Global Biodiversity Group Adopts Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect

CRESWICK, AUSTRALIA--(Marketwire - Jan. 18, 2011) - Sparx Systems (www.sparxsystems.com), a leading vendor of modeling tools based on open standards, today announced that its award winning UML tool, Enterprise Architect, has been adopted for use by the Taxonomic Databases Working Group (TDWG) in the development of the TDWG Domain Model.

The adoption of Enterprise Architect by TDWG, which occurred in December 2010, has heightened significance as the year was declared as the International Year of Biodiversity by the United Nations. Enterprise Architect will support the TDWG in working toward the key aim of the declaration "to increase understanding of the vital role that biodiversity plays in sustaining life on Earth."

TDWG standards are currently used by many key biodiversity projects including the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), the Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) and the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA). 

Donald Hobern, TDWG Chair and ALA Project Director, said, "It is very hard for the international community to develop workable data models which are simultaneously rigorous enough to support researchers' needs and flexible enough to accommodate new sources of information. We expect Enterprise Architect to be an invaluable tool for our domain experts to collaborate in building a consensus model that will meet these goals. The support offered by Sparx Systems to TDWG will help us to make better use of the wealth of scattered information on the world's species and hence to support conservation, biosecurity, agriculture and all the other fields which depend on access to this information."

"We are pleased and honored to be supporting such a worthy pursuit as the standards development effort of TDWG," said Ken Harkin, Sparx Systems Business Development Manager. "The adoption of Enterprise Architect by the TDWG Technical Architecture Group, once again actualizes Sparx Systems commitment to standards development, especially in this area of scientific research, so critical to the future of the planet. In working with TDWG, we look forward to developing a long and supportive relationship with the global biodiversity community." 

This decision by the TDWG Technical Architecture Group, highlights the increasing value of Enterprise Architect in the development of reference models and the creation of standards for exchange of biodiversity data. For development teams working internationally a powerful language such as the Unified Modeling Language (UML) makes global communication seamless and efficient.

Enterprise Architect 8, the most recent product release from Sparx Systems, is available for download and evaluation from: www.sparxsystems.com/products/ea/8

About Sparx Systems

Sparx Systems (www.sparxsystems.com) specializes in high performance and scalable visual modeling tools for the planning, design and construction of software intensive systems.

With customers in industries ranging from aerospace and automotive engineering to finance, defense, government, entertainment and telecommunications, Sparx Systems is a leading vendor of innovative solutions based on the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and its related specifications. A Contributing Member of the Object Management Group (OMG), Sparx Systems is committed to realizing the potential of model-driven development based on open standards.

The company's flagship product, Enterprise Architect, has received numerous accolades since its commercial release in August, 2000. Now at version 8, Enterprise Architect is the design tool of choice for close to 250,000 registered users world-wide.

About TDWG

Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG), also known as the Taxonomic Databases Working Group, is a not for profit scientific and educational association that is affiliated with the International Union of Biological Sciences.

TDWG was formed to establish international collaboration among biological database projects. TDWG focuses on the development of standards for the exchange of biological/biodiversity data and promotes the wider and more effective dissemination of information about the World's heritage of biological organisms for the benefit of the world at large.