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The Object Management Group's (OMG) Java Metadata Interface (JMI) specification defines a platform-neutral infrastructure that enables the creation, storage, access, discovery, and exchange of metadata. JMI defines a Java mapping for the MOF. It can be viewed as an extensible metadata service for the Java platform that provides a common Java programming model for accessing metadata. Any system that provides a JMI-compliant API to its public metadata is a JMI service.

JMI provides the following to the J2EE environment:

  • ·        A metadata framework that provides a common Java programming model for accessing metadata.
  • ·        An framework for integration and interoperability for Java tools and applications.
  • ·        Integration with OMG modeling and metadata architecture.

As the Java rendition of the MOF, the JMI specifies a set of rules that generate, for any given MOF-compliant metamodel, a set of Java APIs for manipulating the information contained in the instances of that metamodel.

The JMI specification also contains a Java implementation of MOF reflection. Although reflective capabilities are more relevant for advanced tools, they are of interest for the SDK, because by supporting the reflective interfaces we automatically gain support for XMI.

In the SDK, JMI is used to render the CWM model into programmatic APIs. It is specifically geared for a Java rendering of MOF-compliant metamodels and its mapping templates provide a uniform and flexible Java API for manipulating and accessing data based on the CWM models.