Interoperability, a cost effective way to deal with heterogeneity

Process oriented

Multifaceted Interoperability

a cost effective way to deal with heterogeneity in Enterprise Content Management

Thei Geurts, Nov. 4, 2004

Interoperability, a cost effective way to deal with heterogeneity

©2004 Be Value BV • pag 2

Table of content

• The content challenges

• The content landscape

• Integration solutions

• The enterprise content interoperability layer

• Process Architecture

• Cost benefits

• Approach



The content challenges

• Dynamic and flexible business environments.

• New market contingencies.

• Higher demands from legal and risk perspective.

• Increasingly complex information environments characterized by

large distributed, diverse, and dynamic information sources.

• Accessing and publishing a broad variety of data and data sources.

• Information overload.

• Dealing with non-traditional (esp. visual) data that cannot be easily

handled with well known traditional techniques.



The content landscape: user

In the center of the content

landscape stands the user.

The user has specific:

• Knowledge & Capabilities

• Roles & Responsibilities

• Patterns

• Tasks

The user has also a lifecycle

with different phases.

Content

Content

Content

Content

Content

Content

Content



The content landscape: processes

The user is involved in various

processes in which content is

processed.

These processes span a

lifecycle from conception to

deletion:

• conceive and plan

• create

• edit

• store

• distribute

• publish

• access

• discover

• use

• delete

Feedback loops exist between

these steps.

Content

Content

Content

Content

Content

Content

Content



The content landscape: user environment

The user operates in a dynamic

environment.

He has to deal with:

• changing business

requirements

• change in organizational

forms and liaisons

• variety of intra- and cross-

disciplinary forms of

collaboration

• changing regulations and

policies

• changing liabilities.

• new market contingencies

Content

Content

Content

Content

Content

Content

Content

dynamic environment

virtual network adhocracy

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user environment



The content landscape: content requirements

The changing business and

market environment leads to

context dependent content

requirements.

These requirements can

differ in time and per content

collection.

Change in content

requirements effects also

the way content is produced

and managed.

dynamic environment


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Content requirements

Completeness

Physical accessibility

Content accessibility

Reliability

Timeliness

Relevance

Usability

Content

silo’s

Integrated

content

Harmonized

administrative

meta data

Harmonized

semantic

meta data

Structured

text production and

text assembling



The content landscape: heterogeneity

structural

syn

tactic

semantic

syste

m

The user has not only to deal

with a dynamic business and

market environment that lead

to change in content

requirements and content

management.

He has also to cope with

various types of heterogeneity

in the content environment:

• system heterogeneity

• structural heterogeneity

• syntactic heterogeneity

• semantic heterogeneity

dynamic environment


reg

ula

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heterogeneity

content environment



The content landscape: heterogeneity

structural

syn

tactic

semantic

syste

m

inco

mp

atibili

tie

s

be

twe

en

ha

rdw

are

,

op

era

tin

g s

yste

ms

diffe

rences in

en

co

din

gs a

nd

rep

rese

nta

tion

sources using different data models, data structures

and schemas

inconsistencies in terminology and meanings

heterogeneity

dynamic environment


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Characteristics

of crucial

types of

heterogeneity

in the content

environment.



The content landscape: lifecycles

structural

syn

tactic

semantic

syste

m

environment

heterogeneityAn additional complication

for the user who processes

content in a dynamic

content and business/

market environment is the

fact that both

environments have to cope

with:

• versions

• lifecycles

Changes in systems,

applications, formats.

structures, meanings and

external constraints and

liabilities enhance the need

for an integrated scalable

solution.

Lifecycles

Versions



Integration solutions

But present integration solutions are mainly system oriented and based on

connectivity.

They don’t solve the various types of heterogeneity.

• Portals

• Aggregate access to content

• Federated search

• Aggregates access to content

• Data warehouses

• Aggregate storage of content

• Document management systems

• Aggregate storage of types of content

• Restrict connectivity to other systems to interfacing

• Etcetera (EAI, EII, ETL)

• Aggregate access to content

Therefore another approach to content integration is required that is

more context aware.



Content integration: context and process driven

Enterprise

Content

Management

Contextual

Content

Management

Integrated

Case

Management

Added value

Enterprise

Content

Management

Contextual

Content

Management

Enterprise

Content

Management

Content management

Business

processes



Content integration based on interoperability

• Provides a balanced mix of interoperability facilities

• System interoperability, structural interoperability, syntactic

interoperability, semantic interoperability

• Is based on business requirements

• The degree of interoperability and involved investments

depends on domain specific assessments of risks and benefits

• Enables business agility

• Business agility requires a comprehensive understanding of

not only data syntax, but also data's meaning and its

relationships to other data and information

• Provides functionality based on user requirements and capabilities

• No common denominator compromises that lead tot ample or

ill used solutions

• Supports the content related processes that are executed by a user

• Content related processes are more long-lasting and stable

than individual products, services or systems

• Can handle lifecycles and versions of content and content facilities



The enterprise content interoperability layer

The enterprise

interoperability layer is a

mediation layer between:

• the user and his

content processes,

within the settings of

a dynamic organizational

and market environment

and

• the factual heterogeneity

in systems, structure,

syntax and semantics of

content and content

facilities in the content

environment.

structural

syn

tactic

semantic

syste

m

environment

heterogeneity

Lifecycles

Versions

enterprise content

interoperability layer



The content interoperability layer

• Is based on a content specific service oriented architecture

• Contains generic and dedicated components and standards

• Is process oriented

• Accepts heterogeneity as a ‘fact of life’

• Is able to deal with change in the user environment and in the

content environment

• Is based on market standards and can evolve with the rise of new

standards

• Can be implemented step by step



Conception

Process planning and control

Creation Production

Support

Storage

Auth

or/

sourc

e info

.

Clie

nt

Process Architecture: basic model



Some examples of components

structuralsyn

tactic

semantic

syste

m

environment

Web services

Protocols

Vocabularies. Ontologies, Context models, Rulebases

enterprise content

interoperability layer

Encoding (XML,

RDF, OWL)

Identification and

naming schemes

Access protocols

Transformers

Query languages

Content models, schema mappings, schema integration



Process Architecture: interoperability components

Conception


Creation Production

Support

Storage

Auth

or/

so

urc

e info

.

Clie

nt

Conception


Creation Production

Support

Storage

Auth

or/

sourc

e info

.

Clie

nt

Conception


Creation Production

Support

Storage

Auth

or/

so

urc

e info

.

Clie

nt

Conception


Creation Production

Support

Storage

Auth

or/

sourc

e info

.

Clie

nt

Structure

System

Semantics

Syntax

Other



Process Architecture: another view

Conception


Creation Production

Support

Storage

Auth

or/

so

urc

e info

.

Clie

nt

Conception


Creation Production

Support

Storage

Auth

or/

sourc

e info

.

Clie

nt

Conception


Creation Production

Support

Storage

Auth

or/

so

urc

e info

.

Clie

nt

Conception


Creation Production

Support

Storage

Auth

or/

sourc

e info

.

Clie

nt

Structure

System

Semantics

Syntax

Aspect A

Aspect B

Aspect C

Aspect D

Aspect E



Cost benefits

• Reuse of invested capital in systems and content

• Controlled elimination of outdated environments

• Evolutionary growth based on business cases

• No big bang scenarios with related risks

• No new legacy creation by avoiding the ‘one solutions fits all’

utopia

• Standardization in components, interfaces and content identifiers



Staircase approach

• Context analysis forms the

start of a project

• Context analysis leads to

content requirements

• Content requirements lead

to requirements for the

content production and

management chain

• This leads to requirements

for the degree an nature of

interoperability.

Aspect A

Context

Content

Content

chain

Inter-

operabiity

layer