A standard UML profile for data modeling. How close are we?

1. Are there competing UML Data Modeling profiles (for relational databases) or is only one being considered? One of Scott's articles mentions that an official data modeling profile RFP appeared at OMG in December, 2005. It is now ~3.5 years later. Where does that stand:

http://www.agiledata.org/essays/umlDataModelingProfile.html#RFP

2) If there's only one being considered, how far away are we from it becoming an accepted standard?

3) How are UML modeling tool vendors handling this absence of a standard, accepted data modeling profile? Will vendors create transforms to the standard from whatever UML data modeling profile(s) they currently support?

4) What precisely *is* an RFP? Is the OMG simply in a mode where it is
soliciting entire candidate UML data modeling profiles, or has it put out a draft of one profile and is asking for refinements / comments? Or does that come later--RFC? If it's the former, how many years might one expect a standard to selected, refined, and ratified--and does this matter a whit to practitioners who have work to get done?

5) What can the community do to accelerate the process of getting a UML Data Modeling profile ratified? Does one have to be a prof or in the upper echelons of one's field, or can "ordinary" professionals contribute?

Of course there's the also question of an "impedance mismatch" between a data-centric ERD-based and an app-centric / "unified" / OOP UMLbased  approach to data modeling:

http://www.agiledata.org/essays/culturalImpedanceMismatch.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-relational_impedance_mismatch

http://www.agiledata.org/essays/impedanceMismatch.html

Comments?

Thanks.

Dana Received on Wed Jul 29 2009 - 14:37:56 CEST