Middleware and Related Services (MARS) Platform Task Force (PTF)

To solicit, evaluate, and select specifications for recommendation to the Platform Technology Committee for adoption by OMG in the areas of:

1. Request Broker Technology - including but not limited to Object Request Brokers (CORBA), Message-Oriented Brokers and other technologies that are the target implementation contexts for Platform Independent Services and their Mappings.
2. General purpose Pervasive Services that are either:
   • Fundamental for developing useful distributed applications
   • Provide a universal basis for Application Integration and Information Integration, or
   • Support higher-level facilities and frameworks
3. Mappings for such Pervasive Services to specific middleware platforms, and reference mappings from generic PIM constructs to platform-specific constructs and protocol rules.
4. Supporting Technologies for Application Integration, Information Integration, and Collaboration

There are currently 3 working groups operating at this time:

• The Information Exchange Framework (IEF) Working Group: defining a roadmap for specifications (not just in MARS) to cover the areas of policy based information exchange.
• The Object Database Technologies (Object DB) Working Group. {on temporary hiatus}
• IDL Profiles Working Group (more text to come)
  • Draft Vision Statement (not yet approved but available for perusal): mars/09-03-12 (http://www.omg.org/docs/mars/09-03-12.pdf)

For more information go to their respective wiki pages

• NextGen Object Database work for now is on hiatus. Changes in the economy have affected the object database vendors, who have been part of this effort, in ways that don’t permit them...right now...to consider standardization as a high priority item. An early draft RFP has been prepared and (when yours truly uploads it to the OMG web server) will be available for review and thought.
• Success with SMSC resulted in inaugural meeting of the IDL Profiles WG. A draft “Vision” statement was drafted and will be considered for approval at the June meeting in Costa Rica. Work on this effort should pick up at the meeting in San Antonio, TX this September.
• Proposal for a potential new RFC will be presented at the June 09 meeting in Costa Rica: a MARTE Profile for MultiCORE. This will be a joint effort of IBM and CEA.
• Most current Agenda for MARS meeting in Costa Rica is posted here: http://www.omg.org/news/meetings/tc/agendas/cr/MARS.pdf

• Extensible and Dynamic Topic Types for DDS RFP (Status: Initial submission deadline has passed.)
• Information Transformation RFI (Status: RFI Response Deadline has passed.)
• Handling Non-Functional Properties in a Service Oriented Architecture RFI (Status: RFI Response Deadline has passed.)
• Lw FT for Distr. RT Systems RFP (Status: Revised submission deadline has passed.)
• Native C++ Language DDS PSM RFP (Status: Voting List deadline has passed.)
• Transliteration & Transcription RFI (Status: RFI Response Deadline has passed.)
• UML Profile for Advanced and Integrated Telecommunication Services RFP (Status: Voting List deadline has passed.)

• GIOP Compression (FTF WIP page: http://www.omg.org/techprocess/meetings/schedule/CORBA_Bindings_for_WSDL_FTF.html)
• DDS for Lightweight CCM (FTF WIP page: http://www.omg.org/techprocess/meetings/schedule/DDS_for_CCM_FTF.html)
• UML Profile for DDS (FTF WIP page: http://www.omg.org/techprocess/meetings/schedule/UML_Profile_for_DDS_(UML4DDS)_FTF.html)
• CORBA Bindings for WSDL(FTF WIP page: http://www.omg.org/techprocess/meetings/schedule/CORBA_Bindings_for_WSDL_FTF.html)
• Ruby Language Mapping to CORBA (FTF WIP page: http://www.omg.org/techprocess/meetings/schedule/Ruby_CORBA_Language_Mapping_(RCLM)_FTF.html)