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 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;
- to establish a communications strategy that will bring
UDEF to the attention of potential users and product
developers; and
- to 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 on the
www.udef.org website.
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 e-mail, 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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