The Object Management Group has announced the adoption of the OMG Systems Modeling Language as a standard.

The Needham, Mass.-based OMG and the International Council on Systems Engineering worked together to extend the OMG's UML (Unified Modeling Language) specification to come up with SysML, said Richard Soley, chairman and CEO of the OMG. SysML is a general-purpose graphical modeling language for specifying, analyzing, designing and verifying complex systems that may include hardware, software, information, personnel, procedures and facilities, he said.

As a subset of UML 2.0, SysML provides systems engineers with graphical representation and semantic foundation for system requirements.

"The successful collaboration with INCOSE to create the new SysML language shows the capabilities of the Model Driven Architecture [MDA] to apply beyond its initial application to software," Soley said in a statement. "The ability to extend UML to address complex systems analysis shows how powerful a model-driven approach can be."

SysML leverages the OMG's MDA and UML, and also uses the standards body's XMI (XML Metadata Interchange) specification for exchanging modeling data between tools, Soley said.

"IBM sees SysML as an important standard for systems engineering," Sridhar Iyengar, a distinguished engineer in IBM's Software Group and member of the OMG board of directors, said in a statement. "Our customers and partners will be able to immediately gain value from the SysML standard and its ability to help govern the process of system engineering."

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Meanwhile, from an end-user perspective, Sanford Friedenthal, an engineer at Lockheed Martin, who chaired the SysML Industry Team, said in a statement, "SysML adoption by the OMG is a critical step toward institutionalizing a model-driven approach for systems engineering. A standard modeling language for systems engineering has the potential to significantly improve communications among the development team, improve tool interoperability, and enhance our ability to manage system complexity."

More information on SysML can be found at http://www.omgsysml.org.

This article was originally published on eWEEK.com.