Sparx Systems

This Delphi project demonstrates how to create an Enterprise Architect Add-in using Borland Delphi.

This add-in creates/enables/checks/responds to menus and shows how to include a Delphi form as a tab control in Enterprise Architect.

This project was created in Delphi 3 but should be usable from later versions.

Refer to the Add-ins topics in Enterprise Architect help for further information.

This file is freely usable and distributable provided that it is kept in its original form.

What is a Pattern?

Patterns are parameterized collaborations; that is, they are a group of collaborating objects/classes that can be abstracted from a general set of modeling scenarios. Patterns are an excellent means of achieving re-use and building in robustness. As patterns are discovered in any new project, the basic pattern template from previous engagements can be re-used with the appropriate variable names modified for the current project.

Patterns generally describe how to solve an abstract problem, and it is the task of the pattern user to modify the pattern elements to meet the demands of the current engagement.

Before using a pattern it must first be created as a standard UML diagram and then saved as an XML pattern file. This XML file can then be imported as a UML Resource that can be used in any model.

Sparx created GoF Patterns

To get you started with Design Patterns in Enterprise Architect, Sparx Systems provide you with a zip file containing the patterns described in the book Design Patterns - Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software by Gamma et al., referred to as the 'Gang of Four' or GoF. Download this zip file of the Gang of Four patterns for Enterprise Architect from the links below.

When you have downloaded and unzipped the file, you can import the GoF Patterns as described in Import UML Patterns.

Download UML Gang of Four Patterns:

Sparx Systems is Proud to announce the release of Enterprise Architect 10.

Registered users can download Enterprise Architect 10 from: http://www.sparxsystems.com/registered/reg_ea_down.html

Release details and a 30 day Evaluation Trial available at: http://www.sparxsystems.com/products/ea/10/index.html

Support is available to Registered Users at: http://www.sparxsystems.com/registered/reg_support.html

Trial users should use http://www.sparxsystems.com/support/bug_report.html

Last week Sparx Systems attended spatial@gov in Canberra with our partner Geoplex.  This is the third year of the event and it was a week of meetings and discussions about data access specifications, infrastructures, tools and industry change.  There was a buzz within the community and a great line up of speakers from Australia and overseas.

The Minister for Lands New Zealand Hon Maurice Williamson injected his enthusiasm into the discussion focussing on the reconstruction of Christchurch and comparing the impact of geospatial technology on society to that of the Internet.

Paul Smits from the European Union Joint Research Centre provided an update on the progress of the INSPIRE initiative and shared his insight as to the inherent value of approaches to the development of spatial data infrastructures, such as those demonstrated through the INSPIRE program. The INSPIRE Data Specifications can be downloaded from here. http://inspire.jrc.ec.europa.eu/index.cfm/pageid/2/list/datamodels

Key focal points of the discussion included open data initiatives such as the New Zealand provision of free and open access to government-held public data,  the Victorian Government increase in access to government data in an effort to spur the economy and the Danish government release of its digital raw material for free public re-use.

Data access will be provided to the public free which will reduce costs for those who have had to previously buy the same data.  It also opens up opportunity for more businesses to create new products and services without having to initially purchase data.

In Australia the Office of Spatial Policy (OSP), the organiser of this event, is a central policy unit, responsible for facilitating and coordinating spatial data management across Australian Government agencies.  There was much discussion and positive expectation from stakeholders concerning the establishment of a National Spatial Information Infrastructure (NSII) an initiative for which  OSP has been appointed as task leader

http://spatial.gov.au/system/files/public/resources/osp/Linked_InfoStructureWSReport-Nov2012-published.pdf

Modeling of spatial data was discussed by many and there is a shared recognition not only of the productivity value of tools such as Enterprise Architect, but of the need by many in both government and private sectors, to gain a practical understanding of the application.

Developing Standards for SmartGrid

In December 1999 a committee of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) identified electrification as the first of 20 greatest engineering achievements of the 20th century.

With the passage of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 the Smartgrid became federal policy.

The first interoperability standards were announced in 2009 having been identified by attendees at a Smart Grid Interoperability Standards Interim Roadmap workshop in that year.

In late October 2012 Sparx Systems, a member of Utility Communication Architecture International User Group (UCAiug) attended the 2012 Summit in New Orleans.  This event saw a rare confluence of 5 different User Groups which was the basis of a busy and dynamic meeting. 

The UCAiug consists of utility user and supplier companies and is dedicated to promoting the integration and interoperability of electric/gas/water utility systems through the use of international standards-based technology. It is a User Group for IEC 61850, the Common Information Model – Generic Interface Definition (CIM/GID as per IEC 61970/61968), advanced metering and demand response via OpenDR.

Meeting attendees included CIM; OpenSG;  IEC 61850; Testing; and Green Button Users groups. This cohort of volunteers is remarkable, not only for their collective knowledge, industry experience and dedication to standards development but because their efforts underpin the ultimate success of SmartGrid.  Enterprise Architect is used by these groups use to develop standards that will support SmartGrid interoperability.

CIM is an international standard globally accepted for modeling the information exchanges required in electric utility industry.  The interoperability enabled by the CIM standards is a key factor for achieving the Smart Grid vision. There are many advantages to a common architecture and common standards. Common architectures lead to common or harmonised standards and within the overall architecture can fulfil similar functions. This focuses the standards development work on a smaller set of relevant standards and simplifies the choices for vendors as they develop Smart Grid solutions. It also gives Smart Grid product purchasers more choices.

 The official CIM UML model (approved by IEC WG 13 and 14) for use by CIMug members is available here:  http://cimug.ucaiug.org/Pages/sitelogin.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fCIM+Model+Releases%2fForms%2fAllItems.aspx

The OpenSG User Group (OSGug) was formed to create a forum for the development of requirements for SmartGrid systems.  The work focus has been defined by the pragmatic needs of the Utility and Vendor communities.  Through these forums leading experts share their insights, create technical content, and resolve key technical issues.  The OpenSG OpenADR 1.0 System Requirements Specification can be found here: http://osgug.ucaiug.org/sgstore/Shared%20Documents/OpenSG%20OpenADR%201.0%20SRS%20v1.0.pdf

IEC 61850 is a part of the International Electrotechnical Commission's (IEC) Technical Committee 57 (TC57) and is an international standard developed by the International Electro technical Commission (IEC) that provides a comprehensive framework for the implementation of power system automation within substations and across the power system. IEC 61850 is a mission critical part of achieving the Smart Grid vision. Two of ten working groups in TC57,  WG13 is responsible for IEC61970 which includes the CIM and WG14 is responsible for for IEC61968 which includes mapping of IEC61968 to MultiSpeak.  This is an initiative of NRECA (National National Rural Electric Cooperative Association), and is one of the leading standards addressing the demands of enterprise application interoperability, required to achieve smart grid objectives.

The MultiSpeak UML Model can be downloaded here http://www.multispeak.org/about/Specification/Pages/default.aspx

MultiSpeak 4.1 is now a mature standard with increasing growth in its scope and is in use at over 500 utilities in at least 11 countries. Version 4.1 which was issued June 2010 was chosen by NIST to be the CIM harmonization target.

The UCAIug Quality Assurance Program provides for formalized conformance testing of products supporting the IEC 61850 standard and verifies that supported functions of the IED are implemented correctly as defined in the IEC 61850 standard.

A common international testing framework provides the best opportunity for ensuring that Smart Grid products are tested in similar ways, which helps vendors create more universally conformant and interoperable products and gives product purchasers comfort that the tested products they purchase will actually work.  The Testing community is actively working to add the CIM standards and Green Button to its Quality Assurance Program.

The Green Button is based a standard developed by the North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB).  NAESB OpenESPI 1.0 Standardizes the Energy Services Provider Interface (ESPI).  Green Button uses the OpenESPI 1.0 standard to implement the common-sense idea that electricity customers should be able to securely download their own easy-to-understand household energy usage information from their utility or electricity supplier website.

The OpenESPI 1.0 standard can be found here:

http://naesb.org/termsofuse_form.asp?doc=espi_model.eap

The NIST Framework for SmartGrid Interoperability Standards can be found here:

http://www.nist.gov/smartgrid/upload/NIST_Framework_Release_2-0_corr.pdf

Sparx Systems will attend the Distributech Conference in San Diego from January 29-31 2013

Sparx Systems is pleased to announce the Beta release of Enterprise Architect 10. This milestone release introduces new technologies and productivity enhancements including SysML 1.3, GML, RTF Fragments, Structure Compartments, Textual Overlays for the Relationship Matrix, Win32 User Interface Simulation, Profile Helpers and much, much more.  

This Beta release is only available to registered users.

Full release details are available from:

http://www.sparxsystems.com/products/ea/10/index.html

HL7 Tooling Challenge

Sparx Systems attended the HL7 26^th Plenary in Baltimore where the HL7 Tooling Challenge was announced.

HL7 is the global authority on standards for interoperability of health information technology with members in over 55 countries, and the body of work that HL7 has undertaken to develop the standards, for global healthcare reform, is as significant as the reform itself. 

As this reform progresses, workforce capacity building and education are the other key issues that must be addressed. A 2006 AHIMA Whitepaper estimated an annual requirement of 6000 well trained professionals and called for increased “collaboration with industry (vendors, facilities, organizations, government) to present new technologies via classroom and alternative presentation delivery modules.”  As of 2010 the numbers are in the range of 200-300 per year.

In collaboration with HL7, Sparx Systems is supporting the development of this projected resource requirement, through sponsorship of the HL7 Tooling Challenge and offering the Academic Licensing program.  The challenge is to create a UML profile that correctly describes MIF (Model Interchange Format) static models to the extent allowed by the UML language. The submitted profile is then to be used to adapt Enterprise Architect to express the proper HL7 stereotypes as a proof of concept.   Industry stakeholders from all communities in the global health domain are encouraged to accept this challenge, details of which can be found here: http://www.hl7.org/events/toolingchallenge.cfm?ref=announce

For universities, colleges and other teaching institutions delivering health informatics programs, Academic licences Enterprise Architect can be obtained here: http://www.sparxsystems.com.au/solutions/academic.html

Sparx Systems would like to wish UML a happy 15th Birthday.

UML has had a significant influence on software development and the development of object orientated systems.

The image below was taken in front of the Sparx Systems booth at the September OMG Technical Meeting, being held in Jacksonville, Florida.

For more information about the 15th Anniversary, please read the OMG Press Release.

Happy Birthday to the UML.

Venue: Beijing, Shanghai
Date: October, 20th 2012

地点 ：北京市海淀区北四环中路238号柏彦大厦 301会议室

时间：2012年10月20日。

Lecture: Tao Zu，Pitaya Software Center

Location: 238 North Fourth Ring Road, Haidian District, Beijing Boyan Building 301 Conference Room

Shanghai seminar is yet to be scheduled.
Participant：Enterprise Architect Users.
Content: Business Modeling, Requirement Modeling, Interface Modeling, Architect Modeling,Data Modeling, Code Engineering, Report Generation, etc. 

Language: The seminar will be presented in Chinese.

For More Details:
http://www.uml.org.cn/ToolsEA/cphd.asp

Event: ESRI User Conference
Location: San Diego, California, USA
Date: July 23-27, 2012

Visit Sparx Systems at booth: #2100

Presentation by Sparx Systems:

Title: Model Driven Development of ArcGIS Geodatabases with UML 2
Session: Geodatabase Design Strategies
Date: Thursday, July 26, 2012
Time: 1:30 PM - 2:45 PM
Room: 28 A

This presentation introduces a UML 2 profile and associated patterns and techniques for modeling ArcGIS 10.x schemas. By means of the profile, ArcGIS users can leverage modern UML tools to model, forward and reverse engineer geodatabase designs for ArcGIS.

More Information ...