Production Services' In Global Enterprise

Production services are subject to contrary pressures of continuously increasing scope and complexity AND continuously shrinking budgets. Developments within the enterprise and in governance models now make this dual challenge manageable.

Whither Production Services...

The IT services management landscape is being changed by four major trends

Maturing Of Enterprise IT Consolidation

Global enterprise has gone through an aggressive consolidation of equipment centers and IT management. The current model of managing production services is

"Follow the Sun". The implementation is typically over three Global Data Centers (GDC), one each in South East Asia (Singapore, Kuala Lumpur etc),Europe and the Americas.

IT assets as well as management staff are concentrated at these GDCs. The GDCs provide almost ALL computing infrastructure, connectivity, messaging, business applications and security services. They also serve as concentration points for delivery of support services.

The consolidation processes has resulted in application and hardware standardization at the global level. In country IT is predominantly used for localized applications, for specific local requirements (like taxation, legal etc).

IT Moves Into Supplier - Consumer Relationship Within Enterprise

With IT being the transaction and process backbone of enterprise, there is a sharp focus on measurement of service quality. Both service providers and

service consumers push service quality measurement. The SDC's publish service catalogues. Regional / country users subscribe to a menu of services. Service quality management is done to well documented, quantifiable and formally contracted Service Level Agreements, quite similar to formal purchase agreements.

Frameworks For Governance Of IT Service Delivery become available

Enabling this trend is the wide acceptance of process standards such as ITIL/ ITSM, security standards such asBS7799. Combining "independent audit-ability" and global best practice, these standards provide both service delivery and consumers with a robust platform for transacting their business. Service

providers are increasingly adopting these frameworks both from efficiency benefits as well as superior market positioning.

Outsourcing Of Data Center Operations Gains Acceptability

While enterprise has consolidated IT into GDC's the GDC's themselves are treated as cost centers. They are under conflicting pressures - to improve service levels while continuously lowering operating costs. They also have to compete for technical resources in the global market place. With core IT firms also vying for the same talent the GDC does face a challenge in hiring and retaining high quality manpower.

These trends have created an opportunity for a hybrid model of service delivery

The Hybrid Service Delivery Model

The hybrid model uses selective outsourcing as a strategy to achieve the twin benefits of continuous quality improvement and cost management. In a selective outsourcing arrangement, a process, like File & print server management or SAP BASIS support is completely or partially outsourced to a remote service provider. The vendor then delivers this service to pre agreed SLA's and time windows

Key Benefits Of The Hybrid Service Delivery Model

* Aggressive SLA performance: Since the service provider has to be competitive, there is a very sharp focus on SLA performance. This is also coupled with cost performance to the same SLA (i.e. for the same service, get year on year savings for the same SLA).

SLA improvements achieved range from 10% to 15% depending on customer context.Largerimprovements have also been achieved when selective outsourcing has been used to redesign service delivery processes.

* Benefit of continuous performance improvement: The service provider passes on the benefit of understanding of the customer environment through savings on service costs.

Typical year on year savings range from 6% to 8%. Benefit delivery is through a variety ofoptions ranging from constant pricing over increase in user base to cash savings on payouts to vendors

* Flex capability: Since manpower management now shifts to the service provider, the short term spikes of resource requirements are handled by the vendor. This also insulates the customer from attrition of key personnel.

Short term spikes resulting from activities like migration are usually absorbed by the vendor. These can be about 5% of the total migration cost.

* Leveraging service provider's knowledge base: Since the service provider invests in deep technology skills and process skills in the line of business

technologies.

Benefits passed on by the service provider could be in the form of process improvements like Six Sigma or in optimization of design of infrastructure or database.

To know more about production service and IT infrastructure services. Visit ITC Infotech website

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Enterprise Architecture and Service Orientation - What is This?

Few abbreviations connected with the future air traffic management systems have given rise to so many questions and misunderstandings as EA (Enterprise Architecture) and SOA (Service Oriented Architecture). In the United States both concepts are part and parcel of air traffic management system development since the marching orders were given by the Federal Government. In Europe, however, it was only during the SESAR development phase that EA and SOA were first introduced into the ATM context and the reception was at first mixed.

To-day there is probably no doubt any more that EA and SOA are the way to go but the fact remains: to many in the air traffic management family the exact meaning of both remains a puzzle.

Let's try to set out the pieces and see what picture emerges.

EA and SOA of non-aviation fame

Originally, the concepts of enterprise architecture and service orientation had nothing to do with air traffic management. They were defined and progressively refined to answer the needs of complex information technology (IT) systems with a view in particular to improving the business agility of those systems. EA and SOA aim to break the stranglehold of information technology on the business aspects of the enterprise, enabling business needs to drive IT rather then the other way round.

That EA and SOA are usable also in the air traffic management context is a tacit admission that ATM is not unique in its requirements and that under the skin ATM systems, all claims to the contrary, have a lot in common with other critical systems, like those controlling the power grids or enabling remotely controlled surgical operations. All those systems need to crunch prodigious amounts of real time data, must provide common situational awareness and are driven by decisions.

If EA and SOA can improve those systems, it stands to reason that they can also help in making air traffic management systems better even if certain adaptations of the original ideas may be required.

So what is Enterprise Architecture (EA)?

The definition of EA given by the Institute of Enterprise Architecture Development (IFEAD) is the following:

"Enterprise architecture is a complete expression of the enterprise; a master plan which "acts as a collaboration force" between aspects of business planning such as goals, visions, strategies and governance principles; aspects of business operations such as business terms, organization structures, processes and data; aspects of automation such as information systems and databases; and the enabling technological infrastructure of the business such as computers, operating systems and networks."

Fine you will say... how does this help air traffic management? Critics often say that the architecture of the enterprise exists whether or not it is described. True, but we have seen what happens when lots of ATM enterprises grow without following an overall strategic guidance and then try to work together. That is called European ATM before SESAR...

In this view, the definition of EA from the MIT Center for Information Systems Research is particularly relevant:

"Enterprise architecture is the organizing logic for business processes and IT infrastructure reflecting the integration and standardization requirements of the firm's operating model."

We are getting nearer...

And EA in air traffic management?

The SESAR program is the European Air Traffic Management modernization program that combines technological, economic and regulatory aspects of ATM and which will use the Single European Sky (SES) legislation to synchronize the plans and actions of the different partners and federate resources for the development and implementation of the required improvements throughout Europe, in both airborne and ground systems.

Although SES does provide the legislative basis for implementing the future ATM system, it is still necessary to devise and agree an overall framework in which the hitherto fragmented elements of European ATM can be properly bundled and aligned towards the SESAR strategic goals. These goals imply in particular a net-centric, service oriented approach to air traffic management.

To achieve the goals, European ATM has to be seen as a single enterprise in which the constituent parts work together in a networked, service based operation, with the business processes driving the supporting IT infrastructure.

Once we recognize that air traffic management in Europe needs to be seen as a single enterprise (even if it is composed of several constituent entities), the aims and goals of the Enterprise Architecture concept suddenly become not only relevant but also a highly desirable solution.

A European ATM enterprise architecture?

To instantiate the single enterprise concept, we can define the European ATM Enterprise Architecture (EAEA), building upon the more generic idea of Enterprise Architecture (EA), however adapted both in scope and content to the air traffic management environment.

So what is the purpose of an EAEA?

EAEA can guide and focus the strategic decisions, in particular those related to the air traffic management operational concept implementation and supporting information technology investments. This enables the partners to proactively plan the introduction of services, avoid duplication of developments, reduce costs and better align IT investments to the business processes on all levels.

EAEA can also provide the strategic guidance for the efforts to define and implement, on both business and IT level, a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) duly adapted to the requirements of the European ATM environment.

But what is the ATM enterprise?

A convenient definition of the European ATM enterprise could be the "totality of the partners in the SESAR Performance Partnership". Other definitions are possible, the important message being that every partner who needs to use ATM or has something to contribute must be seen as an element of the single, overall enterprise.

Using the above definitions, we can conclude that the European ATM Enterprise Architecture is the description of the structure and behavior of the partners' processes, information systems, personnel and organizational sub-units, aligned with the enterprise's performance goals and strategic directions as defined in the SESAR program.

And SOA then?

As will be clear by now, EAEA provides a business-driven framework that allows the description of the various parts of European ATM and their interactions from different points of view (including both operational and technical aspects). EAEA provides a meaningful way to partition and manage the complexity of the ATM environment, to reconcile different partners' business visions across the Single European ATM System and to create a bridge between the businesses and IT requirements.

SOA is an approach that uses the notion of "services" which can be used to populate the EAEA framework.

"Service" is a word that can mean different things depending upon the context in which it is being used. In general, the context is based upon a consumer/supplier relationship. Further, a hierarchy of services can exist with, for example, a high-level service being made up of a number of lower level sub-categories of services. Therefore, it is very important to ensure that the nature, scope and detailed characteristics associated with each service are clear and unambiguous each time it is used, including defining who is supplying what to whom.

Services may be defined from a business perspective or an IT perspective.

Services from the business perspective

A service from the business perspective is really the consumer's view of the provider's capabilities. The services must meet defined characteristics to ensure their efficiency and cost effectiveness. Among others, they must be modular and autonomous, delivered where needed, shareable and reusable and above all, they must drive the underlying IT support and not vice versa.

Services can be defined on several levels of the enterprise but in the air traffic management context, the operational services are the highest level of service. A service can be associated to one or more contracts, a service contract being understood as being an agreement (generally expressed as a Service-Level Agreement) between two or more parties.

Increasing competition, globalization and technology advances are driving airlines, airports and other users of ATM to change their products, business processes and prices more frequently than they did in the past. The structure of services offers the flexibility to adapt more quickly to fast-changing conditions.

SESAR has promoted the vision of creating a performance partnership structure which links the Airspace Users, Airport Operators and ANSPs as the way in which the future ATM System will be defined, created, implemented, delivered and managed. The notion of the supply and consumption of operational services through a set of Service Level Agreements will be the way in which the partners will be bound together from a business perspective but retaining the flexibility afforded by service orientation to be able to efficiently react to changing circumstances and demands.

While the word "business" and air traffic management have not often been used together in the past, it needs to be recognised that the constantly evolving business world of the airspace users must be served by an air traffic management system that is able to evolve with it and remain safe and cost efficient at the same time. This essential business agility can best be achieved by service orientation.

Services from the IT perspective

From an information technology (IT) perspective, the use of services defines IT services that correspond to real-world business activities or recognizable business functions and that can be accessed according to the service policies that have been established for the business services relationships. In addition to the IT services that are directly supporting the business services, technical services can be defined that can be re-used across the enterprise, providing generic technical functions (data transformation, logging, identification management, etc.). There are many different ways to describe such services depending upon the way in which the interactions between the IT systems are needed to facilitate and enable the business view.

From the specific air traffic management point of view, the highest priority is to define the business services as these will drive the services to be developed in the IT context.

EA and SOA in NextGen?

Yes, absolutely. The use of enterprise architecture methods and service orientation has been mandated for all federal projects and so NextGen is being developed on this basis. This is a major advantage compared to Europe where no doubt a lot of discussion will still need to go on before agreement can be reached between all partners on the finer details of enterprise architecture and service orientation.

Do we understand EA and SOA now?

I guess this write-up is probably too simplistic for the experts and possibly still too abstract for the average person involved in air traffic management. Logical as EA and SOA is they need a shift in thinking and the acceptance of a few things we do not readily conclude otherwise.

I will try to summarise the most salient points here, may be that will help. If you still have a question, leave a comment and we will come back on the issue you raise.

Summary points

o EA and SOA are not air traffic management construct but they are applicable to ATM systems also. ATM systems are not unique.

o While safety is always paramount, air traffic management serves a major worldwide business community and hence ATM must have the required business agility to be able to adapt to the changing business environment.

o The ATM "enterprise" needs an overall guiding framework to enable coordinated and focused development.

o Business requirements must drive information technology and not the other way around.

o Enterprise Architecture (EA) provides the required guiding framework; Service Oriented Architecture within it provides the structure ensuring a business (as opposed to IT) driven system.

o Both SESAR and NextGen will use EA and SOA.

Note: The use of some text from the SOA TF, of which I was a member, is gratefully acknowledged.

Please visit my blog at http://www.roger-wilco.net You will find many more aviation stories and other interesting items there.

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Short Messaging Service (SMS) for Enterprise Messaging

SMS for Enterprise Messaging - Value added services

Short message service, usually called SMS, is a globally accepted wireless service for enterprise messaging (mobile value added services) that enables the transmission of alphanumeric messages between mobile subscribers and external systems such as electronic mail, paging, and voice-mail systems.

The text comprises letters or numbers or an alphanumeric combination. SMS was created as part of the GSM Phase 1 standard. Each short text message is up to 160 characters is length when Latin alphabets are used and 70 characters in length when non-Latin alphabets such as Arabic and Chinese are used.

SMS comprises two basic point-to-point services:

Mobile-Terminated short message (MT)

Mobile-Originated short message (MO)

SMS Mobile-Terminated (SMS MT)

SMS (MT) are transported from the SMSC to the handset and can be submitted to the SMSC by other mobile subscribers via MO-SM or by other sources such as voice-mail systems, paging networks, or operators

SMS MT Services allow the deployment of various applications such as:

Information Services (loyalty card members, delivery confirmation etc.)

Real-time notifications and alerts (banking, finance and stock alerts, travel, sporting results)

Direct Marketing offerings (promotions, new product announcement, events and shows, m-coupons)

Ring tones, Logo downloads

Quiz, live games

SMS Mobile-Originated (SMS MO)

SMS MO are transported from a MO-capable handset to the SMSC and can be destined to other mobile subscribers or for subscribers on fixed networks such as paging networks or Internet protocol (IP) networks (including the Internet and private e-mail networks).

SMS MO Services are typically used in deploying applications to receive information from Mobile users to an external short messaging entity, which is typically a computer connected to the internet. Such request for information is made by sending an SMS from their mobile phones to a service number linked to the service of the content provider.

Typical SMS MO service examples are dedicated requests, voting or quiz applications. A customer can register his request for information e.g. Text 'Product ABC' to +44 7979458584 to know the product details of the product or to text 'Yes' to a mobile number to confirm presence in an event.

Why do enterprises need SMS based mobile data services?

SMS based mobile data services are not necessary for every enterprise or every division within an enterprise. As with any new communications/ IT application or service, the investment and cost of an implementation must be balanced by a sufficient economic return. Several research firms have stated that two to three years after a mobile data services implementation a company should see a positive return on their investment.

However, there are a few compelling reasons for enterprises to get on to tap the potential of SMS based mobile data services. For many enterprises, such wireless initiatives form ways to advance customer service, productivity, cost reduction, or simply functionality necessary to remain competitive.

A good example is the financial industry where wireless services have played a role in maintaining competitive position in the consumer market. Many leading banks, stock brokers and mutual funds have already started such service in which their customers receive pre-defined 'business-rules' driven alerts or notifications. These notifications or alerts are a result of SMS enabling of business processes. Such a service eliminates the need of conventional getting connected on voice, thereby reducing direct communication cost and indirect costs (time of people making voice calls) and complexity involved in the business process.

Of late, innovative and cost effective and business models for SMS based mobile data services have emerged by which the enterprises are not required to own the wireless communication infrastructure required for the said service. Instead, they get all the benefits by the hugely successful 'pay-as-you-go' model. This reduces total cost of ownership of the new initiative.

There are a few Mobile Value Added Service Providers (MVASP) that have emerged in the past couple of years which provide high quality service as compared to operators, who do not focus in enterprise wireless messaging as the size of the market is sub-optimal from the perspective of operators. Moreover, the expertise required in providing high quality and end-to-end service requires expertise in both IT industry and telecommunications verticals which makes this service offering unique. Many enterprises globally are already benefiting from such SMS based wireless initiative to reduce cost and increase operational efficiency at work.

To deliberate and decide, whether SMS based mobile data services will provide tangible economic benefit to their business, there are a number of questions enterprises should ask can themselves. This type of strategising is a first step in defining the value SMS based mobile data services provide and is necessary to avoid initiatives that provide "neat" capability without sufficient and early return. When evaluating your needs for mobile data services, questions to ask include:

What all business processes, in which if the concerned person gets to know relevant information on the move, he/she will be able to take desired action?

Is a significant percentage of an organisation's work or workforce away from a fixed place of business?

Is my enterprise ready for such a kind of initiative?

Would such an initiative have the potential to reduce my total cost of communications?

Can remote users easily access pertinent information from internal systems?

What are my competitors doing with regard to wireless applications?

Will using SMS based mobile data services improve my customer service?

Mobile data services are aimed to increase operational efficiency and reduce costs. When computing the actual return on a wireless initiative, one must look at cost savings from increased efficiencies, productivity, customer satisfaction, and other such metrics. This is substantially more complex than discounting revenue generation, because many of the metrics are approximates and many of the benefits very subtle, but this estimation gives the most accurate measure of success.

Many companies provides mobile data services like ValueFirst Messaging Pvt. Ltd. www.vfirst.com is a leading enterprise messaging services company in India provides SMS on GSM/CDMA/GPRS also provides SMS sending software / applications services and products.

There are a number of metrics that will assist in determining the return of a wireless initiative. Take careful attention to assure that the metrics used relate directly to the type of solution. For example, when deploying SMSbased mobile data services for maintenance, look at the amount of time spent on a sales call. If billing is incorporated into the system, check the change in the billing cycle, to see that it has decreased. Some other metrics that may help measure the success of a wireless implementation are:

Increased sales per employee

Decreased time per maintenance call

Increased customer service levels

Reduced turnaround time

Reduced communication costs

About The Author

This article has been contributed by (Mr.) Vijay Shukla, Country Head, ValueFirst Messaging India (http://www.vfirst.com). Vijay has over 8 years of industry experience management consulting and mobile data services. He can be contacted at vijayshukla@yahoo.com

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Enterprise Service Bus Features and Advantages

An Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) is a flexible connectivity infrastructure for integrating applications and services.

The Enterprise Service Bus(ESB) can help you achieve the goal of SOA. It is flexible connectivity infrastructure for integrating applications and services. It is at the heart of an SOA powering it by reducing the number, size, and complexity of interfaces.

An ESB powers your SOA by reducing the size, number and complexity of interface.

An ESB will performs the following things between requestor and service

1) ROUTING the messages between services

2) CONVERTING the transport protocols between requestor and service

3) TRANSFORMING the message formats between requestor and service

4) HANDLING the business events from disparate sources

The Enterprise Service Bus allows us focus on our core business.

The following Advantages

1) Add new services faster

2) Change services with minimal impact to existing services

The following two requirements for an Enterprise Service BUS

a) If all your applications confirm to Web Service standards then all you may require is an ESB focused on standards based service integration.

b) If not all your applications conform to the web services standards then you may require a more advanced ESB focused on the integration of services with existing non-services assets.

The four points i would like to highlight the products

1) Provides Web services connectivity, JMS Messaging and service oriented integration, WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus delivers smart integration to connect your assets through service oriented interface.

2) Ease of use. The tools are easy to use and require minimal programming skills. You don't have to know Java in order to use this tool it is integrated, interactive and provides a visual development experience. Mediation is simply the term used to describe the in-flight processing of information. It is simple to develop, build, test, deploy and manage services components. Easy to understand samples are also included.

3) Improved time to value. This cost effective solution has support for over hundreds of ISV solution such as SAP, Siebel, peoplesoft, JD Edwards, and Oracle. Save time and development costs by utilizing prebuilt mediations such as XML transformation, content based routing and message logging.

4) Seamless integration with the Websphere platform-unlike some of our competition, we have the ability to easily move up the stack to solve more complex business problems with process server, which is built on WebSphere ESB. So you can easily extend to leverage WebSphere Process Server as needs dictate. WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus is built on the WebSphere Application Server; A world -class J2EE foundation providing industry -leading levels of availability, scalability and performance.

Provides Web Services connectivity, messaging and service oriented integration

- Improves flexibility through the adaption of service oriented interfaces

- Gain support for a variety of messaging protocols including JMS 1.1 to exploit a variety of transports and interoperate with the WebSphere family

- Utilize a broad range of interaction models to meet your requirements

- Leverage advanced Web service support to incorporate leading edge capabilities

- Take advantage of a comprehensive clients package to extend your environment

- Leverage UDDI 3.0 for a secure description and description and discovery of web services in an open standards based way.

- reduce sharing by using WebSphere ESB to handle integration logic

- Customized routing -Transport/protocol specific routing and content based routing

- Protocol conversation between a variety of protocols: HTTP, IIOP, JMS

- Format transformation between standards: XML, SOAP, JMS messages and when used with adapters, many more

- Supplied mediation function for database interaction

- Allow the flow of business events and add needed intelligence to that flow

- Leverage WebSphere Adapters for capture and dissemination of business events

Delivering an Enterprise Service Bus that's easy to use

Websphere Integration Developer provides an integrated, interactive and visual development environment for rapid development of integration logic, simple to develop, build, test, deploy and manage services components. Get up and running quickly with comprehensive documentation, easy to understand samples. Provides a simplified and visual development experience for standards based artifacts like XML schema, WSDL, XSLT, etc. Supports the declaration of services and connectivity through a visual composition model. Allows easy orchestration of mediation functions with first-class support for intelligent message routing, enrichment and transformation. Offers a seamless integrated tooling approach to connect between service-oriented and messaging-oriented services. True role-based support provides a simplified administration experience.

WebSphere ESB is designed to be easy to use from both a tools and runtime perspective. Websphere Integration Developer, the tools that works with WebSphere ESB, is built for an integration developer-someone who understands IT systems and architectures but who is not a Java developer.

Both WESB and WID are designed to help customers get up and running quickly and easily, with comprehensive out of the box documentation and a simplified and visual development environment. A visual composition model allows easy orchestration of mediation functions. The fact that tool is role based makes administration much easier.

WebSphere ESB Improving time to value.

Gain a cost effective solution for services integration Leverage your SOA IT investments by quickly building a flexible integration infrastructure to extend the value of your existing investments, regardless of vendor. Modular approach supports ability to start small and grow as fast as the business requires. Extensive business and IT standards support facilities greater interoperability & portability. Utilize first class support for hundreds of ISV solutions. Extensive WebSphere Adapter support, including new JCA-based adapters. Support for numerous ISVs within the WebSphere Platform partner ecosystem.

Save time and development costs by utilizing pre-built mediation functions. Mediations operate in messages/events as they are passed between service requesters and service providers. Operate on both One-Way and Request-Response interactions. Pre-built mediation functions allow mediations to be visually composed and include XML transformation, message logging, message routing, and database lookup, Customers can augment the function provided by the supplied primitives by programming their own 'custom primitives'. Dynamically re-configure to meet changing business needs. WebSphere ESB runtime provides the administrator with the ability to reconfigure service interactions. Avoid system downtime by adding or replacing integration logic dynamically.

WebSphere ESB Seamless integration with the WebSphere platform

Leverages WebSphere qualities of service. Inherits the WebSphere runtime for world class scalability, clustering, and fail-over. Utilizes the common WebSphere Administrative Console to enable system management across WebSphere Application Server. WebSphere ESB, and WebSphere Process Server. Addresses end-to-end security requirements on authentication, resource access control, data integrity, confidentiality, privacy, and secure interoperability.

Easily extends to leverage WebSphere Platform as needs dictate. Customers with the right skills can take full advantage of the underlying capabilities of WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment. Extend your existing WebSphere MQ messaging foundation to integrate new environments in an open, standards-based way. Common tooling and administration means the move from WebSphere ESB to WebSphere Process Server is painless.

Integrates with IBM Tivoli security, directory, and systems management offerings. Includes Tivoli Access Manager, for optional use, to deliver a secure, unified and personalized experience that will help manage growth and complexity. Integrates with IBM Tivoli Composite Application Manager for SOA for added monitoring and management capabilities

Service Oriented Architecture: Triangle of Truth

The triangle of truth is a simple way to look at the important architectural constructs that make up a service oriented architecture. As you begin thinking about what is needed to build a service oriented architecture, the triad that makes up the triangle of truth quickly emerges. Specifically, there needs to be a way to represent the data that is exchanged between services, there must be a mechanism for invoking services, and there should be a way to compose services into a larger integrated business application.

Today there are many different programming models for supporting each construct in the triangle of truth. This situation presents developers with the challenge of not only needing to solve a particular business problem, but they are also faced with choosing and understanding the appropriate implementation technology. One of the important goals of the WebSphere Process Server v6 SOA solution is to mitigate these complexities by converging the various programming models used for implementing service oriented business applications into a simplified programming model.

This presentation focuses specifically on the Service Component Architecture (SCA) introduced in WebSphere Process Server v6 as the service oriented component model for defining and invoking business services. In addition to the important role SCA plays in providing an invocation model for the SOA solution in WebSphere Process Server v6, you will also learn in this presentation that it also plays a role in composing business services into composite business applications.

SCA Basics:

Whenever you are beginning to learn a new technology or programming model, it is often useful to look at the pieces that compose the overall architecture of that technology. This slide lists some of the important features of SCA that you should be aware of as you begin learning about SCA.

First, the Service Component Definition Language(SCDL) provides the basis of SCA. SCDL is an XML based definition language, and is used to define all SCA artifacts in a project. The WebSphere Integration Developer V6.0 tools support of SCA takes care of generating the appropriate SCDL definitions when building an SCA-based applications, however a basic familiarity with SCDL can certainly help understanding the overall architecture and debugging applications.

The next important part of SCA to understand is different is the different types of artifacts that can be defined using SCDL. The various artifact types that exists in SCA were designed to support some of the basic requirements of this service oriented architecture. To start, the most basic building block in SCA is the service component definition. Once a service component is defined, it is important to have a mechanism for making that service available to clients inside and outside of the current.

Service Component Overview:

This is a common concept which will be familiar to those from a WPS background. SCA was first introduced in the concept of WPS V6 as an architecture and implementation to support the enablement of a Service Oriented Architecture approach to process Integration. SCA underpins the programming model in WPS and is also fundamental to WESB. Everything is a Service And a Component And has an interface which describes it.

SCA separates component interface from their implementation. The implementation of an SCA component may change without affecting the interface. It is possible for example, to replace the implementation of component, say with a Web Service invocation rather than invocation through an adapter. We invoke components, so one can regard SCA as perhaps as invocation model as much as anything.

This situation is kind of represented on this next foil - we can see that a Service Component provides an invocable Service Instance. In order to provide that, it must have an Implementation, an Interface, and Configuration properties. A critical point here is that the Implementation can be any of the programming constructs that we provide in WPS. So it could be a BSM, BPEL Process, Map, Adapter, POJO.

Interface can be of two types-Interfaces that this module exposes for consumption by others, and Interfaces exposed by other modules that we want to consume. This latter type of interface consumption is called a reference. We should also note that the interface can be described using either Java interfaces or WSDL. But if there are multiple interfaces specified then you cannot mix WSDL with Java. For reference type you do not have that restriction.

Service Module: Overview

Here we have got our Service Module, which we know is the SCA unit of packaging and deployment. We can see that this particular Module contains 2 Service Components- each containing an implementation, Interface and references where appropriate. This second Service Component does not contain a reference because it does not invoke any external Service.

Now in the Service Module we can see that we have a number of additional things, which are related to incoming and outgoing Interfaces at the Module Level. Remember that an Interface and reference describe incoming and outgoing interface at the Service Component level. Well we have a similar notation at the Service Module level, referred to as imports, Exports and Standalone references.

An Export is how the Service Module exposes its interface to the outside world for consumption by another Service Component within a different Service Module. A Standalone Reference is how the Service Module exposes its interfaces for consumption using a non-SCA client invocation mechanism. Clients using this invocation mode are either Other SCA components within the same SCA module, or non SCA clients such as a JSP. An Import is how a Service Component invokes an external Service. The relationship or potential invocation path between these artefacts is represented by wires.

SCA Basics and terminology

SCA is a runtime that facilitates the abstraction of a component's implementation

SCA separates infrastructure from Business Logic

Provide a programming model for invocation

Support a variety of the invocation models

Provide the runtime infrastructure suited for application consumption

Universal model for Business Services, Publish or operate on business data. Service Data Objects (SDO) provides the universal model for "business data". Components run on a SCA enabled run-time, Java interfaces (j-typed), WSDL port types9w-typed). Arguments and return are described using SDO's, Java classes, or simple Java types. SCA focus on business purpose.

Service data Objects and Business Objects

As introduced already in the triangle of truth, business objects play an important role in the WebSphere Process Server v6 SOA solution as the data abstraction. This is indeed an important goal of the business object framework, but in addition to this, the business object framework also provides some other important functions. Specifically, the business object framework was developed to provide functional capabilities similar to the business object construct found in WebSphere Interchange Server(ICS). The set of capabilities that have been adopted to support ICS style business object functions, are needed to provide a way to help developers mitigate the complexities related to developing applications that work with federated and disparate business data as is commonly the case with integrated enterprise applications.

SCA provides the ability for services to be called synchronously or asynchronously.

An asynchronous invocation model is also provided with the following semantics

One Way -Fire and Forget

Deferred Response-In this model the client makes a request, but does not bloc, but at some later point in time goes back and asks for the response. In this form of invocation takes a second parameter which specifies whether the invocation behaves when the response is not immediately available. (invoke Async() returns a ticket that identifies the invocation. invokeResponse() passes a ticket back in that is used to get the response that corresponds to the invocation identified by the ticket)

The semantics of the synchronous vs asynchronous invocations differ as summarized here. So synchronous invocations are pass-by-reference, whereas asynchronous invocations are pass-by-value. Note also that if you want type-safety you've got to be using Java interfaces definitions. However there is tooling to allow you to generate Java interfaces from WSDL definitions. Synchronous calls outside the JVM are pass-by-value invocations. We could use an extra column in this chart.

Enterprises service bus reference architecture

We are going to introduce all these elements later in the presentation. Lets look at the scope of WSEB and all the things the customer gets in the box. The product is named ESB not Enterprise Service Bus. The naming reflects the industry mindset. It allows an ESB to be built which brokers service requests and responses. It is primarily a Web Services focused platform specifically to support the service interactions that take place within a SOA. ESB is built on AS (ND) and therefore fundamentally a J2EE platform. It leverages and shares technology introduced with WAS V6 and WPS. Use of the additional products and capabilities shown ( for example, TAM) are optional.

Introduces the concept of "mediations" as a term for message (broker) processing. Service invocations are Service messages within the ESB. A new version of WID is released which supports the development of mediation flows. The ESB supports mediation flows and primitives with which to build mediation processing. Support for basic ESB processing is supplied. WESB leverages the messaging support delivered in WAS V6 (SIB) using the JMS 1.1 provider and the MQLink to interoperate with an MQ QM. The WS support again leverages base AS support SOAP/HTTP and SOAP/JMS as protocols and the various WS-* capability. SCA (define) is the programming model which is the technology first surfaced, and shared with WPS. It is the foundation for the composition of mediation and process logic. SDO (define) allows for the logical representation of business data. The SMO (define) is an extension of an SDO message which is the service message which flows through the ESB. XMS clients (C++ and .Net). JAX/RPC client invocations supported via WS C/C++ client. Connectivity to other endpoints is achieved using the WBI Adapters (either the original adapters or the variants which support JCA 1.5).

In a loosely coupled SOA architecture, Service requestors and providers connect with each other through an Enterprise Service Bus. Loosely coupled Services provide more flexibility and ability to introduce mediations and QOS that can then be applied uniformly to the services connecting through the bus. Mediation services intercept and modify messages that are passed between existing services(providers) and clients (requesters) that want to use those services. Mediation services are implemented using mediation modules that contain mediations flows. WebSphere ESB and Process Server provide the ESB capability through the use of Mediation Module deployed in the server. Mediation Module uses the same Service component architecture (SCA) introduced in WebSphere Integration Developer V6.0.0 and WebSphere Process Server V6.0.0

ESB concepts: Medition Module

WebSphere ESB and Process Server introduces a new type of module, called Mediation Module, that intercept and modify messages between service requester and the service provider. Mediation module provides the ESB functions of converting protocols, routing, transformation and other custom processing on the messages. Mediation Module is the unit of deployment and runs within the WebSphere ESB or Process Server. Interactions with external service requesters and providers defined by imports and exports, whose interfaces is defined using WSDL.

A new type of module is introduced in WebSphere ESB and Process Server, called Mediation Module, provides the ESB functionality by allowing the processing the messages between service requestors and providers. This enables loosely coupled connectivity and mediation services between different service requestors and provides connecting through the bus. The Mediation module allows converting protocols, routing, transformation and other custom processing on the messages, tpically needed in an ESB environment. The WebSphere Process Server supports business modules used for business processing and the new mediation modules, whereas WebSphere ESB supports mediation modules. Service requestors interact with the mediation module in the bus via the module exports, and the module interacts with the service providers via the module imports. These export and import interfaces are defined using the WSDL.

Mediation Module: Import and Export bindings

Different kinds of requester and provider types of interactions are made available via different bindings for the imports and exports. WebSphere ESB provides support for JMS bindings- JMS 1.1 provided by WebSphere platform Messaging can exploit a variety of transports TCP/IP, SSL, HTTP(S). Allows interaction with the WebSphere family WAS, WebSphere MQ, WebSphere Message Broker. Web Services binding SOAP/ HTTP, SOAP/JMS, WSDL 1.1, Service Registry -UDDI 3.0, WS-Security, WS-Automatic Transactions. WebSphere Adapter bindings JCA Adapters -SAP, PeopleSoft, Sibel, Files, JDBC, WBI Adapters for all the rest. Built-in SCA (Default) binding Used for module to module communication-supports both synschronous and asynchronous communication. WebSphere ESB supports update this binding via the admin console allowing module to module connectivity to be changed.

Interactions with external service requesters and providers are defined by imports and exports. Import/export interfaces are defined using the Web Services Description Language (WSDL), which may contain several service operations. Different kinds of requester and provider are made available via different bindings for the imports and exports. WebSphere ESB and Process Server v6.0.1 supports JMS binding, WebServices bindings, WebSphere Adapter bindings and the default built-in SCA binding. These different bindings allows maximum flexibility for the requestors and providers to use the protocol of their choice. Use of different bindings permits easy transformation of protocols between the service requestors and providers. The import and Export bindings are same as used for Business modules in WebSphere Process Server.

Mediation flow component and Request-Response interaction

Mediation module contains a new type of SCA component, called Mediation Flow Component. Mediation Flow Components act as 'service intermediaries' to pass a 9potentially modified) request from a service requester to a service provider, pass a (potentially modified) response from a service provider to a service requester. Processing of requests is separated from processing of responses in the mediation flow component. Request processing within a mediation flow component can send a response back to the requester without necessarily needing to contact a service provider.

Mediation Module contain a new SCA component called Mediation flow component which acts as a service intermediary for the processing of the message. The Mediation flow component provides a standard way of processing the message independent of the binding protocol used by the service requestors or providers. It supports one way model where no response is expected or 2 way request and response model. It supports synchronous or asynchronous invocation model, similar to other SCA components. Within the Mediation flow component, the processing of the request message is performed separately from the response message. This allows different processing of the request message is performed separately from the response message. This allows different processing to occur on the request and the response side by having different mediation primitives on the request and response flows.

The mediation application developer may choose to create and handle the response within the mediation flow component without actually calling the service provider. The Mediation Module developer will need to construct the response message based on the interface definition of the module export.

Mediation Module: Contents

Mediation Module can have the following: Exports, defined using WSDL that expose the mediation module to external service requesters. Imports, defined using WSDL, that identify external service providers and their interfaces. A new type of SCA component called, Mediation flow component- this provides the mediation function on the messages between these services requestors and the providers. In cases where the only need is to transform the message from one interaction protocol to another, there may not be any need for a mediation flow component in the module. Optional SCA Java components-this is used in conjunction with the custom mediation primitive or when there is a need to use Java interface.

Mediation module contain exports, imports, a new type of SCA component called the Mediation flow component and optionally other SCA components of type. Mediation Imports are like normal SCA imports with all the supported bindings, namely, Default SCA, JMS, Web Services. Imports are the entry points into the Bus. Similarly, Mediation Exports are like normal SCA exports with all the supported bindings, namely Default SCA, JMS, Web Services. Exports are the exit point from the Bus. A new type of SCA component, called the Mediation Flow component, contains logic of how the message is processed between the input and output of the flow. Functions like message routing, transformation, augmentation, logging or any other custom processing are performed on the message within the Mediation Flow component. Lastly, the module can optionally contain SCA Java components, used to implement custom mediation primitive. More on this later in the presentation.

Mediation Flow editior is used provide the implementation of the mediation components that are used to process the message flow as it flows from the service requestor to the provider through the Enterprise Service bus. The editor contains 3 sections. The top one is the Operation Mediation section used to define the mapping of the source input operation to one or more target output operation. The map is created by visually wiring the input operation to the appropriate target out operation. Once the connection is made between a source and target operation, the middle section called the Mediation Flow section is used to create the message processing flow. Mediation Primitives are added here and wired to create the message flow between input and output operation. The bottom most section of the editor is the mediation properties section to view or modify the properties of the connection, primitives that are highlighted in the mediation flow section.

Mediation flow component design methodologies.

Two types of design methodology

Top- down design

Developer creates with Mediation Flow component with the required interfaces and references. Developers generates an implement (empty) for the Flow component This will open the Mediation Flow component editor. Using the Mediation Flow Editor, the developer create mappings from a source operation to one or more target operations.

Bottom-up design

User starts with actual implementation of the flow component does not yet have the Mediation Flow component. The mediation flow component is then used to assemble the module. This approach can be used to modify any existing design and then merging the implementation of the flow component.

WebSphere ESB provides several built-in mediation primitives and allows the capability of adding your own custom mediation for cases that are note covered by the built-in mediation primitives. Following built-in mediation primitives are provided.

1. Message Logger used to log/store message information to a database.

2. Message Filter to filter messages selectively forwarding them on to output terminals, based on simple condition expression.

3. Database lookup to access information in a database and insert it in the message. The mediation primitive is supplied with key id to look for and where in the message is the value of the key. Using the two information, the value of the specified column for the matching key is inserted in the specified location within the message.

4.XSL Transformation mediation primitive is used to transform messages using XSL transformation. This is mainly used when the target provider has a different interface than the incoming message interface. Using the mapping within the XSLT, one can map the input values to the appropriate output fields.

5. Stop mediation primitive used to stop the flow execution.

6. Fail mediation primitive used for error conditions, where the flow execution is stopped and an exception is generated.

Custom mediation primitive is used to do message processing that is not covered by other ediation primitives by executing custom logic. Custom Mediation Primitive calls a SCA Java component that you create or provide. The SCA Java component must be within the same Mediation module.

Bommasani Hari Prasad

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Enterprise IT sees phones, Facebook and tablets! Oh my!

Enterprise employees have shifted from the gray and controlled world of corporate IT to the colorful Oz of consumer technologies, but according to data from an IDC/Unisys survey IT is in need of some kind of wizard to sort things out. According to dual surveys of 560 IT managers and another interviewing 2,660 employees and executives at large companies, IT underestimates the number of employees using laptops, mobiles and tablets as well as is unable to support those consumer devices.

And this isn’t just a matter of IT angst, there are issues for the bottom line as 89 percent of IT departments say they have not and have no plans to modernize customer-facing apps for mobile devices this year. A mere 6 percent have adapted their customer-facing apps for mobiles so far, which any of the 25 percent of folks using a smartphone for their web access instead of a computer can likely tell you.

Presumably as an IT services provider we can expect Unisys to use this data to sell their services that could help IT out of their morass. When it comes to mobile tech, Unisys/IDC counts laptops, smartphones and tablets. In some cases, totals will not add up to 100 percent because other options offered on the survey were not included in the infographic. Finally, the 20 percent of respondents who said they are texting, tweeting or emailing while driving need to stop. Seriously.

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Netvibes goes social with new enterprise offering

Netvibes, the San Francisco-based startup that allows people and brands to create personalized RSS feed dashboards, has added social analytics capabilities to its web content monitoring platform. But can the six-year-old company hold its own among today’s super-charged social media analytics startups?

Netvibes’ new product suite, dubbed “social pack,” is currently available in private beta for existing Netvibes premium dashboard customers. The features will be available to individuals by month’s end, Netvibes CEO Freddy Mini told me in an interview this week.

With the latest additions, Netvibes is solidifying its new status as a enterprise software-as-a-service company — a significant step beyond the consumer RSS feed aggregator it started as.

Netvibes is smart to move from courting individual people to entire companies: The web monitoring space has proven to be a lucrative one for startups targeting brands in recent years. Social media monitoring company Radian6 was acquired by Salesforce.com for some $326 million back in March, and brand management startup Scout Labs was acquired last year for a reported $20-plus million.

That said, Netvibes itself is not exactly green to the startup game. The company was founded in 2005, and has had its fair share of managerial drama and strategy pivots along the way. But the company has stood on its own throughout: Netvibes has turned a profit since 2009 and has only one round of funding in its history, Mini told me. In a press release Friday the company claims it still has an edge on the newcomers, saying that its newest offerings provide monitoring and analytics “in ways never before possible.”

I demoed the new Netvibes offerings — and though I’m not in charge of a brand or company (beyond my own, I suppose) I can see the appeal of the social pack service. The social analytics capabilities are quite comprehensive, and should prove popular among the company’s existing customers, many of whom populate the Fortune 500 list. But it bears mention that Netvibes is not the only company offering products to help brands and customers monitor what is being said about them in real-time on the web.

Netvibes’ solid position as a safe bet for its existing customers have kept it in the game thus far, and its strategy to go after the growth market or brands and social media is a wise one. Whether it can continue to hold its ground in today’s world of hyper-funded and hungry social media analytics startups remains to be seen.

Here is a screenshot of Netvibes’ new social pack dashboard:

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