UDEF: Interested Parties' Meeting
Objective of Meeting
The concept of the Universal Data Element Framework (UDEF) has gained
considerable interest as a means of simplifying information management
through consistent classification and assignment of a structured indexing
identifier to the names (metadata) of data. (See www.udef.org
for more information.)
To translate that interest into practical deployment, we need to:
- Establish the necessary infrastructure - notably the UDEF registry
- Establish a communications strategy that will bring UDEF to the
attention of potential users and product developers
- Establish a formal body of experts and other interested parties that
will take responsibility for the promotion and deployment of UDEF
The objectives of the meeting were to review the situation and discuss
practical steps towards establishing the infrastructure, the
communications strategy, and the formal body for UDEF, in order to reach
industry consensus on these points, so that a work program can be put in
place.
Summary
The meeting started with a review of the
agenda, a presentation on the overview
and background of the UDEF, and a presentation on the meeting
background and expectations.
It is envisaged that a global non-profit organization should support
the UDEF registry on the web, provide the necessary infrastructure and
management for the process of extending the UDEF trees, be responsible for
UDEF training, and promote the UDEF concept to solution providers and end
users. The detailed
requirements for the UDEF Global host were reviewed.
Statements of support from
people that were unable to be present were read. There are further
statements of support from industry leaders at www.udef.org.
There was then a general discussion of customer expectations and
requirements, and presentations of vendor perspectives from Cemantica,
Unicorn, and Contivo.
The way forward was discussed. The Open Group is potentially able to be
the global host for the UDEF. For this to work, the right organizational,
technical, and commercial conditions must be in place, and the UDEF
community and The Open Group must be satisfied that this is the case. The
organizational structure must be open, and must not permit dominance of
the UDEF by a single body that could exploit it for commercial gain. As
regards technical structure, there are a number of possible implementation
models for the registry and repositories, including a single, centralized
registry/repository, and a highly-distributed registry/repository system,
perhaps modeled on DNS. A commercial structure is necessary to provide
funding for development of the UDEF infrastructure.
Next Steps
The Open Group will ensure that those present and other interested
parties are kept informed of developments, and provide email, web, and
teleconferencing facilities for information sharing and discussion in the
immediate future.
Meeting attendees will inform The Open Group of other people that
should be involved.
The Open Group will discuss possibilities bilaterally with interested
parties, with the aim of formulating a proposal for the establishment of
the UDEF infrastructure that is acceptable to the AFEI and to the UDEF
community.
The Open Group can provide an opportunity for promotion of the UDEF to
its membership through a presentation to the Customer Council. The July
(New York) meeting might be more appropriate than the April (Dublin) one.
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