Sparx Systems

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Sparx Systems recently attended the INSPIRE Conference in Florence to present the CEN/TC 287 Award for Academic Excellence in INSPIRE for the third year. This year the Award went to Aurete Pereira and Gabriel Luís of Laboratório Nacional de Energia e Geologia, and Pedro Cabral of Instituto Superior de Estatística e Gestão de Informação, Universidade Nova de Lisboa. 

The winning project "Implementation of the INSPIRE Directive in digital geological map production in Portugal" focussed on the elaboration of a harmonization approach applied to the geological datasets of Portugal in order to bring them in line with INSPIRE Implementing Rules. Ms Pereira noted, “the project development task was made easier through the availability of tools such as Enterprise Architect and the recently added ArcGIS profile.” This is the second consecutive year that a Portuguese university has received the award. 

Sparx Systems' ArcGIS plug-in was developed in conjunction with CSIRO and supports the creation of visual UML models of ArcGIS geodatabases. Visualizing geodatabase designs, facilitates traceability of geospatial systems to the broader enterprise model, communicates geospatial design concepts to a wide audience of stakeholders and leverages model driven architecture.

At the recent International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) International Symposium, Sparx Systems participated both as an exhibitor and as a participant in the Tool Vendor Challenge. As described by the symposium organizers, the challenge presents “tool vendors with a common use case derived from a practical problem for them to solve and demonstrate at the 2013 INCOSE International Symposium”.

The presentation by Sparx Systems Ambassador, JD Baker was well received. It demonstrated how Enterprise Architect can model requirements, construct strategic models and help to solve business and technical issues related to the supply of ice following a natural disaster
 
INCOSE is a not-for-profit membership organization whose mission is to "share, promote and advance the best of systems engineering from across the globe for the benefit of humanity and the planet."  Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is a significant part of the INCOSE vision and Sparx Systems supports that vision with the Enterprise Architect implementation of OMG SysML.
 
For more information on the Tool Vendor Challenge, visit the INCOSE website. Vendor solutions are expected to be posted soon.

The Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE™) Consortium is an aviation focused professional group managed by the Open Group. Recently Sparx Systems contributed a collection of licenses to assist members in their development of the FACE Data Model. The Open Group, via its latest news release and the FACE website thanked Sparx Systems for their assistance:

"[Enterprise Architect has] been instrumental towards the development of the FACE Data Model and DoDAF 2.0 representations of FACE Enterprise Architecture products. In addition we appreciate their assistance in setting up a shared working environment for these efforts."

Sparx Systems is proud to announce it has been named to the SD Times 100 list for the fifth consecutive year. The list, which recognizes the top leaders and innovators in software development, awarded Sparx Systems in the ALM and Development Tools category.

Geoffrery Sparks commented on the award recognition, "We have worked hard to offer a platform that delivers power to the modeler and helps realize the potential of model driven engineering, so it is especially pleasing to receive this recognition of our dedication.”

The SD Times Editorial Board in its announcement stated, “Since 2003, the editors of SD Times have examined the newsmakers of the previous year, looked back at their achievements and decided who were the best of the best. We carefully considered each organization’s offerings and reputation. We also listened for the ‘buzz’—how much attention and conversation we’ve heard around the company and its products and technologies—as a sign of leadership.”

To view the full SD Times article visit: http://sdtimes.com/51682

Sparx Systems a long standing member and sponsor of the OMG is attending the current working group meeting in Berlin. This technical meeting provides IT architects, business analysts, government experts, vendors and end-users a neutral forum to discuss, develop and adopt standards that enable software interoperability for a wide range of industries.

The Berlin meeting has over 300 attendees and Sparx Systems has several partners attending. These include Lieber Lieber, Ability Engineering, transentis and Trisotech. More information about these partners can be found at: http://www.sparxsystems.com/partners

Through the use of Enterprise Architect, NRF-ARTS and Sparx Systems are collaborating on development of retail standards to foster opportunity and growth through innovation in the retail sector.

Technology and global retail business is generating an industry wave that will bring new markets into being and enable savvy retailers to discover opportunities and growth. The more open and standard the network is, the greater is the variety of services that can be provided to the customer and more point of service (POS) data can be captured for integration with other business critical applications.

UnifiedPOS

The Association for Retail Standards (ARTS) UnifiedPOS standard was created to define a common architecture for describing POS peripherals.  The latest version (V1.13) defines the model for accessing and controlling 36 distinct types of retail peripherals and these models are documented using the widely accepted Unified Modeling Language (UML).

NRF-ARTS

The Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS), a division of the National Retail Federation, is a retailer-driven international membership organization. 

ARTS develops best practices, technology standards and educational programs through collaboration and partnerships that enable retailers, their vendors and suppliers to conduct business globally.  These standards, products and programs are dedicated to fostering innovation and increasing retailer efficiency.

The Geography Markup Language (GML), adopted as an International Standard (ISO19136) in 2007, is an XML grammar used to express geographical features. As a modeling language for geographic systems, GML also serves as encoding to transport and store geographic information.

The inter-dependancy of energy management and supply, geospatial and architecture, engineering and construction sectors is a factor that is essential to the success of the SmartGrid. Standards enable data interoperability between the stakeholders and the OASIS eMIX (Energy Market Information Exchange) standard uses the OGC Geography Markup Language (GML) Encoding Standard. 

The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) CIM (Common Information Model) standard is "harmonized" with WXXM (Weather Information Exchange Model), which is an industry profile based on GML. Sparx Systems' recent release of UML to GML underscores our support for standards and standards development to enable efficient geospatial communication within smart grids and between smart grids and "neighboring" activities such as emergency response, disaster management, urban planning and building energy management.

Sparx Systems is a UCAiug and OGC member. More information can be found at:  

http://www.sparxsystems.com/enterprise-architect/arcgis/gml-arcgis.html

Sparx Systems is currently exhibiting at CeBIT - the biggest annual IT event in the Asia Pacific region. With an average of over 32,000 visitors over the three days from 28th to 30 May, there is a buzz amongst the 3000 showcased solutions at the Exhibition Centre on Darling Harbour. The diversity of exhibitors and visitors is a true reflection of the Sparx Systems global market – Enterprise Architect has a potential solution for every person, business and sector.  

Visit us at the show and have a look at the latest features of this amazing technology – the productivity tool to get the challenging jobs done fast. We are at Booth Number N60 opposite the Philippines pavilion.

The Geospatial World Forum, run out of Rotterdam in The Netherlands is a premier international event showcasing the latest geospatial technology and its value to the world economy. Sparx Systems has been invited to speak at this event, because of its involvement and support for the sector and its relationship with the INSPIRE community, specifically smeSPIRE.

Ken Harkin, Sparx Systems' Business Development Manager will be discussing the ways that Sparx Systems, as a global SME, engages with this community through the provision of Enterprise Architect, accepted as one the most popular UML modelling and design tools within the sector.

For more about the Geospatial World Forum visit www.geospatialworldforum.org