The Dynamic Enterprise Reference Architecture_Whitepaper

7/30/2019 The Dynamic Enterprise Reference Architecture_Whitepaper

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Marketfocus Repo

Planning and Building anArchitecture that Lasts:

The Dynamic EnterpriseReference Architecture

In most organizations today, technology infrastructures have become highly

complex and difficult to manage, with significant overlap of systems and

applications, further complicated by the fact that these systems are not well

integrated. There is a clear need for a standard Enterprise Reference Architecture

an architectural framework to help organizations make better decisions and enabl

them to leverage existing technology investments.

TIBCO Software, a leading provider of software for real-time business,

commissioned Doculabs to develop this white paper as a guide to the consideratio

involved in building an architecture that will last through the years. In this

document, we advocate an approach based on the service-oriented architecture

(SOA) model as a framework and guidepost toward the building of a solid

architecture that will meet an organizations needs both current and future. W

also report on how other future looking companies, HP and Intel, view building a

architecture that will last.

120 South LaSalle StreetSuite 2300Chicago, IL 60603(312) 433-7793www.doculabs.com

E-mail Doculabs at:[email protected]

2 0 0 3 D o c u l a b s , 1 2 0 S o u t h L a S a l l e S t r e e t , S u i t e 2 3 0 0 , C h i c a g o , I L 6 0 6 0 3 , ( 3 1 2 ) 4 3 3 - 7 7 9 3 ,

i n f o @ d o c u l a b s . c o m . R e p r o d u c t i o n i n w h o l e o r i n p a r t w i t h o u t w r i t t e n p e r m i s s i o n i s p r o h i b i t e d .

D o c u l a b s i s a r e g i s t e r e d t r a d e m a r k . A l l o t h e r v e n d o r a n d p r o d u c t n a m e s a r e a s s u m e d t o b e t r a d e

a n d s e r v i c e m a r k s o f t h e i r r e s p e c t i v e c o m p a n i e s .


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Doculabs Marketfocus Report

Planning and Building an Architecture that Lasts

2003

Whats Inside

3 Executive Summary

Highlights the business benefits of a service-oriented architecture, which

leverages standards to provide even more flexibility while minimizing the costs

associated with development and management.

4 Introduction

Defines a service-oriented architecture and its components and characteristics,

and discusses the role of new approaches to an enterprise reference architecture.

10 Conceptual Enterprise Reference Architecture

Explores the conceptual layers within a sound enterprise reference architecture

layers that work together to provide a cohesive platform on which to build

applications that address business requirements effectively.

14 Ensuring Success through Good Architecture

Highlights best practices and approaches to ensure that the enterprise reference

architecture truly helps realize the business benefits outlined above. Generic

customer examples are included to highlight the key ways in which

organizations should think about implementing in a phased approach the

concepts presented in the enterprise reference architecture.

17 Sharing the Vision

Highlights how TIBCO, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, and other leading technology

providers are providing solutions that are critical to delivering on a service-

oriented enterprise reference architecture.

24 The Final Word

Provides Doculabs perspective on the value of a service-oriented enterprise

reference architecture, and of the approach taken by customers and providers

such as TIBCO.

25 Appendices

Appendix A: Technical Implementation of an Enterprise ReferenceArchitecture, and Appendix B: The Technology Layers of an Enterprise

Reference Architecture, provide technical detail on how an enterprise reference

architecture would be implemented.


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Executive Summary

Organizations are struggling in their

efforts to adapt to quickly changingbusiness conditions, while also

maintaining an acceptable balance sheet.

The volatile nature of business is forcing

organizations to become more flexible,

while at the same time mandating that

they keep their cost structures low to

meet investor demand.

Technology has long been used to

improve organizational efficiency and to

provide better ways to solve common

business problems. For example,

technology can be used to improve

processes in areas such as order-to-cash

in the manufacturing or retail sectors,

mortgage processing in the financial

services sector, and straight-through

processing in banks and brokerages.

If organizations are to become both

more agile and more effective atleveraging their existing technology

investments, they must develop or

adopt a guiding framework for their

technology environments. By following

an enterprise reference architecture, an

organization ensures that it follows such

a framework and can make better

decisions that will optimize its

technology investment decisions to

achieve its business goals.

Enterprise reference architectures have

existed for years, but their effectiveness

has sometimes been limited for a

number of reasons, including a lack of

standards, a lack of supporting

technologies, and an inability to

facilitate closed-loop enterprise

lifecycles. By taking these issues intoaccount, todays service-oriented

enterprise reference architectures can

provide organizations with a clear

framework for their environments and

best practices.

The modern reference architecture is

service-oriented, event-driven, and

aligned with lifecycle support processes.

In addition, the modern reference

architecture can support assembly and

integration, and encompasses the need

to leverage existing applications and

infrastructure. Ultimately, a sound

enterprise reference architecture

provides a number of benefits:

The ability to adapt to changes in

business conditions more rapidly

than has been possible in the past,

and allow business users to beclosely involved with (and in some

cases, even own) changes in

business processes

The ability to reduce the amount of

time spent developing custom code

and complex applications, using

business processes to assemble

applications rather than requiring

the use of declarative programming

Significant cost savings over time, as

more of an organizations existing

investments in technology and

systems are leveraged rather than

replaced


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Introduction

This section introduces the concept of an

enterprise reference architecture, itsarchitectural constructs and

characteristics, and historic failures with

enterprise reference architectures that

new approaches can address.

Enterprise ReferenceArchitecture Constructs

An enterprise reference architecture

provides a framework or set of

guidelines and practices for atechnology environment. To understand

the benefits and key characteristics of

the modern enterprise reference

architecture, it is important to

understand each of the individual

architectural constructs that comprise it.

Architecturally, the modern enterprise

reference architecture is:

Service-oriented Allows

applications to be broken into

services that can be accessed by

other applications and systems to

create powerful composite

applications based on the

functionality available in

applications across the enterprise.

Event-driven Provides a

fundamental mechanism to capture

key changes in business needs andtechnical implementation. These

changes can then be used to effect

instantaneous changes to business

processes and the underlying

systems that support them.

Aligned with lifecycle support

processes Organizations are

constantly designing, deploying,

managing, and re-evaluating theirapplications. Until now, the process

of making decisions on design,

development, and optimization has

not been based on empirical

evidence and real data about

application usage patterns and

business model behavior. Going

forward, architectures must account

for the collection, dissemination, and

use of this information to help

organizations make better decisions.

Able to support assembly and

integration Once applications are

segmented into smaller functional

units, the ability to assemble these

components into applications is

critical. In the past, writing code was

the only way to achieve the goal.

Today, process management

technology achieves the same goals

while reducing reliance on costly

code development.

Able to leverage existing

applications and infrastructure As

organizations look for different

ways to minimize unnecessary

technology spend, they are looking

for ways to re-use existing

technology. For most organizations,

existing infrastructure, systems, andapplications are home to the core

data and functions that drive the

business forward day to day. These

systems must be leveraged to

provide maximum benefit.


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Service-Oriented Architecture

A service-oriented architecture is

defined as an architectural strategy that

seeks to segment and isolate critical

application and data functionality and

access into small, operationally

independent pieces that can be executed

remotely and in a highly distributed

manner. The end goal of a service-

oriented architecture is to provide easy

and secure access to enterprise

technology and process resources,

maximizing re-use and minimizing cost,

while improving the performance andreliability of these systems.

Benefits of a Service-Oriented Architecture

Short-Term

Enhances reliability

Reduces hardware acquisition costs

Leverages existing development skills

Accelerates movement to standards-based server

and application consolidation

Provides a data bridge between incompatible

technologies

Long-Term

Provides the ability to build composite applications

Creates a self-healing infrastructure that reduces

management costs

Provides truly real-time decision-making

applications

Enables the compilation of a unified taxonomy of

information across an enterprise and its customer

and partners

Business Value

Ability to more quickly meet customer demands

Lower costs associated with the acquisition and

maintenance of technology Management of business functionality closer to the

business units

Leverages existing investments in technology

Reduces reliance on expensive custom development

Table 1 Benefits of a Service-Oriented

Architecture

As with any enterprise architecture,

service-oriented architectures require

careful planning and a holistic approach

that takes into account the effect of thearchitectural approach across all layers

of the architecture. Layers are

architectural constructs that are used as

a mechanism to provide isolation

between a set of components. They

provide the ability to change underlying

components without affecting how

other resources use them.

Characteristics of Service-Oriented Architectures

A good service-oriented reference

architecture should embody each of the

architectural constructs described

above. That is, they should be event-

driven, aligned with lifecycle support

processes, able to support assembly and

integration, and able to leverage existing

applications and infrastructure. This

section provides details on how this isaccomplished.

Event Services

Event-driven architectures allow

services and applications to react to

stimuli from systems, applications, and

people, both across and outside of the

enterprise. Unlike traditional

architectures, event-driven architectures

provide a mechanism for systems to

take action when pre-determined or

unplanned events arise. An example of

an event is the failure of a business

process to reach completion within a

specified timeframe, such as the


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execution of an order. Another example

is the failure of a processing thread in an

application container running on a

specific server. These events can beextremely business focused, or they may

be very technical in nature. The simple

fact that these events can be captured

makes it possible to take corrective

action or escalate response

appropriately.

At a fundamental level, an event-driven

architecture is more dynamic than non-

event-driven architectures. The simple

ability to change a business process or

react to a problem as it is happening

provides a tremendous advantage to

organizations, relative to competitors

using traditional architectures, where

reaction to such changes can take days

or weeks.

Benefits of an Event-Driven Architecture

Short-Term

Allows for pro-active problem solving Better addresses customer needs without resorting

to one-offcustomization by helping drive dynamic

processes

Long-Term

Improves customer loyalty and satisfaction

More visibility into business health through near

real-time organizational dashboards

Business Value

Provides the best products and/or services to

customers and partners

Competitive advantage over slower-moving

competitors Greater visibility into enterprise status and issues

Table 2 Benefits of an Event-Driven

Architecture

Transactional systems, such as ERP and

procurement applications, tend to be

inherently event-driven and can work

very well within an event-drivenarchitecture. Unfortunately, other

systems, such as legacy mainframe

applications, usually were not designed

to be event-driven. Fortunately, there

are ways to make these systems event-

driven so that they can help an

organization drive toward a more

dynamic enterprise.

Lifecycle Support

Most organizations have come to realize

that the technology they use to solve

business problems is constantly

changing and needs to be updated

frequently to keep up with changing

business demands. These companies are

in a constant cyclical process of

designing and redesigning applications,

developing, redeveloping, and

optimizing these applications, and

deploying and managing theseapplications. Many decisions that are

made are based not on empirical data,

but rather on perceived requirements. In

todays business environment, it is

critical to take this guesswork out of the

equation. Today, decisions must be

made first and foremost on empirical

evidence.

An architecture based on thefundamental concept that the enterprise

lifecycle represents a closed loop of

feedback is most likely to help

organizations succeed. Todays systems

are capable of capturing vast amounts of


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information on their usage patterns and

performance against set measures. With

this data, organizations can quickly

provide a mechanism to use thisinformation to optimize business

processes and remove bottlenecks from

the technical infrastructure within their

environments.

In the end, organizations that are able to

better leverage the information their

applications can report, will be more

effective at optimizing their

infrastructures. Optimization will result

in increased efficiency and ultimately in

the ability to spend money to increase

investment in customer-facing activities.

Assembly and Integration

Until recently, the only way to build

custom applications was to write code

using declarative programming.

Although writing application code has

become significantly easier and more

productive, it is still time consumingand fraught with the possibility of bugs

and slow time to benefit. The other

major problem with declarative

development is that it may take a long

time to make even minor changes in

code and it will always involve time on

the part of developers. Business users

can do little to help in an environment

whose architecture is driven by

declarative programming.

Today, the ability to rely on a service-

oriented architecture that is driven by

processes allows organizations to start

assembling applications that can change

with the changing needs of the business.

Business processes are developed and

are driven by the functionality and data

that is exposed through the servicesavailable throughout a services-oriented

enterprise.

One of the key benefits of adopting an

architecture that takes advantage of

application assembly and integration is

that it leverages the different skills that

exist in most organizations more

effectively than most other

architectures. Business users are finally

enabled to provide value through the

definition of business processes and

business rules, while technologists can

drive the access to key information and

systems through services. Even

administrative staff can more effectively

manage the composite applications that

are developed.

Leverage for Existing Applications

and InfrastructureMany of the technology investments

that organizations have made over the

past several decades have fallen into

two major categories: technology

infrastructure and application systems.

Technology infrastructure refers to the

hardware and network infrastructures

put in place to support the application

systems that run within them.

Application systems include legacyapplications, enterprise resource

planning systems, customer service

systems, databases, and other

technology used to drive business.


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Any architecture that is worth

considering should strive to leverage the

large investment that has already been

made in application systems. Ideally,these systems can be used seamlessly

throughout the organization and can

participate in complex business

processes without significant re-

investment in development. The

architecture should provide a clear

approach for integration and access to

these systems.

Addressing Historic Limitationsof Enterprise ReferenceArchitectures

The idea of enterprise reference

architectures is not new; these

frameworks have existed in many forms

over the years, but have failed for many

different reasons, including:

A lack of technology standards.

Standards provide a way fororganizations to isolate themselves

from changes in technology,

ultimately making their investments

last longer and allowing them to

avoid being locked into a particular

vendor over an extended period of

time. Without standards, an

enterprise reference architecture

does not maximize its ability to

ensure long-term viability oftechnology investments.

Limited ability of off-the-shelf

technology to achieve the goals

they proposed. In many instances,

no supporting technology existed toaddress many key business

problems. In the past, few enterprise

architectures had any notion of

back-end application integration, or

if they did, it was a feat left to a

hoard of developers to achieve. The

cost of building one-off integrations

among systems and applications

was prohibitively high and reserved

for only critical applications.

No focus on the closed-loop

enterprise lifecycle. Organizations

are constantly going through a

multi-step lifecycle when using

technology to achieve business

goals. For an enterprise reference

architecture to be effective, it should

embrace a lifecycle process that

includes the following steps:

1. Evaluating the applicability of

technology in solving or helping

solve a given business problem

2. Designing the solution at both

the business process level and

the technology architecture level

3. Implementing the solution

4. Testing and modeling the

solution and its behavior

5. Deploying the solution

6. Maintaining the solution7. Reviewing feedback about the

solution and technical

characteristics of the solution

8. Starting the cycle again to

optimize the solution


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Problems with

Past Enterprise

Architectures

Why are these problems?

Lack of

standards

Organizations were locked

into choosing solutions that

may not fit with the

constantly changing nature

of their business.

Supporting

technology did

not exist

Off-the-shelf technology

did not exist for many of

the key problems that

plagued organizations.

Some examples include

integration technology and

process management

engines.

Lack of supportfor a closed-loop

enterprise

lifecycle

Solutions must constantlyevolve to meet changing

business needs; in the past,

there was no way to

achieve such changes,

except through guesswork

based on the information

available. Today, data

should be captured that

allows business owners

and technologists

understand key usage

patterns and their effects

on a solution so that the

solution can be optimized

on an ongoing basis, based

on empirical data and

evidence.

Table 3 Problems with Prior Enterprise

Architectures

By taking these issues into account,

todays enterprise reference

architectures should provide

organizations with a clear frameworkfor their environments and best

practices. Such an architecture will

provide a number of benefits, including:

The ability to adapt to changes in

business conditions more rapidly

than possible in the past. Business

users should be able to be closely

involved with in some cases, even

own such changes in business

processes.

The ability to reduce the amount of

time spent developing custom code

and complex applications using

business processes to assemble

applications rather than declarative

programming.

Significant cost savings over time, as

more of an organizations existinginvestments in technology and

systems are leveraged rather than

replaced.


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Conceptual EnterpriseReference Architecture

Although each architecturalcharacteristic or construct is important

on its own, none of them can deliver the

benefits that are possible when all of

them are brought together in a single

architecture.

A services-oriented architecture can be

depicted as providing a number of

individual service layers. Together,

these layers provide an unprecedentedlevel of flexibility in application design,

while minimizing cost and providing

more pertinent applications and

business value to customers. The major

layers are as follows:

The enterprise application and data

systems layer, which consists of an

organizations existing technology

investments. The rest of thearchitecture relies on this layer for

the critical application functionality

and data that are used to drive

business processes throughout the

organization. Moreover, much of the

investment and capital expenditures

in technology have been made in

this layer. Thus, it is extremely

important that these investments be

leveraged fully in the rest of the

architecture.

The data services layer, which

provides a set of services that allow

organizations to extract and re-use

data from the enterprise applicationand data systems in the

organization. The data services layer

isolates the organization from

changes in the underlying data

systems and applications, as well as

providing a unified approach for

accessing the data and functionality

of those systems.

The application services layer,

which is designed to provide the

functional components and

technologies that are used to ensure

high levels of application scalability,

performance, and reliability.

Application components are

managed in this layer to ensure that

they are secure and available to

other parts of the architecture when

needed.

The business services layer is where

technology meets business. In this

layer, applications are composed

from a combination of business

processes, business rules, human

workflow, and the services exposed

by the application services layer.

The combination of these

technologies allows organizations to

quickly and effectively model andoptimize their business processes to

best suit customer and business

needs.


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The presentation and interface

services layer, which provides users

and external systems a way to

communicate and interact withbusiness processes and business

applications. This layer is the

primary mechanism to enable

human workflow and is also used to

issue alerts and to gather events

from external systems.

The event services layer, which

gathers event data across the

enterprise and also across all of the

layers of the architecture. The events

are then used to drive dynamic

business processes and dynamic

changes in the underlying layers to

provide better performance,

reliability, and scalability. The event

services layer also creates a closed

feedback loop with each layer of the

architecture allowing developers

and business users to optimize their

part of the architecture usingempirical data to drive key

decisions.

The enterprise lifecycle services

layer, which provides a mechanism

to effectively:

Design and model businessprocesses and system

interaction

Assemble and develop

applications from existing

components

Deploy and maintain

applications in a production

environment, even if the

components are distributed

Analyze and optimize processesand application infrastructure,

based on data gathered by the

event services layer

The following figure illustrates a

business view of the layers of the

enterprise reference architecture.


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Ins

trum

en

tation

EventServ

ices

EnterpriseLifecyc

leServices

Presentation / Interface Services

Business Services

HumanWorkflow

Business Process

Business Rules

Application Services

Data Services

Data Modeling

Enterprise Application and Data Systems

Message Bus

MetadataRepository

ApplicationContainers

StandardInterfaces

ApplicationAdapters

LegacyService

Abstraction

Mainframe /Legacy Apps

ERP

CRM/SFA

ContentManagement

Other Systems

Other DataSources

Web Portal Mobile Devices Standard Formats

Design /

Modeling

Assembly /Development

Deployment /

Maintenance

Analysis /Optimization

Figure 1 - Business View of the Enterprise Reference Architecture


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The following table illustrates some of the common technologies found in the major

architectural layers and lists some vendors that provide those technologies.

Layer Technologies Sample ProvidersEnterprise

Application and

Data Systems

Enterprise resource planning

Content management

Mainframe and legacy

applications

Customer relationship

management and call center

systems

SAP, Oracle Applications, and

PeopleSoft

Documentum, Interwoven, and

Vignette

Fraud detection systems,

telecommunications

provisioning applications, etc.

Kana and Siebel

Data Services Application and data systems

adapters

Data model and persistence

engines

Legacy functionality extraction

Actional, iWay, TIBCO, and

WebMethods

BEA, Rational, Sybase,

Teradata, and TIBCO

Microsoft, Oracle, Teradata,

and TIBCO

Application

Services

Messaging

Application containers

Standard interfaces

Metadata repositories

IBM, Sonic, and TIBCO

BEA, Borland, IBM, Microsoft,

and Oracle

Java standards, .NET

standards, web services, etc.

IBM, Oracle, Teradata, TIBCO,

and custom repositoriesBusiness Services Business process

Business rules

Human workflow

Fuego, Fujitsu, IBM, Microsoft,

and TIBCO

Ilog, Pegasystems, and TIBCO

Fujitsu, IBM, Staffware, and

TIBCO

Presentation /

Interface Services

Web portal

Mobile devices

Standard formats

IBM, Microsoft, Novell, Oracle,

Plumtree, Sybase, TIBCO, and

Vignette

WAP, WML, Java, etc.

EDIFACT, ebXML, other XML,etc.

Table 4 Conceptual Architecture Layers


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Ensuring Success throughGood Architecture

As mentioned previously, adopting aservice-oriented enterprise reference

architecture is the first step in making

better technology decisions that lead to

a more efficient and nimble

organization. However, there are many

decisions to be made on the road to

building a more flexible organization

around a service-oriented reference

architecture. The situation is further

complicated by the fact that differentorganizations have different business

priorities, different risk-tolerance levels,

and different budget levels allocated to

leverage technology to solve their

business problems.

There is a clear approach and

methodology that can help individual

organizations determine how best to

proceed. In building toward a service-

oriented enterprise reference

architecture, it has been proven that

organizations that have taken a

pragmatic approach share a number of

key characteristics. These organizations

tend to:

Solve small problems first

Involve both technologists and

business users

Make key investments in technologywhen necessary

Achieve buy-in from the highest

levels within the organization

Leverage existing investments

before investing in new technology

Successful organizations have identified

and prioritized specific business

problems that have clear benefits for the

organization. These benefits mayinclude projects that are accretive in the

short-term, projects that improve

internal organizational communications

and morale, projects that improve

relationships with partners, or that

provide a number of other valuable

outcomes.

By taking a step-by-step approach to

implementing a services-oriented

approach to solving a specific business

problem, an organization is able to

better manage the selection,

development, implementation, and

management of different technologies.

As more and more projects are

completed and meet with success, the

result is greater buy-in from

organizational management,

representing both the technology and

business groups within the company.

A successful project involves getting

commitment from a variety of

constituencies throughout an

organization. The first hurdle is getting

a common understanding of the

business process or application that is

being prioritized. Many organizations

never get past this stage in the

implementation; they have difficultyclearly defining the process interactions

at a process level. Some of the causes of

this confusion are a lack of involvement

from the people who intimately

understand the process, or lack of


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involvement from the people who will

need to build and maintain the business

application that implements the

business process. It is important to haveboth constituencies involved to ensure

success and ownership from start to

finish.

In some cases, it becomes apparent that

a project cannot proceed without

significant investment in a new

technology. For many organizations,

this technology investment may be a

strong event-driven process

management and integration engine; for

others, it may be investment in a robust,

scalable, and reliable hardware and

network infrastructure. These

expenditures are often costly, and

require support from top levels of

management. Organizations must be

prepared to perform a thorough

analysis to determine the benefit of such

investments over the long term.

Investments in core technology that canbe leveraged over and over again are

often justified and pay back dividends

that multiply many times over the

amount that was spent early on.

For example, consider a large utility

company that had to replace an aging

power outage management system in an

effort to meet regulations related to

meeting service level agreements. Theorganization was faced with the

daunting task of replacing the mainly

mainframe-based application with a

more manageable service-oriented

architecture. Process automation was

one of the key requirements to make the

change viable as a long-term solution.

The organization was hoping to

implement an event-based processmanagement infrastructure that could

react to external stimuli such as power

level fluctuations, power outages, and

other critical events that could occur in

different parts of the organization or

even in the systems of the companys

power system alliance.

A service-oriented architecture was

appealing because it provided a way to

create a system that was based on

standards and one in which the

application could change quickly with

changing business needs, without

requiring a great deal of manual

recoding of applications. Ideally, the

system would allow the utility company

to modify business process flows, and

the underlying services would

automatically service the changes.

One of the critical realizations in this

project was the fact that a service-

oriented approach does not require re-

developing applications from the

ground up to make them services.

Rather, monolithic applications, such as

the mainframe-based outage

management system, could be queried

and accessed to appear as though it

were providing a variety of services thatcould be accessed by other applications

within the organization, such as the

outage management executive

dashboard that was built using web

application technology.


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To ensure the success of this project,

both the line-of-business and

information technology group were

involved in defining and outlining theproblem to be solved. Executive

sponsorship was almost guaranteed (not

something that an organization can

always count on), in this case because of

the legal ramification of failure to

comply with the regulation. A large

investment in an event-driven business

process management solution was

deemed necessary early in the project.

Because the technology was leveraged

in subsequent projects throughout the

organization, the utility company

realized a return on its investment

within just one year.

The organization met the requirements

for compliance and has enjoyed success

in deployment and in the ongoing

maintenance of the application. The

company has been able to reroute and

automate processes effectively, loweringits processing costs and reducing costly

errors.

Going forward, the utility company

would like to be able to more effectively

analyze its business process and get

real-time feedback on the performance

of its processes. The information will be

invaluable when reconfiguring and

optimizing the existing process flows.


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Sharing the Vision

A number of leading technology

providers now offer solutions thatdeliver on a service-oriented enterprise

reference architecture. This section looks

at how TIBCO, Hewlett-Packard, and

Intel share the vision: providing

technology that allows for the building

of an architecture that lasts.

TIBCO

As a provider of technology, TIBCO has

offered highly scalable, reliable, andhigh-performance solutions for mission-

critical applications for nearly two

decades (originally as Teknekron).

Today, TIBCO continues to innovate

and provide a suite of solutions to

businesses focused on solving business

problems. Its ActiveEnteprise suite

provides integration, process

management, workflow, portal, andrelated technologies.

Looking forward, TIBCO has embraced

the idea of a dynamic architecture that

allows business to create a closed loop

between business, technology, business

problems, business solutions, and

customers, partners, and staff.

TIBCO believes that the combination ofa service-oriented architecture with

business process management will

allow organizations to effectively build

composite applications that can be

assembled as needed by leveraging

existing investments in development.

Composite applications by themselvesprovide a flexible way to develop and

deploy applications across an enterprise,

but they generally lack the ability to

take action based on business situations

that may arise within an organization.

TIBCO believes that the next logical

evolution to the composite application is

the incorporation of event-processing

technology and business rules. As

mentioned previously, event-processing

technology allows systems and

applications to take action automatically

to better meet requirements that may

arise spontaneously. Event-driven

services and composite applications can

quickly be reconfigured based on the

needs of an organization almost

instantly. For more complex changes,

TIBCO believes that externalizing

business rules from business processes

puts the power of change back into thehands of those who best understand the

business. Armed with a system that

supports business rules on top of a

process management engine, business

analysts can change processes and

business flows without making

fundamental changes to the underlying

processes and application code.

The final piece of the puzzle is theability to monitor and optimize the

business. Tools to help organizations

analyze the process flows they have

created and how they are being used


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will prove invaluable as systems evolve

and become more automated.

The combination of an event-drivenservice-oriented architecture,

externalized business rules, and process

analytics and optimization should

provide a solid platform on which to

build a lasting architecture.

Hewlett-Packard

HPs strategy and vision is the Adaptive

Enterprise recognizing that the ability

to manage change is the key imperativefor businesses today, to accommodate

and respond to near-term marketplace

challenges and to sustain competitive

advantage over the long term.

HP has developed an enterprise

reference architecture that identifies the

components and interrelationships

needed for an adaptive enterprise: the

Darwin Reference Architecture. The

Darwin Reference Architecture is based

on four fundamental key

transformations that are needed for an

enterprise to evolve to become an

adaptive enterprise. These include:

Transformation to aservice-oriented

architecture(especially within

application environments)

Transition to automation in the

infrastructure (supported by

management and control)

Transformation to business-focused

management and control

Transformation to a business process

environment with a direct

communication loop with the IT

environmentHP believes that achieving an adaptive

enterprise calls for an evolution from

todays environment of silod

technology that is complex, over-

provisioned, and inflexible, to one in

which IT assets can be better utilized to

achieve an improved ROI for the

corporation. The specific approach of

any individual organization will be

different based on its industry, businessstrategy, model, competitive and

regulatory environment, and IT

environment. HP feels that three basic

stages are required in the journey to

become an adaptive enterprise:

Stage 1: Stable an organization

must have a stable, available, and

secure environment in place as its

foundation

Stage 2: Efficient where the

organization is now optimizing the

integration and management of the

environment

Stage 3: Agile where the

organization has achieved business

and IT alignment in a dynamic and

synchronized way, for seamless

response to changing business

requirements

HP believes that by taking this approach

companies can make adaptive

improvements along this continuum in

the way that makes most sense for their

individual context and situation.


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Application architecture plays an

instrumental role in enabling a

companys flexibility. HP experienced

this first hand in its merger withCompaq. With the merger of HP and

Compaq the biggest technology

merger in history the respective IT

organizations faced a major challenge in

determining how to merge their systems

to support the unified companys

system requirements. The new company

would need to link 1,200 networked

sites; 215,000 desktops; 49,000 network

devices; more than 7,000 applications; 26

million e-mails a week; and 30 million

business-to-business messages monthly.

The desired result was a company in

which customers and partners would

interact with HP as one company;

products and solutions would go to

market through integrated, global

supply chains; the workforces would

operate as a single company; IT cost and

complexity would be reduced; and the

business performance would improve.The widespread understanding and

emphasis on an Adaptive Enterprise

empowered the two organizations to

combine their systems in record speed,

surprising pundits and critics.

HP has identified a common set of

general design principles that drive

adaptive improvements for companies

at any stage of the Adaptive Enterprisejourney, and that underlie all of the

Darwin reference architecture

transformations. These design principles

include simplification, standardization,

modularity, and integration. When

these principles are applied to the

critical Application Services Layer, they

have these characteristics:

Simplification: simplify the

connections between applications

and allow components to be re-used

Standardization:use industry

standards such as J2EE, .NET, and

SOAP to ensure the maximum

flexibility throughout the

development cycle and platform

independence

Modularity: use and re-use modularapplications to support rapid

change, along with easier diagnosis

and resolution of problems; swap

components with low risk of impact

to business services integration

Integration: improved application

and data integration leads to

improved response to business

change

HP Services developed and is

expanding its portfolio of offerings

around Adaptive Application

Architecture services. Specific services

HP offers its customers include:

Impact and ROI Calculation

focused on identifying and

measuring key metrics; developing

business case for investments Integration Competency Center

provides expertise and services to

improve the speed of integration;

ensures sound architectural

foundation for integrations


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Design and Implementation pure

and simple integration and

development services with J2EE and

.NET expertise Solution Lifecycle Management

includes both software factory

management and operations

management, which improves re-

use of services and operational

efficiency

HP is helping customers reach their

Adaptive Enterprise goals by working

closely with strategic partners andindustry leaders, such as TIBCO

Software.

Intel Corporation

Intel has been responsible for

developing some of the most widely

deployed semiconductor technology in

the world. From central processors, to

network technology, to the integrated

circuits that make these componentswork with each other, Intel has long

been an innovator and leader in

providing innovative technology and

solutions to customers.

As a Provider of Technology

As a technology provider, Intel has been

a leader in creating solutions that have

enhanced the network and hardware

infrastructures and related architectures

for organizations worldwide. Intel

central processing units have gained

worldwide acceptance for desktop PC,

workstations, servers, and mobile and

embedded applications.

Intel provides a large variety of the

infrastructure components that are

required in a service-oriented

architecture. Intels network technologyallows organizations to effectively

provide high bandwidth connectivity in

both wired and wireless applications.

This allows organizations to provide

better application and service

connectivity to its users. Productivity

and customer satisfaction are just two of

the benefits gained from efficient and

reliable connectivity.

For mobile platform requirements, Intel

provides solutions such as Intel

Centrino mobile technology to enable

extended battery life, improved mobile

performance on thinner and lighter

form factors, and integrated Wireless

Local Area Network (WLAN), validated

with third party security solutions to

provide safer connectivity. Intel has also

been working to promote deployment

and build awareness of public WLANservices.

To address the larger business needs of

organizations, Intel also provides

consulting services that help

organizations:

Optimize data centers

Consolidate their technology

investments Optimize e-commerce solutions

Help with migration planning

Educate organizations on the use of

web services


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2003

In the final analysis, Intel provides a

compelling, leadership-driven approach

to technology that has provided value

for organizations worldwide. Intelappears to continuing this leadership

with innovation and services to help

organizations move toward more open,

service-based architectures.

As a User of Technology

As a user of technology, Intel should

also be considered among the top

organizations in the world today. For

the past year Intel has placed a heavy

focus on designing an architecture that

will be used to help drive key

technology acquisition, consolidation,

and development decisions.

Intel has divided its vision of a service-

oriented architecture into four distinct

layers:

Business Processes and services

that are shaped into dynamicapplications that positively affect

business value

Application Fundamental services

that are required to ensure

connectivity, reliability,

performance, and scalability

Data Systems, applications, and

data sources that house the

information assets within anorganization

Technology Infrastructure The

fundamental hardware, software,

and network infrastructure that

enable business applications

Intel believes that in the current market,

where budgets are smaller and

organizations are more risk averse, it is

imperative to build a good architectureto deliver higher value with less.

To accomplish its goals, Intel has placed

strong focus on key enabling

technologies in the middleware and

application tier of the architecture that

was defined earlier. Intel believes in

using good off-the-shelf technology

where it is appropriate, as is evidenced

by its strong portfolio of middleware

technology solutions. The middleware

tier enables the organization to provide

critical business applications that can be

used by users worldwide. The key to its

entire technology strategy is using a

multi-tier services oriented architecture

to make key decisions related to the use

of technology throughout the

organization.

In many organizations, business processmanagement technology has proven to

provide a high return on investment

when properly implemented, and Intel

is no exception. Intel feels that the

biggest challenge with implementing

good business processes is defining the

processes and breaking the problem to

be solved into small, more manageable

pieces. In general, experience shows that

organizations that can accomplish thisdifficult task are over 80 percent more

likely to have successful projects than

those that bite off too much at one time.

Intel agrees and has put processes in

place to ensure that the definition of


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processes is not a secondary thought,

but a driver in the services oriented

architecture it envisions.

Intel believes that, in many instances,

too much focus is placed on creating a

homogeneous data infrastructure layer.

Many organizations are quickly

paralyzed by the daunting task of

cataloging, consolidating, and

integrating their data systems and

related applications. Intel proposes a

more pragmatic approach, driven by

prioritized business initiatives. Each

business priority should be decomposed

to determine what data systems are

affected and the level of integration

required to make the business

application work. Once these

requirements are identified, they should

be reviewed to ensure they fit into the

overall architectural vision of the

organization.

Intel believes that some of the keychallenges of service oriented

architectures include:

Security How does an

organization secure the components

of a distributed services-based

architecture?

Management How can individual

components be managed across the

enterprise in a geographically andlogically distributed environment?

Distribution How do components

in a services-oriented architecture

get distributed most effectively

throughout an enterprise?

Security must be addressed at a number

of levels. First, one must secure the core

network and hardware layers so that

information is maintained within thecontrol of an organization and the

designated extended enterprise. Data

encryption must then be implemented

to ensure that internal entities cannot

access the information unless they are

authorized to do so. Finally,

authentication and authorization are

required to determine what systems

people are allowed access, and what

they are allowed to do once access is

granted.

As services are deployed across an

organization, management and

distribution of those services becomes

critical. The first step is to ensure that

the service is registered so that it can be

re-used frequently. Once the service is

deployed and running, management is

required to ensure it is running properly

and that security is maintained.

Once these problems are addressed, it

becomes possible to build a dynamic

infrastructure that supports intelligent

composite applications. Intel believes

that applications will be built

dynamically and used to solve key

business problem as they arise. Proper

modularizing of application

components is the key to allowing theseservices to be reconfigured dynamically

to provide new and unique applications

without even writing a line of code.


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2003

One of the most interesting forward-

looking ideas Intel is exploring is

distributed computing resource

utilization and management. Thistechnology is sometimes referred to as

virtualization, and is a key component in

architectures that will feature grid

computing. The idea behind

virtualization is to enable organizations

to harness the underutilized computing

resources that exist throughout an

organization. With advances in

distributed computing technology,

increases in network bandwidth, better

bandwidth utilization, and more

effective management of these

resources, it is becoming possible to

optimize the investments in computer

hardware.

As with many other successful

organizations, Intel is taking a portfolio-

based approach to implementing

technology. It is using a service-oriented

enterprise reference architecture, similarto the one presented in this document,

to help make more consistent and more

successful decisions related to

technology issues. The company has

shown clear leadership in many areas

over the years, and its usage and

commitment to services-oriented

architectures bodes well for

organizations still considering moving

in that direction.


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The Final Word

As organizations explore the need to

minimize unnecessary technologyspend, they will undoubtedly begin

looking into the vast benefits of using a

service-oriented architecture. This white

paper should make it apparent that

there is much more to a service-oriented

architecture than standards such as web

services. An adaptable and cohesive

service-oriented architecture should be

designed to be a dynamic part of an

organizations infrastructure.

Technology is only one component of a

lasting architecture. Executive-level

buy-in, as well as support from business

users and business units, is absolutely

critical to ensure success.

Organizations will certainly choose their

own pace when it comes to

implementing components of a service-

oriented architecture, but it is importantto start with manageable projects.

Organizations will also have a good

selection of providers, such as the

providers featured in this document, to

partner with to help move them toward

a dynamic, service-oriented

infrastructure.

For an organization, the end goal should

be the ability to understand how it

conducts business at a process level and

to be able to optimize those processes.The goal of optimization should be to

minimize costs and unnecessary

investments, while maximizing value to

customers, partners, and the

organization itself. If an organization

can start to look at a business problem

holistically from the business level all

the way down to the technical

implementation it can become more

agile and better able to serve customer

requirements, while always leveraging

its investments in people, processes, and

technology.


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Appendices

The following appendices provide more

technical detail on how an enterprisereference architecture would be

implemented.

They provide a detailed technical

architectural view that builds on the

business-level model presented in the

main document. This technical design

addresses the issues related to the

individual components and services

required to achieve the goals of the

dynamic enterprise reference

architecture.

Appendix A: TechnicalImplementation of anEnterprise ReferenceArchitecture

A service-oriented architecture is

defined as an architectural strategy that

seeks to componentize critical

functionality into small, operationally

independent pieces that can be executed

remotely and in a highly distributed

manner.

As with any enterprise architecture,

service-oriented architectures require

careful planning and a holistic approach

that takes into account the effect of the

architectural approach across all layersof the architecture.

Previously, this paper presented a

business view of the enterprise reference

architecture. When it comes to

implementation, a more detailed

technical view is required that shows

the technology layers that are involved

in the architecture. Layers arearchitectural constructs that are used as

a mechanism to provide isolation

between a set of components. They

provide the ability to change underlying

components without affecting how

other resources use them. As stated

previously, these layers include:

The enterprise data and application

layer, which consists of the existing

technology investments made by the

organization. The rest of the

architecture relies on this layer for

the critical application functionality

and data that is used to drive

business processes throughout the

organization. At a technical level,

this layer includes all network and

hardware infrastructure that

supports the business applications

and data systems within theorganization. From a network

perspective, everything from

network protocols to physical

routing and switching equipment

will need to be addressed. Key

concerns in the network layer

include reliability, load handling,

and connection latency. Hardware in

this layer includes the server

infrastructure and the detailedimplementation of this server

hardware. Hardware services that

affect the behavior of the

infrastructure, such as self-healing


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and failover features, should be

considered within the architecture.

The data services layer, whichprovides a set of services that allow

organizations to extract and re-use

data from the enterprise application

and data systems in the

organization. The data services layer

isolates the organization from

changes in the underlying data

systems and applications, as well as

providing a unified approach for

accessing the data and functionality

of those systems. At a technical

level, this layer is the foundation for

access to functionality and data that

exists within and potentially outside

of the organization. This layer

provides the information needed to

drive process automation and

ultimately a dynamic enterprise.

The application services layer,

which is designed to provide thefunctional components and

technologies that are used to ensure

high levels of application scalability,

performance, and reliability.

Application components are

managed in this layer to ensure that

they are secure and available to

other parts of the architecture when

needed. At a technical level, this

layer contains the software servercomponents, such as application

server technology and messaging

buses to run application effectively

in an enterprise environment.

The business services layer is where

technology meets business. In this

layer, applications are composed

from a combination of businessprocesses, business rules, human

workflow, and the services exposed

by the application services layer. At

a technical level, this layer is where

applications are composed from

services and data that are exposed

throughout the enterprise through

the application and data services

layers.

The presentation and interfaceservices layer, which provides users

and external systems a way to

communicate and interact with

business processes and business

applications. At a technical level,

this layer is where information

leaves and enters enterprise systems.

Standards are a key driver for what

happens within this layer.

The event services layer, which

gathers event data across the

enterprise and also across all of the

layers of the architecture. The events

are then used to drive dynamic

business processes and dynamic

changes in the underlying layers to

provide better performance,

reliability, and scalability. At a

technical level, the event services

layer provides a standardizedmechanism to publish and subscribe

to critical events that drive dynamic

applications.


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The enterprise lifecycle services

layer, which provides a mechanism

to effectively design, model,

assemble, develop, deploy,maintain, analyze, and optimize

business processes and related

system and applications.

These layers work together and interact

to provide a mechanism to quickly

adapt to changing conditions within the

enterprise. For example, a hardware

failure may result in an alert to an

administrator, while simultaneously

launching a deployment of new services

to existing healthy servers in order to

maintain a minimum quality of service

level.

Understanding the roles that each of

these layers play is critical to an

organizations ability to maximize its

current and future technology

investments. It is also critical to finding

ways to reduce costs throughsimplification and redundancy

reduction. The following subsections

address the components and the design

of each of these layers in more detail.


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EnterpriseApplication

and

DataSystems

Grid Computing Resources

Servers Storage

Network Devices

Application Servers / Clusters Edge ServersDASD RAID SAN NAS

Optical/ Tape

Workstations

Peripherals

Printers ScannersIVR/

TelephonyRouters Switches

Hubs

Firewalls

Load Balancer System Monitor

Mobility

Services

DataSe

rvices

Adapters

WebServices

RDBMS

Component

ApplicationServices

Universal Abstraction Layer

Grid Computing Resource Mgr

Application Services

LoadBalancing

PersistenceServices

Caching

SchedulingDevelopment

Support

FailoverResource

Management

SecurityDeployment

Services

Content / Directory Services

Directory(User / Content / Resources / Metadata)

Repository(User / Content / Resources / Metadata)

Data ModelingLegacy Data

Abstraction

Legacy

Custom API

Interaction Services

Globalization ./ Language Services

Page Navigation Manager

Data View Manager

Personalization Engine

Data / Interface Transcoding

Infrastructure

Management /

Instrumentation

Integration

Transformation

Translation

Messaging

Process

Workflow Process Automation Rules Engines

Business Monitoring

Business Intelligence / Reporting

Real-time Analysis

Business / InstrumentationTranslation Engine

Automated Business Response

Business

Services

Pres

entation/

In

terface

Services

Presentation Manager

Portlet

Thick Client

Thin Client

Mobile Device

EventServices

Applications / Data Systems

Data Access Interface

Process Access Interface

Presentation Interface

Programmatic Interface

Instrumentation

Management

EnterpriseLifecycleServices

Des

ign

/

Mod

eling

Assem

bly/

Deve

lopmen

t

Dep

loymen

t/

Ma

intenance

Ana

lys

is/

Op

tim

iza

tion

Even

t

Aggre

ga

tion

Even

t

Sequenc

ing

Even

t

Corre

lation

Rea

l-Time

Even

t

Process

ing

Figure 2 Service-Oriented Enterprise Reference Architecture (Source: Doculabs)


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Appendix B: The TechnologyLayers of an EnterpriseReference Architecture

This section provides additional

technical details on the layers of an


Enterprise Application and DataLayer

As shown in the preceding figure, the

core components in this network and

hardware focused layer include:

Servers In an SOA or grid

computing model, servers are seen

as shared processing resources.

Types of machines an organization

is likely to have in this layer include

the application servers (either

standalone or clustered), edge

servers, and potentially

workstations.

Storage Storage can take on many

forms, from redundant array of

independent disk (RAID) arrays, to

traditional direct access storage

device (DASD) and Network

Attached Storage, as well as storage

area networks (SANs) and

optical/tape output.

Network Devices These are

traditional components such as

routers and switches, as well as loadbalancers and system monitors.

Peripherals Enterprise peripherals

such as scanners and printers can

also be treated as shared

components in the SOA stack.

The critical objective for hardware and

network components in a services-

oriented architecture is to provide a

consistent architecture to allow forportability and the ability to distribute

components in a flexible, manageable

manner.

In order to take advantage of SOAs,

companies must organize their

underlying systems platform for

scalability and agility. Architectures

must provide high performance and

rapid scalability, and must also be able

to change to accommodate emerging

requirements. The keys to an agile

infrastructure investment for Internet

services deployment are to prepare a

transaction/user scaling model, develop

a comprehensive architecture, deploy on

a flexible infrastructure, and monitor

performance, while being prepared to

adapt to changing loads and emerging

requirements.

Networks enable services by integrating

legacy and new applications through

application servers, and this

infrastructure must be optimized for

agility and scalability. Generally,

customers will demand a services-based

infrastructure approach that features an

n-tier architecture, heterogeneous legacy

integration, multiplatform Java

technology, and a multi-level securitymodel.


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Many organizations that are seeking to

move to SOAs are migrating from static,

complex architectures to a necessarily

flexible model. In the late 1990s,building high-performance Internet

services meant splitting things up, and

decomposing functions at both the

service and task layer. Typical

architectures take a silo or partitioned

approach: dividing each separate

service onto separate hardware and

each layer of that service the web

server or the database server, for

instance onto separate hardware,

because these systems are divided into

discrete components that can be readily

scaled. In addition, availability is often

provided through dedicated, box-level

failover for each component.

The drawback of this design is limited

flexibility. Although this silo

architecture can provide high

performance, its limitations emerge

when the need to provide a new servicerequires creation of a new and separate

silo. In addition, the excess resources

included for availability are isolated in

the subcomponents and cannot be

readily repurposed. Applications are

built one at a time, with little

opportunity for re-use or integration, let

alone interoperability with other

organizational divisions or with external

partners.

By contrast, what is required for SOA is

an architecture that can scale rapidly

and can add new services or rebalance

existing services in a highly flexible

manner. This is achieved by design of

an architecture built on a common

services infrastructure and deployment

of this architecture on a consistent,universally deployed physical

architecture. This approach is very

similar to the fabric concept that

underlies grid computing models. These

models are extremely applicable to the

SOA concepts, in that they share the

same goal: that of a ubiquitous

processor and storage pool that can

support any service. Already, industry

leaders in the traditional application

server arena are taking notice of grid

computing as a complementary

extension to web services and service-

oriented architectures.

Two of the critical requirements to

support this vision at the hardware and

network level are symmetric multi-

processing and self-repairing

capabilities.

Clustering and Partitioning

Organizations are looking for ways to

provide highly available and reliable

infrastructures without making

extremely large investments in

hardware and software. Clustering and

application partitioning are methods

that are used to provide reliable and

available infrastructures at relatively

low cost. Clustering allows a group of

servers to appear as a single unit.

Benefits include simplified

management, improved fault tolerance,

and better scalability. A larger number

of less expensive systems can replace a


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smaller number of monolithic systems

and provide comparable or superior

performance and reliability.

To further improve availability and

scalability, application components can

be deployed across a group of servers

and accessed seamlessly across a

network. This arrangement can

significantly improve performance as

more component instances can be

started during peak times across a larger

number of systems. During non-peak

volumes, the system processing power

can be used for other applications or

tasks.

This capability is important in SOAs

because of the need to distribute and

execute services irrespective of location.

Self-Repairing Capability

Self-repairing networks include

dynamic routing and recoveryalgorithms that allow distributed

networks to detect faults in the node

connections and to find alternate routes,

or to re-establish links without operator

intervention. This capability relates to

the multiprocessing capability discussed

above in that the distributed loads

managed through multi-processing can

be better served with an adaptive

infrastructure. A complement to this is

network-based load balancing, which

can be leveraged in a self-repairing

environment to distribute processing

loads dynamically.

Eventually, technology assets such as

routers and load balancers will become

more aware of their roles related to

business applications. As network andhardware providers build more

intelligent equipment, it will become

possible to diagnose and profile

applications against the hardware to

further optimize performance and

quality of service levels.

Data Services Layer

This layer turns data systems and

existing business application into usefulinformation to be consumed by users

and systems in the application services

and business services layers. The data

services layer simplifies and speeds

access to information and also to

provide the data that helps orchestrate

processes across applications and even

across organizations. Without data

services making sound business

decisions would be impossible.

Key components of this layer include:

Adapters to data and applications

Data modeling

Legacy service abstraction


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Adapters

To combat the need for organizations to

build and re-build connections to well-

defined systems and applications,adapters a breed of off-the-shelf

software technology emerged to ease

this particular customer pain. Adapters

are generally self-contained components

that provide a mechanism to connect to

specific types of data and systems.

Adapters can be as simple as file access

adapters that allow the reading of a text

file from storage media, or as complex

as a rules-driven data access component

that connects to an enterprise resource

planning (ERP) system using one or

more protocols.

The core benefit to using a pre-built

adapter from a reputable solution

provider is that there is usually an

understanding that the solution

provider will ensure rapid updates as

data systems and applications are

updated, freeing an organization fromthe messy task of building costly one-off

integrations with their systems. The

types of adapters available on the

market today include the following:

Relational database adapters

These adapters typically are

available ubiquitously and are

inexpensive or free. They take

advantage of one or more commonrelational database access

technologies, including native

drivers, JDBC drivers, or ODBC

drivers, to name a few.

Legacy connections Specialized

adapters are available that allow

access to common legacy

applications.

Custom Application Programming

interfaces (APIs) The majority of

adapters for legacy systems and

applications take advantage of

existing APIs and related

programmer interfaces exposed by

the legacy or specialized application.

One example is SAP BAPI, a

programming interface exposed by

the SAP ERP system to allow

developers to access or extend the

functionality of the core product.

Component technology-based

adapters Many modern

applications and systems provide

interfaces to data and functionality,

using commonly accepted standards

for application component

technology. The most prevalenttoday are Enterprise Java Beans

(part of the Java 2 Enterprise Edition

specification by Sun/JavaSoft) and

Component Object Model (part of

Microsofts .NET application

framework). Some organizations still

use CORBA technology, but the

number of users is dwindling.

Web services Rather than a radicalnew technology, web services

provide a way to simplify access to

data and applications by leveraging

existing technology.


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Data Modeling

Effective use of the data in an

organizations systems is contingent

upon a clear understanding of theinterrelationships between the data

elements. Data modeling tools are used

for a number of purposes, including the

creation of metadata that describes the

relationship of data. A solid data model

allows for quick and easy access to

information across the enterprise in a

well-defined and common way.

Legacy Service Abstraction

One of the biggest hurdles organizations

face is making their generally

monolithic legacy applications useful in

business processes and new business

applications. The ability to break a

larger legacy application into functional

services is a daunting task that can be

accomplished via programming, or by

leveraging technology such as

application adapters to introspect and

extract only those services required toget to the functionality and data

required by a process or application.

Application and Business ServicesLayer

These two layers provide the critical

infrastructure and process automation

technology to keep business

applications running efficiently and

reliably within an organization. These

layers also provide the fundamental

utility services such as messaging that are

leveraged in all other layers of the


Without application and business

services, providing applications and

services for use across the enterprise

would be impossible.

Many components and services come

together to form application and

business services, including:

Abstraction layers

Event services

Grid computing and application

resource managers

Application services

Content / directory services

Integration and process

management services

Infrastructure management and

instrumentation

Abstraction Layers

The usefulness of middleware services

is limited in a service-oriented

architecture if those services are not

easily accessible by all parts of thearchitecture. As technologies evolve, it

is critical to shield applications from the

volatile nature of key technology

components by using abstraction layers.

Examples of these components include

data access adapters, workflow engines,

security services, and content

repositories. Abstraction layers are

simply standardized interfaces that are

used to communicate with underlying

sub-systems and components. These

abstraction layers do not change

significantly over time, from the

perspective of the consumer of service.


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A good example of an abstraction layer

is a Java Database Connectivity (JDBC)

or Open Database Connectivity (ODBC)

database driver. Developers can access avariety of generally proprietary

database technologies using the same

metaphor and access mechanisms. In

the ideal case, swapping out one

vendors database for another would

not require any changes to code that

calls the standardized JDBC or ODBC

layer.

Properly creating abstraction layers for

each componentized service allows for

flexibility in the future. Individual

components can be swapped out at will

and replaced by standalone or

customized components at any time.

Properly designing abstraction layers

also allows an organization to leverage

its existing resources and skills more

effective by focusing them on smaller

parts of a large problem, making it

easier to manage and increasing thelikelihood of success.

The goal of using abstraction layers is to

define coarse-grained services and

business functions that are derived from

existing legacy systems and

applications, that are frequently

monolithic and not very service

oriented.

Grid Computing and Application

Resource Managers

Service-oriented architectures tend to

componentize functionality into small

pieces that can be exe

Documents

The Dynamic Enterprise Reference Architecture_Whitepaper