The Next Generation Enterprise

Transcription

1 The Next Generation Enterprise Author: Ravi Kumar Buragapu Technical Architect Abstract This white paper describes the potentials of next generation enterprise technologies and software services that have the capability to deliver zero-footprint, Web-based business applications that are easier to build, cheaper, more reusable, and more maintainable. Ravi Kumar Buragapu Page 1 11/24/2006

2 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION. 3 THE SERVICE ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE...3 SOA REFERENCE MODEL....5 SOFTWARE-AS-A-SERVICE SOFTWARE-AS-A-SERVICE ARCHITECTURE... 7 SOFTWARE-AS-A-SERVICE PROCESS MODEL TRADITIONAL SOFTWARE SERVICES MODEL SOFTWARE-AS-A-SERVICE PROCESS MODEL COMPOSITE APPLICATIONS & ENTERPRISE MASHUPS INFERENCE...11 Ravi Kumar Buragapu Page 2 11/24/2006

3 INTRODUCTION The traditional model for selling high-end business software is very inefficient, and is based on investing huge sums of money in sending out sales people to find and persuade prospects to buy the software. The traditional heavyweight, expensive and pay-huge-license-fees-upfront then try-to-implement-forever model does not work anymore. Furthermore, why do we buy software? Is it so we can have the joy of owning servers, doing backups, patches and maintenance? Of course not! We buy software to get things done. We want to use the services it provides and frankly if we could let someone else manage the headaches all the better. Of course several Open Source packages are available completely free, which is a perfect solution for the cost problem, but frankly most of these packages are by geeks for geeks; i.e. you really have to be quite ITsavvy to implement, integrate, upgrade them, and as we stated most small businesses simply do not have that type of resource. The objective of this paper is to describe the brave new world of next generation software services that provides All the benefits of enterprise software. A faster way to business value. A managed approach that frees staff resources. A low-risk option for enterprise management. A predictable way to achieve better outcomes. THE SERVICE ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE (SOA) SOA is a architecture and programming model, a way of thinking about building software. An SOA enables you to design software systems that provide services to other applications through published and discoverable interfaces, and where the services can be invoked over a network. When you implement an SOA using Web services technologies, you create a new way of building applications within a more powerful, flexible programming model. You can reduce your development and ownership costs-and your implementation risk. It's important to understand that Web service does not equal SOA. Web services is a collection of technologies, including XML, Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Web Services Description Language (WSDL) and Universal Description, Discover and Integration (UDDI), Ravi Kumar Buragapu Page 3 11/24/2006

4 which allow you to build programming solutions for specific messaging and application integration problems. Over time, these technologies can be expected to mature, and eventually be replaced with better, moreefficient, more-robust technology. But for the moment, the existing technologies are sufficient, and have already proven that you can implement an SOA today. SOA is the next wave of application development. Web services and SOA are about designing and building systems using heterogeneous network-addressable software components. Primary characteristics of an SOA are Services are used to divide larger applications into smaller discrete modules. Services are integrated via service composition mechanisms to create larger applications. A service in SOA is an exposed piece of functionality with four properties. 1. Firstly, the interface that contract to the service is platformindependent. 2. The service can be dynamically located and invoked is the second property. 3. Thirdly, the service is self-contained. That is, the service maintains its own state. 4. Finally, the feature of having a neutral interface definition is known as loose coupling between services. It is not strongly tied to a particular implementation. A Service is a callable routine that is made available over a network. Services have well-defined interfaces. The interfaces are often published in a directory. With increasing adoption of SOA, RIA and other emerging trends discussed above, enterprises will become service providers and will no longer dictate the type of applications built and deployed on the enterprise IT infrastructure. An ecosystem of applications built upon services will clearly benefit the enterprise. Web services are becoming the preferred standards-based SOA approach for enabling external enterprise integration, leading to confusion between SOA and Web Services. Ravi Kumar Buragapu Page 4 11/24/2006

5 Simply remember that SOA is architecture and Web Services is one current implementation technology that can be used to achieve SOA. Discovery Discovered Services Service Information Service Description References Encompasses Demands Data Model Contract SOA Reference Model SOAs offer the following advantages over traditional approaches to distributed computing: They offer business services across the platforms They provide location independence Services need not be at a particular system or particular network Completely loosely coupled approach Authentication and authorization support at every level The search and connectivity to other services is dynamic Ravi Kumar Buragapu Page 5 11/24/2006

6 Benefits from the perspective of 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 Although Web services were not conceived as an integration technology, they can be effective in the application-integration process. Web services provide a standard way to expose application interfaces through XML (Extensible Markup Language) and WSDL (Web Services Description Language). They also use a standard way to communicate, via SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol). These features help reduce the cost and complexity of integration, as well as the cost and complexity of building new applications. Web services are made even more interesting by the fact that they are supported by both.net and J2EE, and run equally well on both platforms. Therefore, Web services are ideal for bridging the two platforms. SOFTWARE-AS-A-SERVICE (SaaS) It's a common experience among software companies today with increasing cost pressure, high customer expectations, and global competition all placing new demands on development and delivery processes. Software as a Service, or SaaS, is proving to be the wave of the future, enabling software companies to significantly reduce their time-to-market and time-to-profitability. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is a fairly a new delivery mechanism that defined for supporting SOA concept. It provides application designed from the scratch to be delivered as online services, and enables end users to use software without worrying about downloads, upgrades, patches, and other issues related to traditional applications We believe that SaaS is going to have a major impact on the software industry, because software as a service will change the way people build, sell, buy, and use software. Ravi Kumar Buragapu Page 6 11/24/2006

7 There can be no question that Software as a Service (SaaS) is changing the landscape of the software industry. And it s no longer just hype beyond pure-play. Smart Client Browser Metadata Services Process Services Presentation Security Services Directory Services Business Services Metadata File System Database Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Architecture SaaS applications must be specially designed for deployment to multiple customers. The various hosting options can have a big impact on how well the software scales and performs as users are added. one of the highest priorities for a prospective SaaS architect is creating a SaaS data architecture that is both robust and secure enough to satisfy tenants or clients who are concerned about surrendering control of vital business data to a third party, while also being efficient and costeffective to administer and maintain, an organization must surrender a level of control over its own data, trusting the SaaS vendor to keep it safe and away from prying eyes. Ravi Kumar Buragapu Page 7 11/24/2006

8 Most true SaaS offerings are built on an SOA foundation. SOA provides an easier platform to add additional features and greatly simplifies integration with other systems and services via web services, greatly enhancing the value of the application to the customer. SaaS Process Model SaaS is more of providing services with both behavior and information for use within the enterprise, or perhaps with other Web-based applications (dare I say mashups). Indeed, we are not outsourcing entire applications, but outsourcing services or processes, and have the power to mix and match processes to meet the exact requirements of the enterprise. This is no longer about selling perpetual licenses. When defining the product strategy we have to think about the underlying business model. Are our revenues based on Monthly Per User fees, Transaction based or an Advertising Supported model? This not only impacts the billing structure and the level of features that we need to build into the software, but also the strategy we use to migrate customers from our on-premise to the On-Demand offering. Finance Finance CRM CRM Portal Collaboration Enterprise User Traditional Software Service Model Today, SaaS applications are expected to take advantage of the benefits of centralization through a single-instance, multi-tenant architecture, and to provide a feature-rich experience competitive with comparable Ravi Kumar Buragapu Page 8 11/24/2006

9 on-premise applications. A typical SaaS application is offered either directly by the vendor or by an intermediary party called an aggregator, which bundles SaaS offerings from different vendors and offers them as part of a unified application platform. SaaS-Finance Solution Software Services Portfolio Finance SaaS-CRM Solution CRM Integrated Architecture Composite Architecture Enterprise User Portal Collaboration SaaS - Process Model In contrast to the one-time licensing model commonly used for onpremise software, SaaS application access is frequently sold using a subscription model, with customers paying an ongoing fee to use the application. Fee structures vary from application to application; some providers charge a flat rate for unlimited access to some or all of the application's features, while others charge varying rates that are based on usage. On the technical side, the SaaS provider hosts the application and data centrally deploying patches and upgrades to the application transparently, and delivering access to end users over the Internet through a browser or smart-client application. Many vendors provide application programming interfaces (API) that expose the applications data and functionality to developers for use in creating composite applications. A variety of security mechanisms can be used to keep sensitive data safe in transmission and storage. Applications providers Ravi Kumar Buragapu Page 9 11/24/2006

10 might provide tools that allow customers to modify the data schema, workflow, and other aspects of the application's operation for their use. COMPOSITE APPLICATIONS & ENTERPRISE MASHUPS Software reuse has been a holy grail of the industry for decades and this is one of the very reasons mashups are so fascinating. Indeed, mashups make reuse happen at several different levels. As part of the adoption and implementation of SOA in the enterprise, we have also seen the emergence of Composite Applications. A composite application is composed of other applications and services, often including coordination between those services. In the Web 2.0 world, this concept is often referred to as a Mashup. A mashup is a website or web application that uses content from more than one source to create a completely new service. Enterprise mashup services will combine information from enterprise search engines, Web services, messaging systems, BI engines and data integration solutions with information from external services. Just type in the city and state and up pops a Google map populated with the cell tower locations. How'd they do that? Well, the cell towers are registered with the FCC. They took that information and compiled it into a searchable database. Then, by presenting that information within Google Maps, they provided a simple but very effective graphical interface to display towers within the area. So, they mashed up the FCC information with Google Maps, and provided a completely new service from the pairing. Mapping mashups are all the rage, simply because they transform data into a visual aid, which is often localized. That makes it a more meaningful, and ultimately more useful, service. Like the above example, it transforms raw, flat data into interactive information. Here's another example: After you've ordered something online, have you ever clicked on the link to track your package and had the information passed from UPS or Fedex? We will me more interested in seeing where is the package is, we would much rather see its progress charted on a map rather than reading a boring text list of destinations. Nevertheless, It wouldn't be surprised to hear of legal issues arising out of some mashups. For instance, is the data or a service truly open for Ravi Kumar Buragapu Page 10 11/24/2006

11 anyone to mash it up with another service? Some may be limited by their Terms of Service. Mashups are collaborative compositions of online capabilities within rich user interfaces, while Service-Oriented Business Applications are declarative compositions of Services within the context of a Service- Oriented Architecture implementation. Today, these two concepts are merging into the Enterprise Mashup, a governed, secure composition of Services within a rich user environment. INFERENCE What we're seeing is that the SaaS model changes not only the technology and the delivery of software to customers, but the marketing and sales process, too, which is perhaps where most of the excess "fat" can be cut from. Software companies can now directly and affordably reach millions of small customers. The entire marketing, sales, delivery, implementation, support, upgrade process is seamless, highly standardized, conducted via the Net, teleconferencing, Webex-like sharing in new low-cost ways. The challenges to developing and delivering SaaS products are significant, but with the right SaaS partners, software companies can reap the rewards and avoid the pitfalls. By adopting an integrated and coordinated SaaS development platform, coupled with a rock-solid SaaS delivery platform, software companies are in a strong position to continuously respond to customer needs with efficiently produced product capabilities, building customer loyalty and ensuring a steady, recurring revenue stream. Getting SaaS applications to market introduces a new set of issues requiring software companies to not only change their delivery platform, but also their development mindset. That's a daunting prospect, to say the least. ALLUSION Few insights on what s the philosophy and vision of the world on the next generation enterprise Ravi Kumar Buragapu Page 11 11/24/2006