ISO/IEC 19503:2005

Overview

ISO/IEC 19503:2005 - Information technology - XML Metadata Interchange (XMI) defines a standard mechanism to interchange metadata between application development lifecycle tools and metadata repositories in distributed, heterogeneous environments. XMI integrates three industry technologies - XML (W3C), UML (ISO/IEC 19501) and MOF (ISO/IEC 19502) - to enable consistent encoding, schema generation and transport of metamodel-based data. The standard specifies rules for producing XML Schema Definitions (XSD) from MOF metamodels, encoding/decoding MOF metadata as XML documents, and importing legacy DTDs into MOF models.

Key Topics and Requirements

• XMI Schema Design Principles: guidance for producing well-formed XMI Schemas, required XML declarations, namespace use, and design principles to ensure interoperable XML Schemas and documents.
• XML Schema (XSD) Production Rules: rules for transforming MOF-based metamodels into XML Schemas that validate XMI documents.
• XML Document Production Rules: conventions and EBNF-based rules for encoding MOF metadata into XML documents (object structure, references, attributes, packages).
• Linking and References: standardized attributes and mechanisms for identifying elements, linking objects across documents, and handling containment.
• Metadata Differences & Versioning: approaches to express adds/changes/deletes and version attributes for interoperability between tools and model versions.
• Reverse Mapping: production rules for importing DTDs/XML Schemas back into MOF-based metamodels and XML-to-MOF transformations.
• XML Schema Model: XMI representation of XML Schema constructs (types, elements, attributes, groups, keys) to support schema-level interchange.

Applications and Who Uses It

ISO/IEC 19503:2005 is used by:

• Modeling tool vendors (UML editors, CASE tools) to export/import models reliably.
• Enterprise architects and systems integrators for metadata exchange between design and repository tools.
• Repository and metadata framework developers who implement MOF-based stores and need XML interchange formats.
• DevOps and toolchain integrators to automate model synchronization across distributed development environments. Practical uses include model migration, tool interoperability, schema generation from metamodels, automated code generation workflows, and exchange of model fragments between teams.

Related Standards

• ISO/IEC 19501 - Unified Modeling Language (UML)
• ISO/IEC 19502 - Meta Object Facility (MOF)
• W3C XML / XML Schema specifications

ISO/IEC 19503:2005 (XMI) is a foundational standard for metadata interoperability, enabling consistent, validated exchange of metamodel-driven metadata across tools and platforms in distributed development environments.