and the extent of connectivity determines levels of inclusion in the digital economy, the quality of services and products and the resulting customer loyalty.

Innovation from Inspiration:

Innovation is a palimpsest of disruptions, evidence that the advances of modern science are inspired by the achievements of the past.  The majority of innovative ideas take products, services or processes that are already working and improve on them. One clear example is the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) which, when completed, will provide unprecedented information about distant galaxies, nearby asteroids and the dark energy that is accelerating the expansion of the universe. It will boost technological development and ‘has the potential to transform our knowledge of the universe’ which for centuries, was inspired by Ptolemy.

The stars have provided pointers for the earliest exploratory excursions of mankind and  Ptolemy’s Almagest published in the first century, is a codification of the constellations and a catalogue of the fixed stars. For 1400 years, it was the standard astronomical reference and one of the most influential books in the history of Western astronomy.  Still today, standards support industry competitiveness, improve performance and enable technology such as the LSST. They do this by assisting with the codification and dissemination of new knowledge and innovations and ensuring interoperability.

Interoperability:

Across every industry sector, Sparx Systems directly supports standards development and those enterprise architects who rely on standards to navigate business enterprise through rapid and unprecedented change. In the burgeoning geospatial sector open standards enable organizations to take advantage of new geospatial information sources and technology tools and they are a central element of open government. Interoperability is a key aim of open standards and their development offers stakeholders such as governments, universities, research organisations and business enterprises the opportunity to participate in their development.

Integration:

Within the geospatial market, standards are driving rapid change and technology deployment while creating new cross - domain opportunities. The United Nations initiative on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM) provides leadership in setting the agenda for the development of global geospatial information and promoting its application to address key global challenges.
The United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management was formed in 2011.  Later that year, the First High Level Forum on Global Geospatial Information Management, and the First Session of the United Nations Committee of Experts were held in Seoul, Republic of Korea. Experts from 90 countries met to enhance global cooperation in the field of geospatial information management.
 

Information Accessibility:

In 2012 the Secretary General of the UN Economic and Social Council identified “better integration of geospatial and statistical information, as a key challenge” in meeting information needs and in 2014 the United Nations Global Forum on the Integration of Statistical and Geospatial Information took place. The UN Expert Group on the Integration of Statistical and Geospatial Information is developing a global statistical-geospatial framework – modelled on the Statistical Spatial Framework (SSF) developed by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).  This Framework will provide a common approach to connecting people-centric (socio-economic) information to a location, and improve the accessibility and usability of this spatially-enabled information.

Standards:

The spatial and statistical communities operate different metadata capabilities and approaches to ensure that these two metadata environments can work together effectively are being investigated. Metadata standards being reviewed include: Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange (SDMX), Data Documentation Initiative (DDI), and the international geospatial metadata standard ISO19115.

The recently released Address Standard ISO 19160-1 defines a conceptual model for address information together with the terms and definitions that describe the concepts in the model. The model provides a common representation of address information, independent of actual addressing implementations and a means to cross-map between different conceptual models for address information and enables the conversion of address information between specifications. The Address Standard is essential to the aims of the SSF in the sharing, accessing and dissemination of information.

Collaboration:

Sparx Systems continues to support both the global statistical and geospatial communities and has enhanced Enterprise Architect with the inclusion of profiles for ArcGIS and GML for this sector. In addition, through our collaboration program, Sparx Systems has partnered with CSIRO to support the ongoing development of model registry features and functionality for Enterprise Architect.

As stated by Geoffrey Sparks, Sparx Systems CEO in a recent interview, “I am strongly committed to the development and implementation of common, well understood modeling languages that enable disparate domains to communicate and integrate their specific processes and architectures into a single, well understood platform.”

In the coming years Sparx Systems imagines new tools and information processing capabilities that further support the transformation of models into executable form.

On 15 December 2015, ISO 19160-1 was released.  This standard was developed by ISO/TC 211- a standard technical committee within the International Standards Organisation (ISO), to cover the areas of digital geographic information and geomatics.

The ISO 19160-1 standard defines a conceptual model for address information, together with the terms and definitions that describe the concepts in the model. The model was developed in Enterprise Architect and is presented in the Unified Modeling Language (UML).

For almost a decade Sparx Systems has supported the global geospatial community through provision of Enterprise Architect licences for standards development and inclusion of
Esri ArcGIS and GML profiles within Enterprise Architect.  

Additional Information:

• Press Release: Sparx Systems modeling tools adopted by ISO Geospatial Community
• Product Infrormation: Spatial Information Modeling with GML and ArcGIS
• Product Information: ArcGIS Geodatabase Design with UML
• Enterprise Architect User Guide: Geodatabase Design for ArcGIS
• Enterprise Architect User Guide: MDG Technology For GML
• Webinar Recording YouTube Playlist: ArcGIS Geodatabase Modeling

“It's not the technology that's scary; it's what it does to the relations between people that's scary”

- Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Everything Changing:

We are all aware that we are living in a period of unprecedented disruption where everything that we thought as being the status quo, business as usual, is changing rapidly.  Technology ‘disrupts existing markets and value networks, displacing established market leaders and alliances’.  Popular examples are Uber which is challenging the taxi industry model. Then there is AirBnB challenging the accommodation industry model and 3D printing which is challenging the manufacturing model.  

However, in a recent interview Jay Scanlan and Paul Wilmot from McKinsey, posit that unlike a pure play disrupter such as Uber, “our incumbent organizations and our incumbent clients have a broader range of concerns that they need to address. And they have a broader range of customer needs and consumer demands that they want to fulfill.”

Unlike start ups, incumbent organizations hold valuable assets like people, finance and data, etc. Scanlan and Wilmot pose the question as to how incumbents will strategically use these assets to defend themselves against aggressive competition, as digital disrupts their industry.

Agile... The New Norm:

In the face of this change, the adoption of Agile approaches to project management is growing.  It is expected that in 2016 the US Federal Government General Services Administration will solicit bids for a number of major agile projects.  This follows the piloting of agile projects last year by 18F, an agile development consulting arm, within General Services Administration.

A recent survey of development and IT professionals, shows that Agile is now the norm. The majority of development teams and projects now embrace the methodology, while pure waterfall approaches are in the minority. The study conducted by HP in 2014 consisted of an online survey of 601 software developers and IT professionals  representing over 600 organisations,  where 400 + described themselves as “pure agile”.

According to Gartner “Digital business will require application leaders to explore development outside of traditional IT and to ensure fast-paced incremental releases in order to be competitive.”  Just as digital transformation is changing role of application leaders such as the CIO, so too it is impacting the role of the Business Analyst (BA) in the private and public sectors.

The Agile Business Analyst:

The BA has traditionally embraced the rapids of change much like a canoeist. Using the IIBA Body of Knowledge (BABOK) as both their map and compass, they engage the volatility and uncertainty of change. With an innate capability they navigate successful transits, piloting by their experience and understanding of the different currents and hazards.  

Agile presents great opportunity for the BA.  In the process of connecting people and engendering understanding, improving product quality and increasing customer satisfaction, they have the potential to play many roles, to become the consultant.

A key finding of the HP survey was that the majority of participants agreed that “the primary motivators for Agile adoption are associated with improving team collaboration and increasing software quality and customer satisfaction.”

Becoming increasingly involved in Agile projects and addressing the growth in the variety of concerns of the stakeholder (the Customer) will require that the BA leverage the use of Agile tools.  This technology will enable the BA to help their clients find ways to make Agile work for them.

BABOK  3.0 Reference Model - an Agile Approach:

Recently, through a collaboration agreement between International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA) and Sparx Systems, a BABOK 3.0 Reference Model has been developed in Enterprise Architect.

This Reference Model provides case studies covering every knowledge area, task and technique in the BABOK Guide. Each case study contains hundreds of examples utilizing diagrams, matrices, charts, documents, and a plethora of tools.  This functionality with many others is combined with the power of Enterprise Architect.

The Reference Model links the BABOK 3.0 to a rich and complete User Guide that provides help and guidance with every aspect of using Enterprise Architect.  Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect is the control center supporting real time collaborative Enterprise Architecture planning, building, testing, deployment and communication across all domains and stakeholders.

Enterprise Agile Adoption:

As the constraints of the traditional enterprise architecture approach are replaced by the force of digital convergence and transformation, executives seek agile enterprise architecture approaches and technologies that are fit for purpose.  The tools deployed to manage that architecture are critical to the success of digital transformation.

Detailed descriptions in the Reference Model will teach the Business Analysts how to use the tool to complete tasks and perform techniques including process modeling and requirements management. Videos, slideshows and white papers add to the rich set of guidance that will help BA's become an Agile Business Analyst assisting organizations to become more purposeful in how they choose to adopt Agile.

Seeking customer feedback and quickly improving the product, fuels the success of many disruptive technologies.  This is the approach of Sparx Systems to the ongoing development of Enterprise Architect. As Sparx Systems CEO, Geoff Sparks notes, “Agile development provides a shared and flexible team experience through complete transparency, iterative development and constant feedback - it has been the essential design goal of Enterprise Architect for over a decade and it will remain just as valid today.”

Additional Information:

• Product Feature Page: Tools & Techniques for BABOK Guide v3
  
• Company Announcement: IIBA Announces Strategic Partnership with Sparx Systems
• Enterprise Architect User Guide: Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK)

Following almost one and a half decades of effort by the OASIS Technical Committee, the OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) V2.1 was approved as an International Standard: Universal Business Language (UBL) v2.1 (ISO/IEC 19845) on Friday 18 December 2015.

UBL, the Universal Business Language, is the product of an international effort to define a royalty-free library of standard electronic XML business documents such as purchase orders and invoices and was developed by an OASIS Technical Committee with participation from a variety of industry data standards organizations.

The UBL originated out of efforts in 1999 to create a set of standard XML "office documents" within OASIS.  The working group that came to be known as UBL was established as an in November 2001.  This approval of the Universal Business Language (UBL) v2.1 (ISO/IEC 19845) ensures that UBL is both recognized in public sector policies and will also provide additional layers of governance for the long-term sustainability of UBL.  Sparx Systems has been a long term supporter of the work of the OASIS Technical Committee responsible for this development and has demonstrated this relationship with provision of Enterprise Architect licences for the standard development effort.

Sparx Systems support for standards was extended with the addition of the Schema Composer in the release of, Enterprise Architect 12 earlier this year.  Following expressions of concern about the lack of semantic interoperability between various standards communities and the impact that this was having on the adoption of standards by the stakeholders in various industry ecosystems, Sparx Systems created the Schema Composer which enables semantic interoperability, by automating the building of XSD and similar data definitions from a model subset, using simple check boxes. 

Direct Support for Key Industry Standards

The Schema Composer currently targets a number of key industry standards including CIM, NIEM, UN/CEFACT, UBL and generic XSD, RDF, OWL and other formats and allows the rapid design and build of  XSD and similar data definitions such as RDF and JSON, from a selection of elements within the model. 

NIEM

NIEM schema definition and model transform (for creating NIEM model extensions and schemas) is directly supported in Schema Composer and a NIEM subset can be created directly within your model ready to define extension and exchange schemas.

CIM

Similarly CIM XSD schemas are directly supported in the Schema Composer as is CIM Augmented RDFS which includes both forward and inverse property for each bi-directional Association in the message. See http://www.sparxsystems.com.au/products/ea/12/index.html

Enterprise Architect provides the following resources for the composition of business documents using UBL:

UML Framework
         -  UBL 2.1 Main Document Libraries
         -  UBL 2.1 Common Component Libraries

Business Document Composition
         -  Schema Composer for component composition
         -  Schema Composer for document composition
         -  Schema Composer for schema generation
         -  Add-in integration
         -  Scripting integration

For more information, please visit the Enterprise Architect User Guide.

"OASIS", ["UBL" and "Universal Business Language" ] are trademarks of OASIS, the open standards consortium where the [UBL] specification is owned and developed. [UBL] is a copyrighted © work of OASIS Open. All rights reserved.

The Sparx Systems forum has undergone a much-requested update, giving it a fresh appearance and improved indexing - making it easier and faster to connect with relevant information and knowledge than ever before.

Since way back when in 2001 and Enterprise Architect version 3, the Sparx Systems Forum has performed an integral service, bringing together most enquiring and resourceful members of the user community. Since that time the forum has grown to include over 115,000 posts, covering a plethora of topics including methodologies and add-ins to usage issues and feature requests.

We encourage you to visit the forum and let us know what you think.

Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect has been ranked #1 by the user community at IT Central Station - the dynamic community site providing unbiased user based critiques  and comparisons of software products.

Enterprise Architect has been identified as a 'stand-out' solution in the areas of Architecture Management and also Business Process Design; registered members of IT Central Station can download a free detailed report.

The highly positive result is based on a number of factors, including the rating reviewers have given to products, as well as the number of reviews and interest displayed by visiting members.

IT Central Station is an online 'Community Built on Trust' with a strong focus on enterprise professional members being 'validated' and a 'zero-tolerance' for fake reviews; community managers actively monitor the site to ensure credibility of the brand.

We would like to take the opportunity to thank our User Community for their feedback and ongoing interest in Enterprise Architect.  

Prominent Business/IT publication CIO Review Magazine has identified Sparx Systems as one of the '20 Most Promising Productivity Tools Solution Providers' for 2015.

Published in the November issue of CIO Review, Editor-in-Chief Pradeep Shankar described Sparx Systems as "A vendor of a productivity platform for the planning, design, and construction of software intensive systems based on the Unified Modeling Language (UML)."

The selection committee of prominent CEO's, CIO's and analysts, including the CIO Review's editorial board was responsible for deciding the final list from hundreds of potential solution providers. The selection process involved evaluating potential vendor's ability 'to fulfill the need for cost-effective and flexible solutions that add value to the Productivity Tools landscape.

Sparx Systems Founder and CEO, Geoffrey Sparks, spoke candidly with CIO Review, "As a tool vendor we are focused on on providing high precision modeling tools that match the needs of consultants, trainers, and industry in general..."

Read the full inteview, 'Agile Modeling Patform for Seamless Enterprise Operations', by clicking on the link above (450Kb PDF download).

Sparx Systems Founder and CEO, Geoffery Sparks, spoke with Acquisition International Magazine last month about the Sparx Systems business model, the early days and the power of the Sparx Systems Global Partners Network.

Geoff was featured in the magazine's CEO of the Month section and offered a unique insight into how Sparx Systems began, first releasing Enterprise Architect in 2000.  With 15 years of continious development and growth, the Enterprise Architect platform has a strong feature set "... that would be expected in an industrial strength modelling solution, in a single, highly functional, low cost package." stated Geoff.

The company founder also highlighted the importance of the Global Network Partners to the growth of Sparx Systems. "We have reached out to experts in reselling, training and consultancy services and created a global partner network to support client companies."

Read Geoff's full interview with Acquisition International Magazine on ISSUU here

Enterprise Architect has recently been given the Bronze award in the Visual Studio Magazine 2015 Reader's Choice Awards.

The Sparx Systems design and build platform was recognised as an outstanding solution in the 'Software Design, Frameworks, and Modeling Tools' category.

In a recent Press Release (attached), Editor in Chief of Visual Studio Magazine stated that "The Visual Studio Magazine Reader’s Choice Awards offers a chance for readers to participate in giving public praise to those companies deserving of the recognition.”

More than 400 products across 31 categories were included in an online ballot run by Visual Studio Magazine, with hundreds of magazine subscribers responding over a 3 week period in late September.

Sparx Systems is pleased to announce a number of upcoming webinars covering topics including geodatabases, Cloud Services and migrating ArcGIS models in Visio.

To learn more, visit our Webinar directory:

www.sparxsystems.com/webinars

Modeling Techniques for Large-Scale ArcGIS Geodatabases

September 2015 Learn how to create modular schema designs to maximize reuse; define scalable design diagrams from reusable components; and leverage inheritance of abstract shape stereotypes.

Click to Register

Introduction to Cloud Services

October 2015 Learn how to create, manage and configure the Sparx Systems Cloud Service to provide convenient, secure model access anywhere in the world.

Click to Register

How to Migrate Visio ArcGIS Models to Enterprise Architect

November 2015 Learn how to migrate existing ArcGIS (CASE) Models in Visio to Enterprise Architect and leverage state-of-the-art modeling tools to update and maintain geodatabase designs.
Click to Register