A business object (BO) is a passive domain entity represented by a set of attributes. Using the concept of business object the domain state is a conjunction of attributes' values of all business objects.

(Own representation)

From the theoretical point of view the specification of all business objects is required for the complete formalization of the business domain. In addition, the behavior of the business domain is represented as a sequence of changes on the business objects. Therefore, the visibility or scope of business objects should be global in terms of the business domain (uniqueness of BO in a particular domain and its global domain-wide semantical meaning). This approach requires a consistent information model of the business domain.

From the practical point of view, the creation of a single information model of the entire domain is a non-trivial task. The problems of consistency, onthological classification, naming, identification etc. arise. In particular, the single information model is seen as a limitation of the domain size and complexity.

In PDD the creation of a single information model is avoided and business objects are not modeled explicitly (no representation in the metamodel). During the descritpion of business capabilities the impact on the environment is described as next-state relations using locally defined business objects. Consistency is maintained by using a global repository and allowing the reuse of elements. During the validation the business objects defined in different activities are bound.

There is also the interpretation of this term derived from the object-oriented point of view.

domain objects

* http://uis.georgetown.edu/departments/eets/dw/GLOSSARY0816.html