Wiley :: Common Warehouse Metamodel Developers Guide

COMMON WAREHOUSE METAMODEL SERIES: VENDORS

This page describes a number of software vendors that have implemented CWM functionality as part of their primary product offerings (or are in the process of doing so). Several of the vendors who actively participated in the creation of CWM have provided a live demo of the ability of their software products to interchange meta data using CWM, known as the CWM Enablement Showcase. This is described below. As with the tools page, these vendor links are far from all-inclusive, so if your company needs to be listed here, please contact us. Also, please note that there is bound to be some overlap between the content of this page and that of the tools page.

A Sampling of Vendors of CWM-Enabled Products

The following software vendors are known to have incorporated CWM functionality into one or more of their respective products. The purpose of this summary is simply to provide the reader with a few general starting points when beginning to research CWM-enabled product offerings. This commentary does not in any way evaluate, endorse, underwrite or critique, any of the product offerings described here.

IBM: IBM's DB2 Warehouse Manager V7.2 and DB2 UDB and DB2 Connect support data warehouse meta data import and export functionality based on the CWM standard. IBM has also announced an IBM DB2 Meta data program for its business intelligence partners.

Hyperion offers CWM meta data import and export capabilities of Essbase meta data via the Meta data Interchange Facility (MIF) of the Hyperion Application Builder (HAB). This functionality enables advanced, custom-built analytical applications developed using HAB to support CWM-conformant interchange of meta data between Hyperion Essbase and other CWM-enabled tools.

Oracle has built CWM meta data functionality into Oracle 9i and Oracle Warehouse Builder 3i (OWB3i). OWB3i's functionality supports both the collection and dissemination of data warehouse meta data via the CWM standard. For more detailed information on Oracle's CWM-enabled offerings, the reader is encouraged to join the Oracle Technology Network.

Unisys Corporation has developed CIM Standard, an implementation of the JMI specification that also serves as the JMI Reference Implementation (RI). CIM Standard provides a platform-neutral meta data framework for developing model-driven tools and applications, and includes a graphical management console and a number of Java utilities for XMI meta data import/export, server generation, reflective services, etc. CIM Standard is available for free download from Unisys' eCommunity web site.

SAS's Enterprise Warehouse Administrator is a key component in SAS's general approach to providing an open meta data -based approach to business intelligence solutions, with an emphasis on OMG and CWM standards, and the CWM OLAP metamodel. Here is a link describing the SAS strategy in greater detail. SAS has also recently announced comprehensive support for CWM in SAS System 9.

Meta Integration has implemented substantial CWM and XMI functionality in their Meta Integration Model Bridge (MIMB), a model-based, meta data integration tool that works with a wide range of diverse modeling tools, databases, repositories, and data warehousing and BI tools, including CA Erwin, Oracle (OWB + Designer), Rational Rose, Sybase Power Designer, and SAS.

Adaptive's primary CWM-related offering is in the Adaptive Repository 1.0 product, a full meta data service which implements the OMG's MOF, XMI, and CWM standards. Adaptive Repository 1.0 can be used as a MOF-based repository, but also as a complete MOF service, including the automated generation of meta data servers directly from MOF and UML metamodels, and XMI import and export of meta data. Adaptive Repository 1.1 is currently slated to support the CWM Version 1.1 metamodel, following its adoption by the OMG.

MetaMatrix offers MetaBase, a cross-platform meta data management system built on the OMG's MOF, CWM, UML, and XMI standards. MetaBase consists of the MetaBase Repository, a MOF-based meta data repository, and MetaBase Modeler, which is used to import and model meta data using UML. These tools are integrated via the MetaMatrix Server, an XMI-based data integration server.

Business Objects' Data Integrator 6.0 is a CWM- and XMI-enabled data-extraction and transformation tool. Data Integrator was highlighted in a recent Information Week article.

Informatica's Metadata Exchange for Data Models supports bi-directional meta data exchange between the Informatica Repository and any relational schema described in a CWM XMI file. More information on the Informatica Metadata Exchange (MX) family of products are available on the Informatica Developer Network.

Novosoft's UML Library for Java (NSUML) is an open source, MOF-based, meta data repository solution. NSUML/NSMDF implements the Java Metadata Interface (JMI) version 1.0 specification, and supports model import/export via XMI.