A.2 Core Model Uses the Eclipse Modeling Framework

At the heart of Designer for Identity Manager is a strong object model that is based on the Eclipse Modeling Framework. This model uses the industry standard XMI format (XML Metadata Interchange Format) for storing objects and their relationships.

The main purpose of XMI is to enable easy interchange of metadata between modeling tools (based on the OMG UML) and between tools and metadata repositories (OMG MOF based) in distributed heterogeneous environments. XMI integrates three key industry standards:

The integration of these three standards into XMI integrates the best of OMG and W3C metadata and modeling technologies, allowing developers of distributed systems to share object models and other metadata. XMI, together with MOF and UML, forms the core of the OMG repository architecture that integrates object-oriented modeling and design tools with each other and with a MOF-based extensible repository framework.

Because Designer is based on this technology, you get the following benefits: