Over a period of 10 years, the FAW has developed a Software Engineering Paradigm to develop distributed data, applications, and processes for heterogeneous environments. This paradigm is supported by a set of tools that has been implemented at FAW and is now commercialized via the spin-off company KNOWING. These tools and the Software Engineering Paradigm are forming a platform for enterprise integration as specified, e.g., in the definition of CIMOSA. Enterprise integration hereby means the strategic aim to continuously develop one productive enterprise data and function model. This is a key for an enterprise-wide information and resource management. It should be based on a solution for enabling the transparent access to all available data and functions in distributed heterogeneous environments via a logical point of information. In this paper, the implementation concept for so-called information logistic services — forming the logical point of information — will be described. These services are implementing the information entity in the framework of an integrating infrastructure as it has been described by CIMOSA. Besides the details of its implementation, a positioning in an overall implementation architecture for enterprise integration, as it has been developed and implemented at FAW, will be explained as well.

The FAW Research Institute has been working on integrating platforms for over 10 years now. The FAW developed an execution environment for heterogeneous distributed systems named AMBAS (Adaptive Method Base Shell). OPAL(2) (Integrated Information and Process Management in Manufacturing Engineering) was a large CEC project that formed part of the AIT-initiative (Advanced Information Technology for the European Automotive and Aerospace Industries). AMBAS has been enhanced in the OPAL project to implement the specification of the AIT-integration platform (AIT-IP). This paper describes how AMBAS also satisfies the requirements of the CIM Open Systems Architecture (CIMOSA)-Integrating Infrastructure (IIS) specification. AMBAS supports enterprise integration based on enterprise models. It provides transparent and uniform access to the entire body of an enterprise's data and methods (functions, services, applications and processes), which is the main aim of CIMOSA-IIS. The application environment Communication and Resource Assistant (CORA: the desktop part of AMBAS) implements a standard Web-based interface to the user. In addition to AMBAS, an enterprise engineering environment (called Omega mega (Operational Modelling Environment and Generator for AMBAS applications)) is available, which makes possible the modelling of data, functions, applications and processes and the generation of corresponding executables for AMBAS. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Im Februar 1995 wurde vom Ulmer Gemeinderat auf einer Klausursitzung in Sonthofen die Durchführung einer großangelegten Innovationsoffensive beschlossen. Die sich daran anschließende Umsetzungsplanung erfolgte im Jahr 1995. Im November 1995 wurden schließlich finanzwirksame, kurzfristige Maßnahmen beschlossen und im Rahmen einer Innovationspartnerschaft mit einer Vielzahl von Institutionen/Verbänden (IKD Ulm, IHK, Handwerkskammer, Wirtschaftsforderungsgesellschaft, Gewerkschaften, Hochschulen, Forschungsinstituten, Bürgergruppen) in Angriff genommen. Zielsetzung im Schwerpunkt ‘Informationstechnik/Telematik’ ist dabei die Formierung des Großraums Ostwürttemberg/Donau-Iller/Bodensee-Oberschwaben mit dem Oberzentrum Ulm/Neu-Ulm zu einer Telemetropole. In dieser Metropole sollen mehr als 1,1 Mio. Haushalte (das sind über 2,5 Mio. Einwohner) und mehr als 88.000 Unternehmen, von denen über 40.000 Unternehmen einen jährlichen Umsatz von über 250.000 DM erzielen, den kostenadäquaten Zugriff auf eine hochwertige Telekommunikationsinfrastruktur haben, wie sie bislang nur in GroBstädten gegeben ist, bzw. z. Z. aufgebaut wird.

MIDA defines an architecture for building distributed Decision Support Systems by integrating high-level modeling approaches and implementation techniques for platform independent distributed client/server applications. One of the chief design goals is hiding of all infrastructural and system specific implementation details to users. MIDA covers solutions for model-oriented representation, administration, and (remote) access to both data and methods in distributed heterogeneous computer and networking environments. AMBAS-SOOM is an implemented variant of the MIDA architecture which has been developed at FAW. AMBAS-SOOM has two main components: the distributed operating platform AMBAS and the modeling environment SOOM, which implements concepts of Structured Modeling (SM) and Object Orientation. Models are developed using the graphical expert interface of SOOM and include formal descriptions of data types, of methods (functions, solvers) and relationships between data and methods. These models are translated automatically into executables for AMBAS. AMBAS contains an Object Request Broker mechanism to assign requests for data or methods from applications to services available within the network and, therefore, enables reuse of distributed data and methods to build up new models.