Base Object Model (BOM) BLOG

BOM PDG Transitions to PSG

Lawrence (Larry) Root — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 15:29:00 +0000

BOMers,

This is to let you know that the BOM PDG, per the results from the BOM PDG meeting held at SISO SIW this Fall in Orlando, is transitioning to a Product Support Group (PSG). This transition will occur on Oct 2nd, 2006 - and will simply involve the movement of the SAC-BOM-PDG discussion group to the SAC-BOM-PSG discussion group - which allows us to keep all of the discussions and history of the PDG (which is usefull information). Also, per the elections held for our PSG officers: Paul Gustavson (SimVentions) will be the Chair; Bob Lutz (JHU/APL) will be the Vice-Chair; and, Jane Bachman (Navy - NSWCDD) will be the secretary. In transition of my PDG Chair duties to Paul - as Chair-elect for the PSG - I know that you'all are in good hands and have at your helm the ideal person to oversee the issues, questions, extensions, and application of the BOM standards to various domains of interest. I have certianly enjoyed these past three-plus years as your PDG Chair and want to thank you all again for the huge success that this effort has been - and will continue to be.

PDG members, please update your address books with the new address: SAC-PSG-BOM@discussions.sisostds.org which will replace the SAC-PDG-BOM@discussions.sisostds.org address.

Thanks,

Larry Root,
SISO BOM PDG Chair
SimVentions, Inc.

BOM PDG Article in STM!

Lawrence (Larry) Root — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 22:35:00 +0000

Hi,

The Simulation Technology Magazine has just been updated (http://www.sisostds.org/SimTechMagazine.htm), and contains a BOM / BOM PDG article (http://www.sisostds.org/webletter/siso/iss_108/art_703.htm).

Also, the PDG Officers and DG Team has published paper 06F-SIW-100 which highlights some of the lessons learned from our SISO BOM Standardization efforts over the past three years. Please take some time to read the article and paper, and look for opportunities to promote the new BOM Standard during the upcoming Fall'06 SISO SIW!!

Larry Root
SISO BOM PDG Chair
SimVentions, Inc.

BOM Standard Approved!!

Lawrence (Larry) Root — Thu, 18 May 2006 18:58:00 +0000

BOMers,

The 'BOM Template Specification' (SISO-STD-003-2006) and its 'Guide For BOM Use and Implementation' (SISO-STD-003.1-2006) have been approved by both the SAC and the EXCOM. These are now real SISO standards, and can be downloaded from SISO's web site at the following link:

http://www.sisostds.org/index.php?tg=articles&idx=More&article=40&topics=18

Congratulations to all involved, and once again thanks for your hard work!!

As a heads up - the PDG (which will be tranistioning to a PSG at the next SISO SIW) is interested in hearing about any and all applications of this standard to your problem domains. Please let us know about your effotrs, and if you have questions - please ask!

R,
Larry Root
SISO BOM PDG Chair

SAC Approves BOM PAP!!

Lawrence (Larry) Root — Fri, 05 May 2006 20:08:00 +0000

Received this message on May 5, 2006:

Hi Larry,

Please find below the message sent to the EXCOM for the approval of the PAP from BOM PDG.

The SAC approved the PAP from BOM PDG on Friday 21st April 2006 and expect the EXCOM to approve the PAP on Monday 8th May 2006.

Regards,
Chris Rouget
SISO BOM PDG TAD.

We are getting closer!!

BOM Product Approaval Package Submitted!!

Lawrence (Larry) Root — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 05:03:00 +0000

Hello BOMers,

The Product Approval Package (PAP) has been submitted to the SAC!! This includes both the "Guide for BOM Use and Implementation", and the "BOM Template Specification." This is the final step for the PDG/DG. We now get to wait on the SAC to review and approve, and then the EXCOM to approve. If we are successful with both of these - then we have completed our mission - and the BOM Standard and Guide will be final!!

I would like to thank everyone again for their efforts - especially the DG as they put in extra time to finish off the incorporation of the Ballot Round Comments (as adjudicated by the PDG) so the documents could be submitted to the SAC and EXCOM in time for the Spring'2006 SISO SIW.

Keep an eye out for additional announcements as we move through the SAC and EXCOM approvals.

R,
Larry Root
SISO BOM PDG Chair

BOM PDG Telecon Tue Jan 31 8:30-Noon EST

Lawrence (Larry) Root — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 17:09:00 +0000

BOM PDG Members,

First, I would like to thank you all once again for your hard work and efforts regarding the balloting of our PDGs BOM Specification and Guidance Documents.

Secondly, our Face-To-Face in Orlando was very successful! We completed adjudicating all of the comments on the specification, and made it a good ways into the guidance document. This means that our editors (the DG Team) can begin to update the specification in preparation for delivery to the SAC and EXCOM for final approval and official release as a standard!! Upon completion of the adjudication process for the guidance - the guidance can also be carried into the editing phase as well.

As mentioned last week by Jane, there is a teleconference scheduled for this coming Tuesday (Jan 31) 8:30 AM EST until Noon EST to complete the adjudication of the comments received against the guidance document. The dial-in phone number is: 850.414.1711 Please plan on dialing in when you can...we need at least 5 to meet our quorum - but the more we have the better.

This is exciting - and with each step we get closer to the final package needed for submission to the SAC and EXCOM. Although the work leading up to the balloting - and the balloting round itself - was hard work, let's not slow down now - but continue to run until the finish line has been crossed!!

R,
Larry Root
SISO BOM PDG Chair

BOM Ballot Results Are In!!

Lawrence (Larry) Root — Thu, 15 Dec 2005 00:04:00 +0000

The final tallies are in and the summarized results are as follows:

36 of the 38 ballot pool members responded!! That is a 94.74% overall response from the balloters – this is excellent participation – Thank You All !!
We had 35 accept/reject votes and 1 abstention on the Guidance Document
We had 36 accept/reject votes on the Standard

This means the product ballot process is valid because we have met the two requirements per SISO BPDP Section 4.3.6: minimum ballot return percentage of 75% – we hit 94.74%; and, less than 30% abstention – we had 1 abstention (i.e., 2.63%) on the Guidance Document.

From this point forward, the percentage-computations are to be based on the total number of accept/reject votes received (per SISO BPDP Section 4.3.6) – which is 35 for the Guidance and 36 for the Specification.

For the Guidance Document the 35 accept/reject votes break down as follows:

17 of the 35 voted to accept. That is a 48.57% response to accept
17 of the 35 voted to accept with comment. That is a 48.57% response to accept with comment
The above two provides an overall 34 of 35 votes for acceptance. That is a 97.14% response to accept
1 of the 35 voted to reject with comment. That is a 2.86% response to reject with comment

This means that the ballot result for the Guidance document has met the requirement for a valid and successful ballot per SISO BPDP Section 4.3.6: at least 65% of the accept/reject ballots must be for accept – we hit 97.14%. Therefore, the Guidance document can proceed on to the next step of the process which is the SISO BPDP Product Approval Step – Section 4.4 of the BPDP.

For the Specification the 36 accept/reject votes break down as follows:

16 of the 36 voted to accept. That is a 44.44% response to accept
19 of the 36 voted to accept with comment. That is a 52.77% response to accept with comment
The above two provides an overall 35 of 36 votes for acceptance. That is a 97.21% response to accept
1 of the 36 voted to reject with comment. That is a 2.77% response to reject with comment

This means that the ballot result for the Specification document has met the requirement for a valid and successful ballot per SISO BPDP Section 4.3.6: at least 75% of the accept/reject ballots must be for accept – we hit 97.21%. Therefore, the Specification document can proceed on to the next step of the process which is the SISO BPDP Product Approval Step – Section 4.4 of the BPDP.

In preparation for carrying both documents forward into the Product Approval Step (i.e., Section 4.4 of the BPDP) the Drafting Group (DG) is being tasked to take on the responsibility of the “editor” as called out in Section 4.3.7 of the BPDP. The DG will prepare all resolutions and recommendations - consistent with BPDP Section 4.3.7 - prior to the PDG Face-to-Face meeting, which is set for January 12th and 13th, 2006. Full days are planned: 9:00am until 5:00pm each day. The meeting will be held at the AEgis Technologies Office in Orlando, FL. All of you are invited, please plan on attending. Specifics on the location of the meeting can be found at AEgis’s web site: www.aegistg.com AEgis P.O.C. is Jake Borah: jborah@aegistg.com (voice - 407-380-5001). The DG team has been forwarded the comments.

The DG will be reviewing and preparing responses/recommendations to a total of 278 comments broken down as follows:

A total of 137 comments against the Guidance Document from 14 of the balloters: 103 are category 1; 24 are category 2; 1 is category 3; and, 9 are category 4;
A total of 141 comments against the Specification from 18 of the balloters: 87 are category 1; 50 are category 2; 1 is category 3; and, 3 are category 4;

Thank you all for your efforts, as I know you are all very busy – especially this time of year! We now look to the DG Team to carry the torch as we move toward the PDG Face-to-Face Jan 12th and 13th, 2006.

Again, I would like to thank you all for your work!!

v/r,
Larry Root
SISO BOM PDG Chair

BOMs being demoed at I/ITSEC!

Paul Gustavson — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 16:13:00 +0000

Be sure to stop by the DMSO Booth at the I/ITSEC show (700 section) for our presentation and demonstration of Base Object Models (BOMs). We are sharing a kiosk with the BML folks. But also look for the Jelly BOMs!

There is also a presentation session on BOMs on Wednesday morning! Check the I/ITSEC guide for details.

EXHIBIT HOURS DURING THE CONFERENCE

* Mon Nov 28: 1400-1800 (4 hours)
* Tue Nov 29: 1200-1800 (6 hours)
* Wed Nov 30: 1000-1800 (8 hours)
* Thu Dec 1: 1000-1500 (5 hours)

Demo times for the highlights on BOMS are on the even hours / whereas highlights on BML are on the odd hours.

Mon -

BOM = 1400, 1600
C-BML = 1500, 1700

Tues -

BOM = 1200, 1400, 1600
C-BML = 1300, 1500, 1700

Wed

BOM = 1000, 1200, 1400, 1600
C-BML = 1100, 1300, 1500, 1700

Thu

BOM = 1000, 1200
C-BML = 1100, 1300
COMBO = 1400

PDG Face-to-Face Planned for Jan'06

Lawrence (Larry) Root — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 21:50:00 +0000

PDG Members,

Please set aside Jan 12 and 13, 2006 for our face-to-face meeting to adjudicate the comments received from our ballot round! The ballot round closes on Dec 9th, 2005 - and we are allowing the BOM DG team until Jan 9th, 2006 to provide the recommendations. The face-to-face adjudication meeting is tentaively scheduled for Jan 12th and 13th, 2006, 9:00am until 5:00pm each day, to be held at AEgis Technologies Office in Orlando, FL.

AEgis Technologies can be found on the web at www.aegistg.com. Their office in Orlando, Fl, can be reached at:

2800 Discovery Drive
Suite 270Orlando, Florida
32826

Phone: 407-380-5001
FAX:407-380-7902
POC for this event: Jake Borah: jborah@aegistg.com

Please let Jake and I know if you are either planning on attending in person or planning to dial in (number to be provided later).

R,
Larry Root
BOM PDG Chair

BOM Balloting Has Started!

Lawrence (Larry) Root — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 18:59:00 +0000

BOM Balloters,

We have been given approval to move forward with the balloting! I want to thank you again for volunteering to be part of the ballot pool, SISO and the BOM PDG would not be “in business” if it were not for people like you, willing to get involved and move our community forward. I also want to remind you of your primary responsibility that you singed up to in joining the BOM Ballot Pool, and that is to respond promptly to the ballot. We need to get your ballots back in order to continue to move the process forward…so please expedite your efforts and responses and return your ballots as soon as possible! The ballot period is scheduled to run from November 9th 2005 through December 9th 2005.

As a member of the BOM Ballot Pool, you are responsible for balloting, separately, two documents:

The first and primary document is the Base Object Model Template Specification – this is the main document and is being balloted to become SISO Standard: SISO-STD-003-200X
The link for balloting this standard is: http://www.sisostds.org/stdsdev/Tracking_Final/ViewAllSections.cfm?Doc_ID=36

The second and supporting document is the Guide for BOM Use and Implementation – this is a supporting document to the standard, and is being balloted to become a SISO Guidance Document: SISO-STD-003.1-200X
The link for balloting this guidance document is: http://www.sisostds.org/stdsdev/Tracking_Final/ViewAllSections.cfm?Doc_ID=32

The BOM Balloting Instructions are attached and the BOM Product Nomination (PN) is available on the site. Please reference these as needed. If you are unable to get access to the document links, directions for alternate access can be found in the attached balloting instructions.

Also, please take note that the document numbers referenced within this e-mail and the attached instructions are different than the numbers on the actual documents. The document numbering scheme was discussed during SISO SAC approval to go to balloting, and will be resolved via a comment against the documents during the balloting round – consistent with direction provided by the SISO SAC.

Thank you again for your efforts!

R,
Larry Root
SISO BOM PDG Chair
SimVentions, Inc.

Fall '05 News and Notes

Paul Gustavson — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 16:48:00 +0000

A lot has happened in the last few months regarding the BOM development effort, and this blog entry intends to catch every one up on all the news and notes.

Firstly, from September 19th-23rd, many of us converged in Orlando, FL for the Simulation Interoperability Workshop (SIW). There were many highlights for this SIW regarding BOMs that I’d like to share.

The week started with the presentation of a BOM tutorial titled “Achieving Composability with Base Object models (BOMs)”. This event was attended by eight participants and marked the fourth tutorial in the past two years on BOM composability to the SISO community. This hands-on tutorial, which included an exercise in building a BOM and creating a BOM assembly, was met with positive feedback. The realization of the BOM capability in providing support for federation development at the component level seemed to be grasped by each attendee.

One commenter stated in affect that “what BOMs provide is a capability that we haven’t seen since DIS in that it allows manageable pieces of simulation interoperability to be developed, integrated and tested independently, much like the DIS PDUs, and provides a context for understanding how it all connects together.”

On Monday morning, the SimVentions members of the BOM PDG in presented a BOM brief, which featured a demo of the BOMworks™ tool at the “Tools On Parade” event. This is a tool (for Windows) that is freely available for the M&S community.

On Tuesday afternoon, things really got moving during the “Base Object Model (BOM) Product Development Group” panel discussion. Over the last 2 ½ years, the BOM PDG has been working on developing a specification and guidance document as a component-framework standard for developing interoperable simulations and simulation environments, so the focus of this panel discussion, which was moderated by Chris Turrell, was to get insights from those that have been heavily involved in the BOM PDG. Panelists for this event included Larry Root, Paul Gustavson, Bob Lutz, Roy Scrudder, Björn Löfstrand, and Jake Borah. The feedback for this event was very encouraging. Next year we hope to have a panel of BOM users sharing their experience with developing and using BOMs.

On Tuesday evening, a special Birds of a Feather session, which was identified as a “Base Object Models (BOMs) for Human Behavior Model Interoperability”, was held to discuss the potential application BOMs can provide in documenting Human Behavior Representations. At the start of the session, I was asked to provide a short overview on BOMs to allow attendees to better understand the structural capabilities a BOM provides. Items of interest included the conceptual model support, in particular “patterns of interplay”, which was considered as a possible mechanism for capturing human behavior representations. Discussion also focused on various scenarios in which a set of BOMs might be able to be developed to support. For those that attended, there was consensus to continue this discussion within the SISO community. This resulted in the establishment of a discussion forum by Duncan Miller, who attended the Birds of a Feather session, and a “call for papers” focused on human behavior representation and potential application of BOMs.

I should also mention that during the course of the week, there many sidebar discussions with individuals who had strong interest in applying BOMs to support current and future M&S activities. This is obviously very encouraging. There were also a limited set of BOM t-shirts which were created for this SIW week and BOM advocates, which were quickly snatched up!

Since the fall SIW, the PDG Drafting Group Team and Assign Reviewers have been working hard on the final integration of comments, and as of October 31st, the BOM Template Specification and Guidance Documents have been released to the Standards Activity Committee (SISO) for final approval for Ballot. Currently there is some dialog / questions on the numbering convention for the two documents, which is holding up its approval for ballot. However, I'm optimistic that a solution will be worked out and that we hear something soon about the commencement of the balloting phase for the 41 members of the ballot pool.

Invitation to Ballot; BOM Template Specification and Guide

Paul Gustavson — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 21:31:00 +0000

From: "Van Lowe"

*** This message was generated from SISO-ADMIN ***

Posted for the Standards Activity Committee (SAC)...

The Simulation Interoperability Standards Organization (SISO) invites you to ballot on the following:

Title: Base Object Model (BOM) Template Specification and Guide for Base Object Model (BOM) Use and Implementation

Description: The SISO focuses on facilitating simulation interoperability across government and non-government applications worldwide. One of SISO's interests is to explore methods that support and promote reuse of simulation components and encourage agile, rapid, and efficient development and maintenance of models.

Base Object Models (BOMs) are intended to provide a key mechanism in facilitating interoperability, reuse, and composability. The BOM concept is based on the assumption that piece-parts of simulations and federations can be extracted and reused as modeling building-blocks or components. The interplay within a simulation or federation can be captured and characterized in the form of reusable patterns. These patterns of simulation interplay are sequences of events between simulation elements. The representation of the pattern is captured in the BOM.

There are two BOM related documents developed by the SISO BOM Product Development Group (PDG). These documents are the "BOM Template Specification" and the "Guide for BOM Use and Implementation."

If you are interested in participating in the electronic ballot, you must respond by September 14th, 2005. To view the Invitation to Ballot please go to:

http://www.sisostds.org/stdsdev/ballotpool/

Time Expiring

Paul Gustavson — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 02:41:00 +0000

Just a few days left to go in this comment review round. Don't miss out before we go to the ballot phase!

Open Review of BOM Documents Now On!

Paul Gustavson — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 14:58:00 +0000

We need your help! We're in last review of the Base Object Model (BOM) documents, and you're participation is highly encouraged!!! Here's our summer schedule in regards to the current review of the BOM Spec and Guidance document.

5-24 July - V0_11 review of Guidance and Spec
25 July - distribution/delegation of responsibilities to DG members
26 July - telecon - review of comments received / intial scan of resolutions
9 August - telecon - adjudication of V0_11 comments/ resolutions (PDG wide!)
10 August - telecon - continuation of adjudication of V0_11 comments /resolutions (if necessary - PDG wide!)

The latest versions of the BOM Guide and Template Spec documents may be found respectively at:

http://www.sisostds.org/stdsdev/Tracking_Final/Doc_Index.cfm?Doc_ID=32

http://www.sisostds.org/stdsdev/Tracking_Final/Doc_Index.cfm?Doc_ID=36

Comments may be submitted by clicking on the pencil icon to the right of “Entire Document”, completing the form and submitting.

New BOM Release - Version 0.11 !

Paul Gustavson — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 16:04:00 +0000

We're excited to announce the release of the lastest version of the BOM Specification and Guidance documents. Much work has gone into this effort, and we think you will be very pleased with this pair of documents, which is now identified as version 0.11. In the last round alone, there were over 300 comments reviewed and adjudicated based on inputs from the world wide community. Thanks for the feedback. There will be one more short review before we form our ballot pool.

The documents will be available at www.boms.info/Documents.