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SOMF 2.1

The Service-Oriented Modeling Framework (SOMF) is a service-oriented development life cycle methodology, offering a number of modeling practices and disciplines that contribute to successful service-oriented life cycle management and modeling. This text is derived from the extensive Wikipedia entry on Service Oriented Modeling:

'The Service-Oriented Modeling Framework (SOMF) has been proposed by author Michael Bell as a holistic and anthropomorphic modeling language for software development that employs disciplines and a universal language to provide tactical and strategic solutions to enterprise problems. The term "holistic language" pertains to a modeling language that can be employed to design any application, business and technological environment, either local or distributed. This universality may include design of application-level and enterprise-level solutions, including SOA landscapes or Cloud Computing environments. The term "anthropomorphic", on the other hand, affiliates the SOMF language with intuitiveness of implementation and simplicity of usage.'

'SOMF ... illustrates the major elements that identify the “what to do” aspects of a service development scheme. These are the modeling pillars that will enable practitioners to craft an effective project plan and to identify the milestones of a service-oriented initiative—either a small or large-scale business or a technological venture.'

SOMF in Enterprise Architect

In Enterprise Architect, SOMF 2.1 is implemented as a profile within an MDG Technology that is integrated with the Enterprise Architect installer. The SOMF 2.1 facilities are provided in the form of:

  • Eleven SOMF diagram types, accessed through the 'New Diagram' dialog:
         -  Conceptual
         -  Analysis
         -  Cloud Computing
         -  Logical Design Relationship
         -  Logical Design Composition
         -  Business Integration
         -  Conceptual Architecture
         -  Asset Utilization
         -  Transaction
         -  Transaction Directory
         -  Reference Architecture

  • SOMF pages in the Toolbox - Enterprise Architect includes several Toolbox pages of modeling structures for each SOMF 2.1 diagram type, located through the Toolbox search facilities; these provide a wide breadth of SOMF modeling capabilities
  • SOMF element and relationship entries in the Toolbox Shortcut menu and Quick Linker

Disable SOMF

If you prefer not to use SOMF in Enterprise Architect, you can disable it (and subsequently re-enable it) using the 'MDG Technologies' dialog (select the 'Specialize > Technologies > Manage' ribbon option).

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