ZapThink's 2008 Service Oriented Architecture SOA forecast by Jason Bloomberg
The wreaths are down, the days are getting longer, and snow is on the ground, so it must be time for ZapThink's annual retrospective and forecast for the world of service-oriented architecture (SOA). This time, however, 2008 is a leap year, which means we're heading into the US election season and looking forward to the Olympics. We're also dealing with an uncertain economic outlook that may very well impact the enterprises that are relying upon SOA to enable their information technology (IT) shops to provide increasingly agile solutions to the business. As we look back to last year's predictions, as well as looking forward to new ones for the coming year, we'll take into account the changing business landscape as it provides a new perspective on business across the globe.
Review of 2007 forecast
Our first prognostication from one year ago centered on the SOA quality and testing market. We predicted that as a result of a heightened awareness of the real challenges in maintaining a SOA implementation, demand for SOA quality and testing solutions would skyrocket in 2007, leading to greater acquisitions, increased consolidation, new venture creation, and boatloads of case studies on the topic. In retrospect, our guess was on the right track, but today we'd expect the full force of the prediction to take a few more years. True, the demand for SOA quality and testing solutions did increase substantially in 2007, leading to several case studies, but we've yet to see acquisitions or other signs of consolidation in this space -- yet.
Our second gaze into the SOA crystal ball presaged a shortage of qualified, experienced Enterprise Architects (EAs), leading to "paper architects" who put desirable skills on their resume without the experience to back those resumes up. We also predicted a rise in EA/SOA training options, including a shameless plug for our newly launched Licensed ZapThink Architect (LZA) training and credentialing program. On this prediction we hit the bull's-eye. Not only has the dearth of qualified EAs impacted SOA initiatives across the globe, but many SOA initiatives have foundered primarily because the SOA team gets into a room and all you hear is "hey, I thought you knew how to do this SOA stuff!" And furthermore, our commercial for the LZA program worked as well, as we've had hundreds of architects go through the program in 2007 and obtain their credential, and we expect hundreds more in 2008.
The third prediction in last year's ZapFlash was that the commercial SOA platform/SOA suite would collapse under its own weight, giving rise to increased adoption of open source SOA infrastructure. The argument we provided was that these SOA solutions had grown from individual, point-products that solved discrete SOA problems into gigantic SOA suites that seemed to be every bit the monolithic platform that they had been intended to replace. We pointed out that monolithic SOA platforms, in which you have to buy all the various parts of the solution in order to get the true value as promised by the vendor, is at its core an un-SOA philosophy.
In retrospect, this prediction has been true for some vendors, while others have gotten their act together at least to some extent and are offering a more loosely coupled set of SOA infrastructure capabilities to the market. In fact, this "SOA platform pitfall" has tended to bifurcate the SOA infrastructure marketplace, with one group of large vendors providing solutions that organizations are successfully leveraging in their SOA initiatives, with the other, thankfully smaller collection of vendors still offering "lipstick on the pig" middleware that now supports Web services, but is still just the same old middleware under the covers. We have a policy of not naming names in ZapFlashes, but you vendors know who you are! And while open source SOA infrastructure continues to make inroads in many enterprises, we're generally seeing a reluctance on the part of EAs to recommend an all open source approach, instead favoring one of the larger vendors' suites, especially if they alr! eady have an established relationship with that vendor.
ZapThink's predictions for 2008
As we suggested in the introduction, our first prediction for 2008 takes into account the current economic slowdown. Now, we're not about to predict the depth or length of such a downturn, but we can hazard to foresee how macroeconomic forces might impact SOA initiatives in enterprises in the US and abroad. It would be easy to simply say that tightening IT pursestrings will lead to cancellations or at least postponements of SOA initiatives, but we don't see that happening as a universal pattern. Instead, we see a slowdown separating enterprises into two groups: organizations who have turned the corner with their SOA initiatives and are seeing (or are about to see) real benefits from the new architectural approach, versus those companies who are still struggling with their SOA projects.
Because SOA done right helps organizations compete in periods of change, SOA is of particular importance in times of economic flux. After all, agility means dealing with such changes, so if there's any time to have SOA in place, it's now. Unfortunately, however, many organizations are still struggling with the business case for SOA, or even worse, have made a wrong turn or reached some kind of impasse with their SOA initiatives. For those organizations, we do predict cancellations of SOA projects and deferments of SOA spending, to their detriment. Because after all, their competition might very well be leveraging SOA to be more successful during a downturn, leaving the unsuccessful companies out in the cold.
The second 2008 ZapThink prognostication looks at enterprise mashups and their relationship with SOA. Our definition of an enterprise mashup is a governed, managed composition of loosely coupled services within the context of a rich, collaborative, Internet-based environment. In other words, enterprise mashups are what organizations actually do with SOA. Our prediction, then, is that the world of enterprise mashups will come into its own in 2008, and become what many people are calling the "killer use-case" for SOA. In fact, as we predicted a few years ago, SOA will fade from view as an increasing number of organizations focus on enterprise mashups as the mechanism for business empowerment in the enterprise.
Finally, our third prediction for 2008 actually includes a prediction for ZapThink itself. We're seeing a scramble at the larger consulting organizations for SOA capabilities, for two main reasons. First, SOA projects are a huge growth area for these firms, and people who really know how to execute on a SOA initiative are in short supply. But more importantly, these professional services organizations continue to struggle with increasing their margins, as the full impact of offshoring works its way through their industry. The large Indian consulting firms, for example, have achieved stellar growth based upon their ability to offer low-cost solutions, but with low costs come low margins. Now that these firms are competing globally, they are all being pressed to offer higher-margin capabilities that position them as global players.
SOA expertise is essential to these organizations, as well as their US and European competitors, not because they need to fill the ranks with mid-level architects and implementers (which they do), but more so because they need to establish SOA leadership in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. So, our prediction for 2008 is that one of these firms will acquire ZapThink, as well as other SOA thought leadership firms, because we can establish the winning acquirer as a global SOA leader -- and with that leadership comes higher margins for their SOA solutions team as a whole. Furthermore, because there are only a few firms like ours out there, we predict a scramble for the top SOA thought leadership, once the hunt is on. At least, that's what we hope!
The ZapThink take
The key takeaway from this ZapFlash is that we predict 2008 to be a "get business done" year for SOA. We're now past the hype days, and now it's time to achieve real business goals. For enterprises, achieving true success with SOA initiatives will enable those firms that get it right to rise above their competition. For vendors, the ones that have true SOA offerings will succeed, and the pretenders will eventually pack up their toys and find something else to sell. For consultants, SOA will become more than an entry point for implementation work, but will segue into high value, high margin management consulting, as their clients leverage EA best practices to achieve business goals across the board.
And as for ZapThink? Regardless of whether we're acquired or not, or by whom, we expect to continue to provide our audience of architects and other SOA aficionados with the same insight and value we've been providing up to this point. After all, our value is in our brand and what it means to the global audience of EAs who've been following us for the last eight years. So regardless of what 2008 has in store, SOA, and ZapThink, are here to stay.
Source: http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/tip/0,289483,sid26_gci1289087,00.html
29 February 2008
SOA Forecast 2008 by Zap
23 February 2008
Business Process Delivery System
SOA Service Oriented Architecture Articles : Business Process Delivery System by Arbia Siddique
Ramco releases BPDS Technology
Ramco Systems has announced a new approach to application development that enables fast, flexible deployment and change on demand of business applications. Using the latest in business process modelling and service-oriented technologies, the Ramco Business Process Delivery System ™ (BPDS) helps companies quickly develop and deploy enterprise applications that adapt to the way customers do business, said P R Venketrama Raja, vice-chairman and managing director, Ramco Systems, in Chennai recently.
To keep pace with today's customer-driven business environment, enterprise applications need to adapt to the business, and not the other way around. Yet for most companies, current, monolithic software applications are no longer meeting business demands. Business users are frustrated by inflexible applications and IT departments are plagued by heterogeneous business systems, a growing number of legacy applications, and proprietary software stacks that limit agility. To help customers address these challenges, Ramco has developed an approach that helps companies implement business processes more quickly and effectively by modeling and managing them independently from the application architecture or infrastructure, Raja said, adding that Ramco BPDS delivers model-based applications that are composed, not coded, using existing or newly-created business assets with an adaptable and scalable IT infrastructure.
Forecasting customer-driven move into fast, flexible Business Process Management Systems, at the recent Business Process Management Summit at California, managing vice-president at Gartner Daryl Plummer had noted, "Companies must re-think their businesses to keep pace with the changing demands of their customers. The environments that customers use to adapt their systems and processes must be agile, and support change on demand if competitive advantage is to be achieved."
The Ramco BPDS is a suite of products that help enterprise customers rapidly transform their business applications. It includes:
The Ramco Business Process Platform (BPP) combines innovative business modeling capabilities with an integrated services environment and business services repository to create and assemble agile, global-class applications. Based on SOA standards, the Ramco BPP provides a uniform, non-proprietary architecture that works with all technologies and infrastructure platforms.
Ramco Business Services offer customers the ability to select from a library of more than 1,000 pre-configured business services across several vertical markets for re-use. Users can easily customise pre-configured services or create new ones from a process model, with the highest level of software quality, Raja said.
Ramco Business Analytics provide business intelligence through the use of dashboards, key performance indicators, and a balanced scorecard framework. Business Analytics provide a ready-made reporting and analytics capability for business applications.
"Current software development approaches have failed to provide enterprises with sufficient flexibility and speed to respond and change to meet customer demands. In order to be customer-centric, companies need systems to support the way their business works," said Barbara Saxby, chief marketing officer for Ramco Systems. "Ramco's BPP approach helps customers build better applications, so that when your business changes your system changes too - it has to be that simple."
Ramco Systems has been providing enterprise software solutions worldwide for more than 14 years. Today, Ramco delivers solutions and services to more than 300 companies around the world. From its beginnings in ERP, Ramco solutions have been built on a foundation of service-oriented technologies. Today, Ramco provides the only complete Business Process Platform that addresses the full lifecycle of customer needs - from business processes to application deployment - with a technology-agnostic platform.
"Large companies are fast adopting BPM and SOA technologies. Ramco, with its BPDS, is well positioned to effectively leverage the untapped market opportunities," said Venketrama Raja.
Read More: -
http://arbizaa-softwareworld.blogspot.com/
About the Author
I am working as a functional consultant with Ramco Systems, a chennai based company with its ERP product.
Source: http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=440606
Transactional Fold : Creating Customer-Lead, Trust-based Value Generation Services
SOA Articles : Transactional Fold : Creating Customer-Lead, Trust-based Value Generation Services by Jane Link
Summary Overview
This article explains how an enterprise can leverage increased value generation, thereby aiding competitive advantage, by adoption of the `Enterprise Value Generation Service Orientated Architecture Platform' (SOAP).
The SOAP model presents a holistic, product independent, business-integrated approach to creating a customer-lead, transactional trust-based, market leading enterprise.
The model creates 'transactional fold' - between 'customer desire & transactional trust' and `enterprise customer intelligence' - closing the 'service transaction gap' by full alignment and integration of the business and service strategies as well as the interrelated layers - including ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library)- which represent the enterprises' service portfolio. The primary benefits of which are:
Increased business agility; responding quickly and efficiently to new business threats and opportunities Optimised business processes; introducing new and quickly change existing Reduced business and IT costs Greater reuse of IT assets Faster delivery of value to the business and its customers.
Introduction
The increasing importance of organisational agility within today's global economy is the primary driver behind the rise and development of Service Orientated Architecture (SOA). A term coined around eight years ago, SOA is fast becoming the latest IT industry buzzword, defining how services can and are used to implement business processes whilst, providing an imperative for organisations seeking to grow and maximise not only customer current and latent needs but also, the ongoing customer relationship.
Parallel to the rise of SOA, the continuing growth of Internet users has spawned increasingly sophisticated use of web technologies and customer relationship management software in an attempt to leverage maximum revenue. Current statistics available indicate that as at February 3 2005, 817.5million people (12.7% of the world's population) use the Internet; the monthly average growth of Internet users being 10.2 million per month from March 2003 to February 2005 (inclusive)1.
Indeed, every major vendor appears to now offer an SOA strategy with 'services' forming the core of applications such as IBM WebSphere, Microsoft .NET, BEA WebLogic and Oracle 1Og. However, to focus SOA on IT delivery mechanisms only is to ignore major business opportunities. Only through full alignment and integration of IT and the business, a set of design and architecture principles and, a robust service delivery platform does SOA offer sustainable competitive advantage.
The SOAP model offers all of these as well as addressing age-old problems such as how to maintain customer loyalty and satisfaction levels whilst rapidly identifying emerging customer needs and desires.
The Need for SOAP As many companies collectively continue to spend billions on web and CRM technologies many have failed to meet management expectations in terms of return on investment. Part of the problem appears to be the piece-meal approach taken to implementation and, the absence of holistic and congruent business and service strategies focussed on the customer.
Many companies appear to have interpreted CRM as being all about the customer relationship in name only as often CRM metrics used to assess success are primarily based on cost savings via the automation of sales and service processes - by putting the responsibility onto the customer through self-service. Still worse, other companies implement CRM to gain only short-term revenue gains via targeted offers and cross-sell attempts. These tactical initiatives plainly do not underpin the building of lasting relationships.
Compounding these issues, a fundamental problem with CRM software is that it only records what the customer has actually bought and, when they bought it. The CRM software acting as a historic sales repository and personal contacts database. Though useful for marketing campaigns and carrying out trend analysis, the nature of the one-way transfer of information does not provide any opportunity for building trust. Indeed, mass e-mailings and unsolicited customer contact now creates information overload and represents a nuisance amongst customers as well as introducing a risk to the enterprise of facing fines under EU legislation2. So how to address this? Wish Lists. Wish lists provide the customer with the opportunity to tell you want they think they want or need - voluntarily. They create a two-way transaction the foundations of which are built purely on trust.
Clearly, therefore, SOA needs to focus on cementing long-term, collaborative relationships with customers based on mutual trust. Research has demonstrated many times that long-term customers are less costly to serve and that smooth-running relationships are less resource intensive. Companies with a strong reputation among customers also experience lower cost of capital and find their customers much more inclined to accept offers from firms they trust. Massad (2003)3 carried out doctoral research concerning Internet based customer transaction satisfaction. The research found that online purchasing service failures (online transactional or along the order fulfilment value chain) lead to low customer loyalty and repatronage rates and that, from the customer perspective, current online delivery methodologies are not robust enough to sustain even one service failure.
The research also found that most often the primary driver behind online purchasing behaviour is one of meeting deadlines. So for example, same day deliveries and customisation of the service offering should heighten perceived customer satisfaction levels and thus, heighten the probability of reorders/strengthen and develop the customer relationship. The key customer satisfiers identified within the research were:-
1. Timeliness of delivery of products ordered 2. Other service capabilities 3. Updating the customer 4. Perceived ease of navigation 5. Perceived price of products/services 6. Availability of products/services 7. Perceived ease of ordering 8. Past experience with service provider 9. Incentives 10. Perceived transactional security
Dissatisfiers were:-
1. Perceived effectiveness of communication 2. Perceived ease of exchange/returns/refunds 3. Perceived attitude 4. Billing accuracy 5. Perceived integrity of service provider
Underlying Principals of SOAP
Ever since Akerlof, Spence and Stiglitz4 won a Nobel Prize for their research regarding asymmetrical information in 2001, companies have been trying to either exploit the miss-match or, address the imbalance in an attempt to gain competitive advantage.
Asymmetrical information occurs when one party to a transaction has much better information than the other. For instance, a company's customers have a much better idea of what they desire than the company providing the products or services. Equally, current Internet buying habits are primarily held back by 'customer transactional trust' concerns regarding credit card security etc.
In short, this is creating a 'service transaction gap' in relation to bringing the customer closer to the enterprise. When the customer is brought closer to the enterprise - by folding the transactional gap and reducing the asymmetries of information - the enterprise is able to provide efficient, customised services and products to the customer as well as quickly identifying customer latent needs. Only a holistic Enterprise SOA - such as the SOAP model - can create a `transactional fold' and bridge the gap creating enhanced Enterprise Customer Intelligence and, increased customer confidence and satisfaction levels.
A good example of an enterprise addressing such customer desires and concerns is amazon.com who provide customers with innovative 'mass customisation' options, and quality assurance by way of customer testimonials, fraud guarantees etc. These initiatives in turn provide amazon with the opportunity to track and monitor individual user browsing habits thereby allowing the opportunity to build an individualised 'profile' of their current and potential customers. Amazon, as an enterprise, is therefore continually expanding its 'enterprise customer intelligence' - the driving resource in determining organisational direction in terms of:
* Identifying market opportunities and, * Strengthening organisational capability.
Conclusion
Many companies are failing to meet the challenges and opportunities the Internet brought. Narrow, blinkered vision has interpreted the Internet as an 'addition to' rather than an 'instead of' sales, marketing and customer relationship channel. Only by investment, broad-brush strokes - inherently high risk - and full alignment of IT to the business will today's enterprise survive and thrive.
Terminology:
Business Levers: - In the following order:- 1. People 2. Processes 3. Information 4. External Relationships 5. Organisational Structure
Customer Desire : Connected to the Customers' 'need to heal'5 Enterprise Customer Intelligence - Refers to the data, information and knowledge the enterprise has/holds regarding the customer, for example, order records, personal details, browsing habits etc. Knowledge Capital - The collective experience and knowledge of the enterprise held within employees. The effectiveness with which knowledge capital is put to use differentiates the successful and agile enterprise from the mediocre. Knowledge capital is enhanced and accessed by creating conceptual and transactional knowledge opportunity networks within the organisation; between all Departments.
Latent Needs : Customer needs the customer is not consciously aware of. Financially successful companies create products based on customer feedback - but rely more on inference and intuition as to what products will appeal to their target customers. The general process of learning about and satisfying customer needs, known as market orientation, has seen a shift from responsive market orientation (knowing what the customer believes he/she wants) to proactive market orientation (anticipating his/her needs). The more proactive market-oriented a business is the greater its new product success will be.6
Mass Customisation : The customisation and personalisation of products and services for individual customers at a mass production price7. Implemented via the new interactive technologies, like the Internet, which allow customers to interact with a company and specify their unique requirements. These are subsequently manufactured by automated systems.
Quality Assurance : Broadly, quality is a degree of excellence; the extent to which something is fit for its purpose. In the narrow sense, product or service quality is defined as conformance with requirement, freedom from defects or contamination, or simply a degree of customer satisfaction. In quality management, quality is defined as the totality of characteristics of a product or service that bears on its ability to satisfy stated and implied needs.
Service Transaction Gap : The gap between Customer Desire and Transactional Trust and, Enterprise Customer Intelligence.
Transactional Trust : "Trust" refers to relying on someone or something for a future action. The dictionary defines trust as having a confident dependence on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something. From this perspective trust is a contingent emotional feeling, highly conditional in nature and subject to reappraisal. Transactional Trust originates with Customer perception, hearsay, guarantees, fraud prevention methods etc.
Transactional Fold : Closes the information asymmetries between the Enterprise and the Customer; by way of innovative, rapid response and integrated service layers. The enterprises' expertise at this can be measured in terms of `transactional capabilities'.
Value Added Services : Not a form of basic service but services that add value to the total service offering. Characteristics include:- 1. Stands alone in terms of profitability and/or stimulates incremental demand for core service(s) 2. Can sometimes stand alone operationally 3. Does not cannibalise basic service unless clearly favourable 4. Can be an add-on to basic service, and as such, may be sold at a premium price 5. May provide operational and/or administrative synergy between or among other services - not merely for diversification
References:
1 Source: http://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm
2 Harvey, F. (Dec 2, 2003), E-marketing in a straightjacket: As Brussels imposes rules aimed at curbing spam, businesses must get used to new ways of contacting customers, Financial Times, London (UK), pg. 16
3 Massad, N. (2003) Perceived Transaction Satisfaction with Electronic Service Encounters: A Critical Incident Analysis of Product-Related Services and Pure Services on the Web, Syracuse University.
4 Akerlof G., Spence M. & Stiglitz J. (2001) Markets with Asymmetric Information, http://nobelprize.org/economics/laureates/2001/ecoadv.pdf
5 Davis, M. (2003) Desire, Connecting with What Customers Want, http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/67/desire.html
6 Narver, J. (September 2004) Professor Emeritus of Marketing at the University of Washington, Journal of Product and Innovation Management.
7 Davis, S. (1996) Future Perfect, 10th anniversary edition, Addison-Wesley Pub Co, Harlow, England, ISBN: 020159045X
About the Author
Jane Link, UK. MBA, LLB(Hons.), DMS, Cert.Ed., MSP, PRINCE2, ITIL, MCSE, MCP+i. Contact : jane@acerit.com Visit : http://www.acerit.com/casestudies.html to download article inlcuding diagram.
Source: http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=388201
20 February 2008
The Power and ROI of Open Source
SOA Service Oriented Architecture Articles : The Power and ROI of Open Source by Ranjith pavithran
The open source symposium was held at Taj Residency, Bangalore on 17th and 18th October, 2006. The event was conducted by Red Hat, sponsored by AMD and the research data was based on IDC's research and surveys. The speakers talked about the trends in the industry, the business and revenue model of Red Hat, how open source can be applied to architecture, software, middleware and hardware. Right now the open source developer participation from APAC region and India in specific is miniscule. They spread some awareness about Red Hat open source platform and threw some light on how to participate in the open source community and how we all can benefit from this model.
According to IDC's recent research, enterprise adoption of open source has grown manifold; companies worldwide are increasing investment in open source technologies. Today enterprises have started benefiting from the quality, license cost savings and flexibility of open source. Beyond profit margin of open source adoption, there was also discussion about backing open standards, contributions for open source community.
Some of the interesting topics are given in detail below:
The Power of Choice: Open Source Architecture
The long term vision of Open Source Architecture is built on open standards and interoperability. The Open Source architecture delivers a suite of standards based technologies and services, allowing open source and traditional software applications to be co-existed and can be deployed on reliable, secure, scalable and highly performing platforms. To the enterprise, it is the power to assemble and dissemble the architecture, software, middleware, hardware and applications that fulfill the goals of the business.
Open Source Software (OSS):
With OSS, the code is protected by a special license GNU General Public License (GPL) that ensures everyone has access to code. That means no one company can fully own it. You can see the code, change it and learn from it. Bugs are more quickly found and fixed. And when customers don't like how one vendor is serving them, they can choose another without overhauling their infrastructure. No more technology lock-in. No more monopolies.
The marriage between SOA (Service oriented architecture or software as a service) and OSS though not revolutionary because of the weight of the IT legacy, is surely evolving gradually. The CEO's and CIO's are not happy with the vendor lock-in and the tight integration of their architecture and the prize they pay. This problem is very well addressed by SOA and OSS. The second day was Red Hat Developer Day; it was aimed to bring together Linux developers and users to help grow open source technologies. Red Hat provides a platform for improving development, techniques, tools and standards through the sharing of technical knowledge and expertise. These efforts are to encourage open source development in India. Red Hat is initiating the Red Hat Developer Program, a community development program in India through Red Hat 108. Red Hat 108 is a community of and for open source developers. The other topics covered are:- Virtualization: Virtualization means the operating system is isolated from the hardware it's running on. Several operating systems can run on one machine, and different workloads can be easily combined and moved. With virtualization, you can: * Move workloads from server to server. * Change hardware without retesting software * Allows isolation of failures and control access to data. * Manipulate to maximize processing power and capacity * Have a safe, secure space for testing. Virtualization technology can help lower costs by optimizing and increasing utilization of computing systems. They declined to comment about the licensing of the operating system. They can charge per operating system (if 3 operating system instances are run on one machine, they can charge for 3 licenses) or per hardware (this is independent of how many operating system you have installed in a pc).
Red Hat's acquisition of JBoss:
This move is strategically poised to improve the presence of Red Hat in the middleware. They wanted to deliver a full server application stack. JBoss provides a very rich set of applications, J2EE server, portal, development IDE, transaction management etc. This gives Red Hat a middleware stack that beats their competition by thousands of dollars. JBoss makes more sense here and it will become their de facto application server. They will be able to do some really tight integration and give their customers an out-of-the-box J2EE solution that should perform really well. It is still not known whether JBoss will be bundled with Red Hat as of now.
SystemTap
SystemTap, a Red Hat utility allows developers and administrators to write scripts for deep examinations of Dynamic Linux Kernel activities. Data may be filtered, extracted, and summarized quickly to enable diagnoses of complex problems.
JBoss Operations Network (JBoss ON) JBoss ON is a console based advanced management platform for inventorying, administering, monitoring, and updating JEMS applications. Jboss ON is an agent-based platform that is deployed locally.
The most important JBoss ON Modules are:
Inventory, allows you to catalog IT assets spanning platforms (Linux, HP/UX, Solaris, Windows, AIX), servers (Apache Web Server, Apache Tomcat, JBoss AS), and services (EJB, Message Driven Beans, data sources). Assets can be added manually or auto-discovered providing enhanced visibility over your critical business applications including their versions and dependencies.
Administration provides a single location for performing key control functions such as start, stop, and re-start across the entire JEMS platform. Administration functions can be applied to a single application or across an enterprise cluster. Operations can also be scheduled for later dates, on-demand or on a recurring basis. This module also allows you to roll-back to previous versions if necessary.
Monitoring provides extensive monitoring capabilities for the JEMS platform along with supporting components such as operating systems (Windows, Linux, and UNIX), Apache Tomcat, Apache Web Server and any JEMS-based applications. The Monitoring Module continuously builds and updates a model of behavior of every measurement being collected. This allows you to define alerts relevant to the actual behavior of your infrastructure. Baselines are also utilized to identify out of band problems. This allows you to quickly identify resources within your infrastructure that require attention as well as get a historical view of what was happening at the time of the fault.
JBoss portal:
JBoss Portal has a business friendly open source license that makes it free to download, use, embed, and distribute. JBoss Portal provides a framework for centralized and secure access to applications and information, which fosters collaboration, streamlines business processes, and reduces costs. Since JBoss Portal is based on open standards, it can incorporate components into the Portal as standardized and reusable Portlets.
Source: http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=321044
BEA's R&D Bangalore Facility
SOA Service Oriented Architecture Articles : BEA's R&D Bangalore Facility by manjot kamal
Bangalore, India's fatal allure continues to reel them in, as in the news BEA Systems, an enterprise infrastructure software company head-quartered in San Jose, California and with a turn-over of $1.08-billion in the last financial year, sets up a Research & Development (R&D) centre in Bangalore, only its biggest in the world. Alfred Chuang, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of BEA, sees India as a high-growth market for its new AquaLogic brand of service oriented architecture (SOA) software, which was launched in July of last year.
Affirming there has been a tremendous growth in India for his company's SOA, which has not only gained momentum, it has seen sales in India grow by 50%, next only to China's 54% in the Asia Pacific region. It is the simply huge growth opportunities in the sub-continent that is the main reason behind BEA opening a new facility in Bangalore that can house 545-people.
"The company is set to cross $3-billion mark in revenues by 2008 and a major share of this is expected to come from AquaLogic and WebLogic product line. At present, 2% of the revenues are from licensing of AquaLogic software," he said.
Without divulging details about the investment, Chuang says BEA has entered into a strategic partnership with India's Tata Consultancy Services to develop SOA solutions based on BEA AquaLogic and WebLogic platforms. He adds this is just the beginning with his company already assessing ways to increase its investment in India.
The R&D centre supports BEA's long-term expansion plans in the Indian sub-continent and the Asia Pacific region, as BEA plans to set up a solutions centre in Bangalore, as well. Apart from this, it intends to showcase new solutions and technologies in line with emerging domains such as SOA.
Currently, housing 360-professionals at the Bangalore Centre, 270 of whom are software developers; BEA Systems provides its services to LIC, Tata Teleservices, National Stock Exchange, Indian Railways and ICICI, according to Sanjeev Kumar, Head of BEA R&D Bangalore centre.
From BPO to R&D to the whole gamut of works, India's cost effective though high quality talents are much in demand. The Indian reverence for education has paid off and how! First, the brain drain to the West show-cased and brought to the fore Indian intellectual brilliance and capacity for hard work. Now, as the brain drain reverses and Indians return gradually to the fold, it brings the West to Indian shores attempting to exploit the country once again after the savage rape of the land and its people.
However, this time it is on Indian terms, the sub-continental firms may offer low cost high quality solutions, but they do so by giving employment to Indian youth, by giving them the economic freedom to dream their dreams and fulfil their aspirations, they are freeing India from the tag of developing, Third World country. Slowly shaking off the British induced poverty and brown sahib complex, both relics of the British Raj, India and Indians are standing tall, walking tall, as Indian potential unleashes, erasing the British Raj inflicted psychological scars. Once again, there is pride in being Indian and in all things Indian, from their ancient heritage, to their culture, to their religion to their uniqueness, to their diversity in unity. India is a land apart, there is none like it, and as Indian myth has it, home to the Gods and the Goddesses of the Hindu Pantheon, residing as they do on the majestic peaks of the Himalayan Mountains. This then is India Rising!
Source: http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=264238
Accenture's Future Growth: Service Oriented Architecture
SOA Articles : Accenture's Future Growth: Service Oriented Architecture by Rene' V. Richards
On the cutting edge of technology, as well as pushing the envelope for management and consulting services, service-oriented architecture or SOA, as it has come to be known, is opening the door to higher levels of computer applications.
SOA is not a new concept, however the level to which Accenture hopes to innovate, is. Fourth level SOA will push interface between software and hardware to a greater level of maturation.
The goal of the new lab, known as the Accenture Technology Lab for SOA innovation, is to accelerate the development of SOA applications customized for specific industries, geared primarily toward healthcare and financial services sector. Since these industries are the most heavily serviced by Accenture, these are the targeted areas for Accenture's initial implementation.
"We are developing level-four SOA applications and will use the knowledge gained to improve our methods, processes and tools to help our clients," said Don Rippert, Accenture's chief technology officer. The primary aim will be to move toward the point in time when SOA's evolution allows companies to build solutions assembled from reusable modules.
Along with the new lab, Accenture plans to invest $450 million over the next three years to accelerate the initiative. The initiative and implementation is following a blueprint devised by Accenture that divides the process into four levels. Levels one and two are already realized, however the realization of full benefits doesn't occur until the fourth level, and this lab is intended to bring utilization to that point.
The pioneering project will focus on the healthcare industry bringing about the integration of multiple steps that are involved in the filling of a prescription. These steps include credit-checking, billing, code generation, and risk assessment. This project, known as the "e-prescription" will seek to prove the feasibility of SOA solutions using software and tools available today.
Source: http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=262786
18 February 2008
What is Enterprise Data Integration
Service Oriented Architecture SOA Articles : What is Enterprise Data Integration by Esalestrack
Enterprise data integration means the combining of enterprise information from various data resources to fulfill particular enterprise requirements. It involves the storing, sharing and migration of data among various business applications. Today, enterprise data integration is widely practiced by all business organizations and companies, especially Internet-linked marketers and service providers, for better management of company resources. Also a wide range of data integration systems and software programs have been created for data management purpose.
Abolition of data accumulation, prevention and elimination of duplicate data entry, reduction in time expenditure in tracking and capturing data, quick data delivery, fast data sharing, saving of time for manual data entry, escape form manual report preparing and printing, better product marketing, on demand data availability, enhancement in customer data integration, better customer contact, enhancement in sales force automation (SFA) processes, and simplification of all procedures are some of the advantages of enterprise data integration processes.
Enterprise data integration consists of a range of data administration techniques like MDI (Master Data Management), EII (Enterprise Information Integration), ETL (Extract-Transform-Load), EAI (Enterprise Application Integration), SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) and CDI (Customer Data Integration). The usual processes involved in enterprise data integration procedure are data consolidation, data federation and data propagation or data migration. Automated leads generation, customer contact management, account management and task management are some applications of enterprise data integration.
The enterprise data processing systems and software programs, commonly known as enterprise data integration solutions access multiple remote databases concurrently, for providing real-time meaningful information and resources. They are software programmed to position right information in right places. The common data storing devices are data marts, data warehouses and data consolidation repositories. All enterprise data entry software programs are integrated with advanced communication tools, either internet-linked or local network-linked, which help them in integrating all resources.
The five levels of an enterprise data integration procedure involves enterprise portals or user interfaces - which deals with the customer contact sites such as payment processing solutions, sale systems and bookkeeping systems; collaboration tools or software programs- which combines all activities; business process management systems- which administrates all business proceedings; enterprise applications integration tools; and systems and enterprise information integration tools.
Good enterprise data integration solution eliminates data latency, false data entry and data pollution. A perfect EII solution must be capable of obtaining data from all company resources and from all data formats like Excel spread sheets, PDF files, sales graphs and pictures, and from other application resources. The solution must provide all wanted information at any time from any where, quickly and smoothly.
The fundamental step in enterprise data integration process is the automation of all data works. All large sized companies and corporations now have their own data integration centers or resource management departments for automating all data related practices. These data management departments are responsible for designing customized integration tools and best practices with change in practices. On the other hand, for medium and small sized companies with small capital investment, managing a separate department for data integration can be difficult. Many enterprise data integration service/software providers now offer services for these companies.
Before implementing an enterprise data integration system, the company must design a data integration architecture using all their data resources. For that the company have to track all operating business unites with in it, and have to give priorities to them. Healing broken data links, organizing a data source system - from which one can access resources, and information hubs, can greatly help in proper data integration implementation.
Today there are many data integration software vendors and service providers in the market. You can find them by just searching on Internet. If you are looking for enterprise data integration software, look for a software vendor who offers customized software packages. Open source software packages are also available which are quite handy, if you have enough technical assistance to customize it. If you are looking for an online service provider, enquire that the provider offers proper security to all your information. Also make sure that the online service provider has enough data integrating capacity.
About the Author
This article has been published by eSalesTrack.com , a US based provider of on-demand CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and other application software such as Sales Force Automation and Data Integration Service. To learn more visit CRM Articles.
Source: http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=254588
BPM and Web Services
Service Oriented Architecture SOA Articles : BPM and Web Services by Thomas Gomez
Today's IT executives want the best software available. With business process management that means finding solutions that provide key benefits. In addition
to facilitating system integration, these solutions must minimize costs, protect software investments, and increase corporate flexibility--all while generating a quick return on investment (ROI).
Previously, IT executives had an option. They could either create their own processing solutions or buy them as packaged applications. Both approaches were costly. These solutions also had a major downside. Once encoded, they were difficult to change. This encoding prevented businesses from quickly meeting its customers' needs. More importantly, it hindered adaptability to a dynamic increasingly demanding marketplace.
Combining BPM and Web services changes that. This union provides businesses with a powerful set of benefits. It increases efficiency and flexibility, reduces costs, and protects software investments by integrating and recombining with a company's existing systems. In addition, the union provides real-time visibility into processing systems as well as a way to monitor and evaluate key performance indicators-- the prerequisites needed to implement a continuous improvement program.
A Tactical Implementation of SOA
The foundation for BPM and Web services is a service-oriented architecture (SOA). Web services is a tactical implementation of SOA, which bridges the gap between businesses and IT through a set of business-aligned services using a unique set of design principles, patterns, and techniques.
SOA involves the dynamic discovery, organization, and description of services, which enables companies to select, bind, and invoke a service over the Internet. SOA differs from service-based architectures, like RosettaNet or OBI (Open Buying on the Internet), which focus on formats and protocols. A service-based architecture is part of an SOA.
Key SOA Components
The major components of an SOA are a service directory, a service provider, and a service requestor. The service directory contains information about all the available services. A service provider publishes a service by adding the appropriate entries to the directory, which a service requestor uses to find the appropriate service.
When a service requestor finds a match, it binds to the provider using information maintained by the directory. The binding information contains the protocol specifications that requestors must use as well as the structure of the request messages and the resulting responses. The two companies then form a "business partnership."
When the service requestor no longer needs the provider's services, it dissolves the partnership. It then forms new requirements and puts them into a query called a locator, which is run against the service directory. The locator returns a list of possible providers, from which the service requestor chooses a new business partner, and the whole process starts again.
When the business partners bind, they create a "virtual" application. The partners temporarily combine their services to meet an immediate need and capture a business process. Once captured, the business process is automated using workflow management technology. The applications are then integrated and work is routed to the appropriate departments.
Considerations in Deploying an SOA
Businesses who want to deploy an SOA face three considerations. First, current object-oriented analysis and design (OOAD) methods don't address the primary elements of an SOA: services, flows, and components for realizing services. Companies must develop or acquire the techniques and processes required to identity, specify, and realize the individual services. The also need the enterprise-wide components to ensure the quality of services.
Second, a shift in corporate mindset must occur. Companies must shift their thinking from strictly a production-oriented goal to the key SOA objective: enhanced customer service. Whether its Web services or another implementation, SOA is designed to provide customers with services that meet their unique requirements. That's a major leap for some companies but making the transition is a must obtain SOA's benefits.
Third, applications created for one business or product line can now be used in a supply chain and be exposed to business partners who might compose, combine, and include them into new applications, creating what some analysts are calling the service ecosystem or a service value-net. Executive must accept this possibility.
Companies need to address these considerations before deploying an SOA. Unless they do, they won't reap the benefits of an SOA. Nor will they have the adaptability need to compete successfully in the days ahead.
The Role of BPM Technology
BPM technology provides the tools and infrastructure to define, simulate, and analyze this business process model. It does so in such a way that the process is manageable from a business perspective using business solution management tools. A dashboard, for example, provides information about execution status and progress in various levels of detail.
Business analysts then compare readouts to key performance indicators to evaluate the processes performance. If a process is not meeting its objectives, executives change the process. It's here where methodologies, like Six Sigma, are implemented as part of a continuous improvement program. The goal, of course, is to provide customers with the highest quality services.
Conclusion
Combining BPM technology and Web services represents more than just an advanced approach to automating business processes. It takes it to a whole new level. With support from SOA, the combination provides benefits cost-conscious enterprises want from their IT solutions--increased flexibility, ease of integration, protection of existing investments, and a quick ROI.
Peter Peterka is President of Lean Six Sigma us. For additional information on Six Sigma Green Belt or other Six Sigma Consulting contact Peter Peterka.
Source: http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=161941
Scalability testing: 7 steps towards success
Service Oriented Architecture SOA Articles : Scalability testing: 7 steps towards success by M Trellis
Systems that work well during development, deployed on a small scale, can fail to meet performance goals when the deployment is scaled up to support real levels of use.
An apposite example of this comes from a major blue chip company that recently outsourced the development of an innovative high technology platform. Though development was behind schedule this was deemed acceptable. The system gradually passed through functional elements of the user acceptance testing and eventually it looked like a deployment date could be set. But then the supplier started load testing and scalability testing. There followed a prolonged and costly period of architectural changes and changes to the system requirements. The supplier battled heroically to provide an acceptable system, until finally the project was mothballed. This is not an isolated case. IT folklore abounds with similar tales. From ambulance dispatch systems to web-sites for the electronic submission of tax returns, systems fail as they scale and experience peak demands. All of these projects appear not to have identified and ordered the major risks they faced. This is a fundamental stage of risk based testing, and applies equally to scalability testing or load testing as it does to functionality testing or business continuity testing. With no risk assessment they did not recognise that scaling was amongst the biggest risks, far more so that delivering all the functionality
Recent trends towards Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) attempt to address the issue of scalability but also introduce new issues. Incorporating externally provided services into your overall solution means that your ability to scale now depends upon these external system operate under load. Assuring this is a demanding task and sadly the load testing and stress testing here is often overlooked. Better practice is to start the development of a large scale software system with its performance clearly in mind, particularly scalability testing, volume testing and load testing. To create this performance testing focus:
1. Research and quantify the data volumes and transaction volumes the target market implies. Some of these figures can be eye openers and help the business users realise the full scale of the system. This alone can lead to reassessment of the priority of many features.
2. Determine the way features could be presented to users and the system structured in order to make scaling of the system easier. Do not try and have the same functionality you would have for a single user desktop solution provide an appropriate scalable alternative.
3. Recognise that an intrinsic part of the development process is load testing at representative scale on each incremental software release. This is continual testing, focusing on the biggest risk to the project: the ability to operate at full scale.
4. Ensure load testing is adequate both in scope and rigour. Load testing is not just about measuring response times with a performance test. The load testing programme needs to include other types of load testing including stress testing, reliability testing, and endurance testing.
5. Don't forget that failures will occur. Large scale systems generally include server clusters with fail-over behaviour. Failure testing, fail-over testing and recovery testing carried out on representative scale systems operating under load should be included.
6. Don't forget catastrophic failure could occur. For large scale problems, disaster testing and disaster recovery testing should be carried out at representative scale and loads. These activities can be considered the technical layers of business continuity testing.
7. Recognise external services if you use them. Where you are adopting an SOA approach and are dependent on external services you need to be certain that the throughput and turnaround time on these services will remain acceptable as your system scales and its demands increase. A smart system architecture will include a graceful response and fall-back operation should the external service behaviour deteriorate or fail.
Copyright Acutest 2005 - http://www.acutest.co.uk
About the Author
M Trellis is an experienced consultant working in the performance testing including load testing, scalability testing and stress testing.
Source: http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=5232640518039267823
12 February 2008
Informatica Software - SOA Solutions
Software AG - SOA Solutions
SOA Service Oriented Architecture Solution - Software AG
Software AG is the world’s largest independent provider of Business Infrastructure Software. Our 4,000 global customers achieve measurable business results by modernizing and automating their IT systems and rapidly building new systems and processes to meet growing business demands.
Our industry-leading product portfolio includes best-in-class solutions for managing data, enabling service oriented architecture, and improving business processes. By combining proven technology with industry expertise and best practices, our customers improve and differentiate their businesses – faster.
Software AG – Get There Faster
source: http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=IDC_P15270&pageType=EVENTSPONSOR
Information Builders - BI Software
Information Builders provides business intelligence and integration solutions that deliver actionable information by drawing on operational and financial data from across the enterprise. The resulting information can be made available to employees, customers, partners and the public in a timely and user friendly way.
As a result of working in partnership with customers like Sony, Lloyd’s of London, Ford and British Telecom, Information Builders has developed a combination of technology and expertise that helps you deliver tangible value to your business.
Information builders delivers the platform for flexible integration, scalable business intelligence and information sharing within and outside of the enterprise. These solutions combine two technology components – WebFOCUS, a highly scalable and easy to use web-based business intelligence solution; and iWay Software, the foundation for SOA and the industry’s most interoperable Enterprise Service Bus.
Our Products WebFOCUS* Enterprise Business Intelligence Suite
07 February 2008
SAP SOA Software Solutionss
Red Hat SOA Open Software
SOA Service Oriented Architecture Open Software - Red Hat
Red Hat, the global leader in open source middleware software, is using its proven model of delivering enterprise-class services and support to redefine SOA to what it should be: Simple, Open, and Affordable. Combining enterprise-class JBoss Enterprise Middleware open source software with the industry's leading services and tools, Red Hat provides simply a better way to transform your business to Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). JBoss Enterprise Middleware is enterprise-class open source software to build, deploy, integrate, orchestrate, and present web applications and services in a Service-Oriented Architecture.
Source: http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=IDC_P15270&pageType=EVENTSPONSOR
IBM SOA Vendor
SOA Service Oriented Architecture Vendor - IBM
IBM is the world's largest information technology (IT) company and provider of business consulting and IT services. IBM helps clients become more flexible and competitive through the innovative deployment of creative solutions. Business flexibility, through approaches like SOA, enables organisations to take informed, decisive action to achieve the agility they need for market success. IBM can help you establish greater service orientation with offerings that build on each other to deliver fast payback and high value. Find out more at www.ibm.com/software/uk/itsolutions/flexible
Source: http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=IDC_P15270&pageType=EVENTSPONSOR
03 February 2008
HP SOA Solutions
SOA Service Oriented Architecture Solutions by HP
CA Wily Technology - SOA Solutions
SOA Service Oriented Architecture Solutions : CA Wily Technology
