Open service orientated architecture foundation to drive PLM from Dassault

V5 SOA is now the technical foundation for Dassault and its partners (notably IBM and Microsoft) in delivering more collaborative PLM services on demand – likely to be popular as organisations increasingly outsource more of the delivery of their product development and change management lifecycle environment, as per the Arena Software model. The approach bridges the gap between PLM solutions and existing enterprise middleware, by providing services in five key domains. Dassault describes those as: collaborative user experience; business process modelling and execution; IP modelling, integration and management; enterprise search, collaboration etc; and SOA openness for web services, 3DXML CAD model exchange and visualisation and so forth. “V5 SOA increases our ability to develop next-generation PLM solutions and solve the challenges at the core of our customers’ businesses,” says Yoshikazu Niwa, executive corporate officer at developer Nihon Unisys Solutions. “SOA architecture allows us to rapidly integrate our solutions based on an existing application framework, with a unified user interface, bringing added flexibility to the supply chain. It will drive innovation and ensure that our customers remain competitive.” “With our V5 SOA strategy, DS extends current CAA V5 architecture with best in class web technologies and introduces the power of 3D collaborative applications for networked innovation,” adds Dominique Florack, executive vice president for strategy with Dassault. Add this to Dassault’s expansion of its 3D For All strategy, culminating in the release this week of its Virtools4 and 3D Office and 3D XE players for pervasive 3D, the company is ratcheting up the potential for engineering design finally to become the cornerstone of more manufacturing organisations. It’s the start of a new era of so-called democratised 3D information – bringing it to the widest range of departments, users and communities. Since Dassault’s acquisition of Virtools last year, its stated objective has been “to bring life to 3D”, delivering a platform, technologies and applications to enable greatly expanded 3D experience sharing – and that’s what’s happening.