The members of the Enterprise Data Management Council (EDMC) developed the Financial Industry Business Ontology (FIBO), a business conceptual model detailing financial instruments, business entities and processes, presented in the Ontology Web Language (OWL).
However, IT departments must still support and design conventional databases, with model-driven development, industry standards, and reference models. Bridging that gap requires converting all or part of the ontology into a metadata format that can be consumed by an organisation’s data modelling tools.
The Financial Industry Business Data Model (FIB-DM) bridges the chasm between the semantic representation in OWL and conventional data management, by providing a single representation of the complete Ontology.
Jayzed Data Models maintains this model as a SAP PowerDesigner Conceptual Data Model, and also provides two other version of the content for those who don’t use PowerDesigner.
- PowerDesigner Logical Data Model (LDM) – data modelling tools may be able to import the LDM, with varying degrees of success. Both Idera ER/Studio Data Architect and Erwin Data Modeler can import the PowerDesigner LDM using the built-in Metadata Import supplied by Meta Integration.
- XMI file – UML modelling tools will probably be able to import this, though consistent support for the XMI standard has always been an issue
Links for FIB-DM
FIBO – https://edmcouncil.org/general/custom.asp?page=aboutfiboreview
Web site – https://fib-dm.com/
YouTube videos – https://www.youtube.com/c/fib-dm
Linked In – https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/fib-dm
FIB-DM core, the GPL 3.0 Open Source version, is now available in ER/Studio format – it’s more than just a model conversion, there are some new features as well:
Object details have been exported in TAB format
These files can be opened in Excel (these were generated from PowerDesigner List reports, which can be configured on request)
ER/Studio macros have been generated from the PowerDesigner model
The PowerDesigner Generation template Language allows us to create a macro that ‘knows’ exactly what to look for:
- to verify object counts match between the two tools
- to verify the Submodel hierarchy matches the FIB-DM hierarchy
- to correct invalid data types
Sample ‘Hierarchy’ Diagrams have been included
A Hierarchy Diagram contains the full Super/subtype hierarchy for a given entity. It is not possible to create diagrams like this using a macro in ER/Studio. It is possible to create diagrams like this in the ER/Studio user interface, though it can be an error-prone process due to the number of Subtype clusters in the model – there is no guarantee that the diagram is up to date or complete.
Additional Hierarchy Diagrams can be created in PowerDesigner and imported into an ER/Studio model that can be merged with the FIB-DM model that you’ve downloaded.
Sample ‘Proximity’ Diagrams have been included
A Proximity Diagram contains everything linked to a given entity. It is possible to create diagrams like this in the ER/Studio user interface, though it is not possible to replicate them using a macro.
Additional Proximity Diagrams can be created in PowerDesigner and imported into an ER/Studio model that can be merged with the FIB-DM model that you’ve downloaded.
See for yourself
The silent 6 minute view, with captions
Have you got a bit more time?
Download
Click here to complete the registration form, so you can download the model for ER/Studio
Mapping FIBO concepts to ER/Studio objects
Why you need to download the model from Metadata Matters
FIB-DM is a very big model with some deep super/subtype hierarchies (up to 12 levels deep in the core model). Here are the statistics for the core (free) model, which is about 1/4 of the size of the full model:
- 266 Diagrams
- 11 Top-level Packages – 262 Packages in total
- 1082 Entities
- 771 Attributes
- 1368 Relationships
- 406 Inheritances (ER/Studio Subtype Clusters)
- 1027 Inheritance Links (subtype connections)
Idera ER/Studio Data Architect can import a PowerDesigner LDM, but it does not work perfectly. For example, here is the ‘Arrangements’ package from FIB-DM, represented as a submodel in ER/Studio Data Architect:
You can see some key differences here.
- every Package and every Diagram in the PowerDesigner model has been converted to a Submodel in ER/Studio
- all the Package and Diagram names have been changed. This is a big deal in a model with over 260 packages.
- the PowerDesigner Package hierarchy has been flattened by the ER/Studio import
- the fonts and line styles in the diagram need to be changed to make the diagram more readable. This is also a big deal, as there are over 260 diagrams
- the default content for Entity symbols is the list of Attributes; the modified model shows the FIBO-specific properties instead.
There’s more below the surface that needed fixing, such as:
- most of the original PowerDesigner Diagrams have the default name for the first Diagram in a Package (“Diagram_1”) – they were all renamed to match the package
- the attachment names in the Data Dictionary have been renamed to use a meaningful label instead of the FIBO property, such as “Inverse” instead of “ent-owl:inverseOf”
- the allowable values for attachments were not imported correctly, and needed to be corrected
- incorrect conversion of some data types
I have an advantage over most organisations that need an ER/Studio version of the FIB-DM model – I also have access to PowerDesigner. I can make changes to the model in PowerDesigner before importing it, as well as adjust the ER/Studio model after importing it.
Sample Content
Macro to verify the number of objects in the model
Hierarchy Diagram
Proximity Diagram
