At the ACORD/LOMA Systems Forum in May 2007, Vallue Consulting Inc. announced the availability of a service to help clients construct insurance data models represented in OMG's Unified Modeling Language™ (UML).  These models are based on the data structures already contained within the ACORD XML schemas for both P&C and life insurance.   

The Full Announcement

About UML

In 1997, the Object Management Group (OMG) released the Unified Modeling Language™ (UML®).  UML brought forth a unified standard modeling notation that IT professionals had been wanting for years.  Using UML, IT professionals could now read and disseminate system structure and design plans -- just as construction workers have been doing for years with blueprints of buildings. 

Since then, UML has gained significant traction in the software industry as a common design language.  UML is OMG's most-used specification, and the way the world models not only application structure, behavior, and architecture, but also business process and data structure. 

Modeling is the designing of software applications before coding.  Modeling is an essential part of large software projects, and helpful to medium and even small projects as well.  A model plays the analogous role in software development that blueprints and other plans (site maps, elevations, physical models) play in the building of a skyscraper.  UML helps you specify, visualize, and document models of software systems, including their structure and design, at a higher level of abstraction so that it can be understood by developers and business analysts alike.

Data Modeling and UML

The power of the Unified Modeling Language is not limited to software development.  More and more, UML is being applied specifically as a data modeling language, enhancing practitioners’ ability to communicate their needs and assessments to the rest of the team. 

In UML, the data model is represented using classes and visualized using class diagrams. Class diagrams define the various entities (people, things, and data) and their attributes and shows how they relate to each other.  UML can be used to describe the complete development of relational and object relational databases, from business requirements through the physical data model.

XML Schemas and UML

As the old saying goes - "A picture is worth a thousand words." Maybe ten-thousand words when it comes to XML Schema definitions. Many people agree that a concise UML class diagram is the best and sometimes the only way to get an overview of XML vocabulary models.

ACORD Schemas and UML

As is the case with the ACORD schemas, the data structures are buried inside the XML schema definition and can be difficult to discern.  Using UML to represent these definitions allows them to be easily visualized and published in an abstract form so that the data structures can be used for other purposes, from database design to program language code generation.

UML and Model Driven Architectures

UML also provides a key foundation for OMG's Model-Driven Architecture® (MDA ®), which unifies every step of development and integration from business modeling, through architectural and application modeling, to development, deployment, maintenance, and evolution. 

The MDA works by separating business and application logic from underlying platform technologies.  No longer tied to each other, the business and technology aspects of a system can evolve at its own pace - business logic responding to business needs, and technology taking advantage of developments - as the business requires.

About OMG

OMG has been an international, open membership, not-for-profit computer industry consortium since 1989.  Its membership includes hundreds of organizations, with half being software end-users in over two dozen vertical markets, and the other half representing virtually every large organization in the computer industry and many smaller ones.  OMG’s modeling standards, including the Unified Modeling Language™ (UML®) and Model Driven Architecture® (MDA®), enable powerful visual design, execution and maintenance of software and other processes, including IT Systems Modeling and Business Process Management. OMG’s middleware standards and profiles are based on the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA®) and support a wide variety of industries.