The Future of the openMDM Architecture

Our goal of offering a sustainable and easily understandable architecture for MDM over the long term will only be achieved by providing systematic and soundly-based documentation. To this end, we are currently setting up the methodology base below:

Using the CAx documentation structure set up at Audi as a basis, we have expanded the architecture model contained in it with a metamodel to explain the fundamental terms involved in MDM and their dependencies. We are also adding the technical concepts underlying MDM and the central architectural decisions to CAx.

This documentation will offer MDM projects the conceptual basis for their implementation or, as the case may be, for technical decisions related to projects. It will ensure that we will be able to keep the MDM core separate from applications projects, while, at the same time, still being able to add continuously more functionality to this core where necessary.

In addition, we intend in the future to generate central facilities from MDM systems based on the (formal) architecture documentation, an example being the “preload.ini” file. This approach avoids redundancies as well as ensuring that the architecture documentation remains up to date. Documentation therefore becomes a central principle in implementation.

by Gernot Starke
http://www.gernotstarke.de/