What is the Meta Object Facility?

Beyond the M3-model, MOF describes the means to create and manipulate models and metamodels by defining CORBA interfaces that describe those operations. Because of the similarities between the MOF M3-model and UML structure models, MOF metamodels are usually modeled as UML class diagrams. A supporting standard of MOF is XMI, which defines an XML-based exchange format for models on the M3-, M2-, or M1-Layer.