Syndeia 3.6 Release, Part 10: Infrastructure and a Look Forward

In this series, we’ve looked at many of the new user features in Syndeia 3.6. We’ll end the series with some important changes to the infrastructure and a brief look at the future.

API Extensions

All the Digital Thread Project capabilities presented on the web and plugin clients are backed by dedicated endpoints for working with Digital Thread Projects. These help ensure that projects remain secure from unauthorized users. Some of the key API features shown in Figure 1 include:

Projects – Fetch and query Digital Thread Projects accessible to a user
Relations – Create, query, and manage relations in Digital Thread Projects
Query Library – Create, manage, and execute queries and collections for Digital Thread Projects
Baselines – Create, manage, and compare baselines of Digital Thread Projects
User Privileges – Manage user privileges on Digital Thread Projects

New sets of endpoints specific to the Siemens Teamcenter, Vitech GENESYS and Zuken DS-E3/DS-CR integrations are also now available (see the Syndeia Web Dashboard Help menu), along with significant improvements to the DOORS-NG service endpoints for creating (POST) and updating (PUT) artifacts and relations in components and streams.

Online Training Materials

A distinctive advantage of the Syndeia platform has always been the open availability of an enormous body of on-line user guides and training materials looking at each of the components, features and integrations in detail (Syndeia 3.6 user guide). Forty-two (and counting) new demo videos and tutorials have been added to cover the new features and integrations in the 3.6 release, along with major revisions of the user guides. In particular, greatly expanded analysis capabilities in the Syndeia Web Dashboard are demonstrated in fourteen new videos listed here. Users will find extensive training materials for the new integrations (and Teamcenter) in both the web dashboard and plugin client sections.

Figure 1 Dedicated endpoints for Digital Thread Projects on Syndeia 3.6

Where Do We Go from Here?

Intercax plans for one major Syndeia release per year plus 2-3 service packs. Service packs consist of bug fixes and integration updates plus minor extensions to existing capabilities. These last are usually requested and validated by customers, then rolled out to the commercial release when they have general applicability. 3.6 Service Pack 1 is currently scheduled for late-July-August of this year.

The final product plan for Syndeia release 3.7 is still under review, but it will continue our emphasis on Extensible, Scalable and Secure. Some promising candidates for new features include

New Integrations – the integrations that we add are primarily customer-driven, but a lot of customer requests are in the areas of CAD, PLM and requirements. There are opportunities as well outside the engineering environment, including quality, manufacturing and logistics.
Model Transforms – the ability to share, compare and update data between domains has been restricted to a small range of high impact use cases, but updates to both back-end and front-end code are laying the groundwork for a wider range. This includes the custom mapping capability, a critical feature for organizations working with customized repositories.
Automation – The Syndeia philosophy has been to leave automation, e.g. event triggering of model synchronization or report generation, to external CI/CD/digital pipeline tools that can call on Syndeia’s REST API for the needed services. This allows organizations to use the same CI/CD tools they use elsewhere in engineering and add Syndeia to their workflows. But new technology developed for a NASA SBIR project will make it easier for Syndeia users to configure their services for automation.

On top of these, look for new capabilities in visualization and analysis, Syndeia deployment, and security. In the longer term, the excitement about AI/ML may bear fruit if the right applications and training sets are identified. Intercax will continue to balance our own vision of MBSE with that of our customers making it work in the real world, that combination generating a constant flow of new ideas for the future.

Other parts in this series:

Dirk Zwemer

Dr. Dirk Zwemer (dirk.zwemer@intercax.com) is COO and Co-founder of Intercax LLC (Atlanta, GA), a supplier of MBE engineering software platforms like Syndeia and ParaMagic. He is an active teacher and consultant in the field and holds Level 4 Model Builder-Advanced certification as an OMG System Modeling Professional.