A method, computer System and computer program product for generating ontological information from design data are disclosed. The design data has a plurality of classes, the classes having at least one association with another class. The design data is processed on the basis of rules to identify environmental artifacts. The design data is processed on the basis of rules to identify implementation artifacts. All classes that are implementation artifacts are eliminated from the design data. New associations for non-eliminated design data that have broken class associations as a result of the elimination are established. The design data remaining following the elimination is processed to preserve environmental artifact relationships between the retained classes to generate an ontology.