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| | NIEM Tools from Altova
What is NIEM?Recent events have demonstrated the clear need for the real-time dissemination and retrieval of critical intelligence during national disasters and other emergency situations. Regardless of our human ability to respond collectively during crises, we now live in a world where we need our technology to follow suit - to work as a cohesive unit and provide timely and relevant information to the decision makers and those on the front lines. But the infrastructure simply has not been in place for the seamless exchange of data assets within separate units of the United States government. Incompatible architectures and data formats, legacy systems, and other technology road blocks have revealed weaknesses in our ability to react with the necessary promptness in times of national exigency. The National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) is an XML-based standard for enterprise-wide data sharing between United States government agencies and their information partners. It aims to provide a means for these entities to improve decision making, achieve greater operating efficiency, mitigate risk, improve public safety, and increase ROI through intergovernmental information exchange. NIEM & XML SchemaNIEM draws upon XML Schema to build data objects and constructs that define a consistent, yet modular, methodology for transmitting data across disparate systems. At the center of the data model is NIEM core, an XML Schema defining a collection of granular universal objects such as person, address, etc. This schema is extended with a growing number of domain models that provide more specific definitions for commonly exchanged information types. Domains currently addressed by NIEM include: Justice, Intelligence, Immigration, Emergency Management, Maritime, Family Services, Infrastructure Protection, and more. However, unlike other data exchange specifications such as HL7 and EDIFACT, the NIEM framework does not provide a standard configuration for the individual messages themselves. Exchange messages (i.e. Amber Alert, arrest report, etc.) are defined by Information Exchange Package Documentation (IEPD), a collection of artifacts including the following:
Because of the flexibility of this design, the NIEM specification can be used to create reusable templates for common information that is shared across government entities, ensuring consistent structure, format, and packaging. NIEM Naming & Design RulesIn addition to the formal rules enforced by XML Schema, NIEM has published Naming and Design Rules (NDR). The NDR follows ISO 11179 metadata registry standards, and also provides several other guidelines for using XML Namespaces, XML Schema constructs, naming NIEM data objects, design principles, and the underlying data model. The NDR provides a comprehensive normative technical reference for building NIEM data model components and IEPDs. Some of the specific areas covered by the NDR are:
Altova Tools for NIEMBecause of its inherent flexibility, the NIEM framework touches on a wide variety of standards including XML, XML Schema, XSLT, Web services, even UML and RDF. The Altova MissionKit is the only software package on the market that addresses all of these technologies and more, providing tools that support the end-to-end conception, modeling, development, management, and execution of NIEM messages. Altova tools for NIEM span two different categories: those that can be used during the development of an IEPD; and those that can be used during the implementation of an exchange. A brief overview of some of the features that these tools provide appears below, but Altova also offers free 30-day trials of all of its software for a full-featured, no holds barred, test drive. Graphical XML Schema EditorXMLSpy® 2012 provides a graphical schema design interface which simplifies the development of XML Schemas, allowing XML code to be generated in real-time behind the scenes. Users can switch back and forth between this view and text view at any time during their design process. The graphical schema editor provides built-in support for creating the IEPD Extension Schema, Constraint Schema, and Exchange Schema. Specific features include:
NIEM XML EditorIn addition to the broad XML Schema support described above, XMLSpy provides comprehensive support for all other prevalent XML technologies, adding:
UML DiagramsThe first stage in any development lifecycle is a thorough business requirements review. UML is particularly well-suited to modeling software projects because it provides a standardized approach to the design process. Scenario-based planning is recommended for NIEM, and though there is no UML diagram requirement, class diagrams, use-case diagrams, and sequence diagrams all provide value to IEPD documentation. In addition, NIEM provides a free tool for mapping data requirements based on an uploaded XMI representation of a UML model. UModel® 2012 is an advanced UML tool that supports all fourteen UML 2.3 diagrams, BPMN, SysML, and more. It works seamlessly with XML technologies like XMI, letting users easily import and export XMI based on their UML diagrams. UModel can even render XML Schemas in a format similar to UML diagrams and integrates seamlessly with all other MissionKit tools including XMLSpy, MapForce, and SchemaAgent. UModel also supports code generation, round-trip engineering, and reverse engineering, as well as integration with the popular Visual Studio and Eclipse IDEs. UModel can be used two different phases of NIEM development:
XML Schema ManagementBecause of the potential to have many different schemas in each IEPD, XML Schema management can become an arduous process. SchemaAgent® 2012 is a unique file management tool that lets users visually manage their XML Schema, XML, XSLT, and WSDL assets in a project-based environment so that changes and structure of the file configuration can be easily recognized. SchemaAgent users can even view mapping files created using MapForce. Data Mapping & ExchangeData mapping is a crucial step at several levels in the NIEM process. Mapping helps users generate a subset schema to determine what elements can be used from the core and domain models, it is also used to perform a transform from one NIEM vocabulary to another. Some NIEM implementations also employ Web services to provide a mechanism for the exchange.
MapForce® 2012 is an any-to-any data mapping and integration tool that supports all of the potential data formats used in the NIEM lifecycle including XML, databases, flat files, Excel 2007+, and Web services. MapForce maps data based on its underlying structure (i.e. XML Schema), enabling mapping designs to be reused for recurrent transformations. MapForce also supports mapping to and from multiple source or target components. In addition, MapForce can be used to generate documentation detailing mapping projects for non-technical stakeholders in a variety of formats such as HTML and Microsoft® Word. Additional Resources
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