"A readable and much needed introduction to MDA." --Dr. Jim Arlow, coauthor of UML and the Unified Process (Addison-Wesley, 2002) and Enterprise Patterns and MDA (Addison-Wesley, 2004) "This book provides an excellent introduction to the ideas and technologies that will form the foundation of the model-driven architecture over the coming years. I recommend it wholeheartedly." --Dr. Andy Evans, Managing Director, Xactium Limited, UK "Excellent job of distilling MDA down to its core concepts." --Krzysztof Czarnecki, Univeristy of Waterloo, coauthor of Generative Programming (Addison-Wesley, 2000) As systems have grown more crucial to the operations of organizations worldwide, so too have the costs associated with building and maintaining them. Enter model-driven architecture (MDA), a standard framework from the Object Management Group (OMG) that allows developers to link object models together to build complete systems. MDA prevents design decisions from being intertwined with the application and keeps it independent of its implementation. The result is an application that can be combined with other technologies as well as other applications, and models that become highly reusable assets. MDA Distilled is an accessible introduction to the MDA standard and its tools and technologies. The book describes the fundamental features of MDA, how they fit together, and how you can use them in your organization today. You will also learn how to define a model-driven process for a project involving multiple platforms, implement that process, and then test the resulting system. MDA Distilled will help you understand: * The MDA framework, including the platform-independent model (PIM) and the platform-specific model (PSM) * The Meta Object Facility (MOF)--the OMG's adopted standard for metamodeling * Horizontal, vertical, and merging mappings between models * Building marks and marking models * Elaborating models, including viewing generated models, and managing manual changes * Building executable models with Executable UML * Agile MDA development Developers and architects can dramatically improve productivity, portability, interoperability, and maintenance with MDA. Find out how with this essential reference, and quickly learn how to harness the significant power of this new framework.