Professional Documents
Culture Documents
972-97442444
18. 9.2007
Following various delays (vacation, holidays and heavy workload), the following is a
joint summary of the two meetings that took place. In this summary, we have tried not
to expose the identity of the organizations, while at the same time providing relevant
details.
Even though these were two separate meetings on different subjects, we decided to
summarize them together. This is because, in our opinion, architecture/CTO and SOA
EAI are matters that should always be interconnected.
The following is a brief summary of the messages that emerged from discussions. It is
followed by a more detailed description of comments by the various organizations:
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Moshav Bnei Zion P.O.Box 151, 60910 Israel Tel. 972-9-7444474 Fax. 972-97442444
projects managers, who might complain of “red tape” in getting the project
approved, are not heard.
o The project start-up stage: some organizations have held workshops for
business referents and department managers. It is also a good idea to
hold an SOA Roadmap Project for constructing a hierarchy of the
services in the organization.
o Construction of an ESB
• A customer noted that use is made of only 10% of the sizing of the ERP
system (since it transpired that the sizing was oversized…).
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Table of contents
Page
Communications domain organization 3
Financial domain organization 4
Financial domain organization 5
Public domain organization 6
Public domain organization 8
Communications domain organization 8
Health domain organization 9
Financial domain organization 9
Public domain organization 10
Public domain organization 11
Financial domain organization 11
Communications domain organization 13
The architect is located in the Billing branch but provides service to the entire
division in the domains of EAI and configuration management
There is no standard for new projects. Ad hoc decisions are made as to who
will form the team. Sometimes there is no one to fill a particular position on
the team. Whoever is operating the project decides whom to invite. There is
no control of procurement.
It transpires that people working on the same floor are unaware of parallel
developments! It is not customary to make the use of existing services or
functions compulsory. Management is content to merely publish the
information. For example, SMS message sending. The organization
discovered that there were 5 different methods for sending an SMS using
different SMS sending infrastructures. Sometimes a protocol was developed
for accessing the SMS machine.
Such reuse only recently commenced, although the EAI is highly developed.
Services are advertised on the SPS portal. Every project adduces new
services. There is no forum, but every so often, services are advertised that
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Moshav Bnei Zion P.O.Box 151, 60910 Israel Tel. 972-9-7444474 Fax. 972-97442444
may attract interest in the various categories of ERP, DW etc. The division
also held an internal road show. The definitions of the use of services (via
ESB) are: currently, usage is only recorded post factum. In future, the service
head will be asked how much he will want to use the service and he will be
provided with the service accordingly.
Team size
The Architecture Review (AR) process – the CTO examines each incoming
project and makes a recommendation (is it suited to the general architecture of
the organization?). This takes place primarily with new projects entering the
organization and not so much with updates/ versions of existing projects.
There are central control points – for example – procurement (nothing is
purchased without approval).
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Moshav Bnei Zion P.O.Box 151, 60910 Israel Tel. 972-9-7444474 Fax. 972-97442444
This is a large organization, with some 300 projects annually (the definition of
a “project”: more than one month’s work).
The CTO is the chair of the AR committee! In other words, the function of the
CTO is structured and forms a part of the set up of every project.
SOA EAI
In terms of services and SOA, organizations are still at the beginning of the
road. They already have thousands of services and there is no control. For
example, a table of permissions was set up to determine who has access.
In AR things are out of control. The question of who performs what function
has not been settled.
In DR, things are being discovered (meaning that people are discovering that
they have just developed something that already exists elsewhere); but
sometimes it is too late…
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Moshav Bnei Zion P.O.Box 151, 60910 Israel Tel. 972-9-7444474 Fax. 972-97442444
Despite the clear definition there are matters that are still not resolved. For
example, the matter of information security – which is also application related
(credit card numbers held in the system) and also infrastructures (breakout
from the WEB).
Organizational structure:
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Moshav Bnei Zion P.O.Box 151, 60910 Israel Tel. 972-9-7444474 Fax. 972-97442444
In this organization, the request for SOA came, oddly enough, from
management. The architect is currently trying to coordinate expectations. The
plan is, at the initial stage, to hire an architect to lead the SOA in the
organization. Some perplexity has arisen with regard to interfaces in SAP. Use
will be made of XI but also of BizTalk.
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Moshav Bnei Zion P.O.Box 151, 60910 Israel Tel. 972-9-7444474 Fax. 972-97442444
Organizational structure
There is a CTO who does not choose and operate infrastructures, but handles
all matters connected with research and development, and is administratively
responsible. In other words, the CTO is in charge of all “technological
standardization” in the organization (standards of connectivity, RFID and so
forth).
Organizational structure:
CTO of IT. The organization has an engineering division and has recently
been trying to combine engineering and IT into a unified architecture. For
example: at present, there are still two separate command and control
environments. In the past, EAI was part of the infrastructures, but today, it is
being transferred to the applications domain.
Project process:
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Moshav Bnei Zion P.O.Box 151, 60910 Israel Tel. 972-9-7444474 Fax. 972-97442444
Organizational structure:
There is a CTO and he has an architect subordinate to him. The CTO also
serves, in practise, as infrastructures manager.
Handling of projects:
System
DBMS
Connectivity
And, today, also information security
In major projects – meetings with suppliers take place even prior to the
invitation to tender - with the CTO and architect and also system and DBA.
There are comments – on the basis of the standards documents.
The documents are divided into mandatory and not so mandatory.
Then, when an application is received, the organization conducts the tests
separately – which it is to say: on its own.
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Moshav Bnei Zion P.O.Box 151, 60910 Israel Tel. 972-9-7444474 Fax. 972-97442444
Part of the ESB will be a central conversions service, whereby any system that
wishes to make a conversion will do so and will handle translations, and
insertion of values.
Another layer is the repository – documentation of services. A pilot test was
run with SAG – centrasite. They tested it: the central library for the
documentation of services in the organization.
There is also run time governance - SLA control and also security. They
purchased amberpoint and have already implemented 2 activities – all external
elements approach MF – AMBER makes SLA and priority. And the AMBER
is also a proxy that decides who enters into the MF. In other words, it
performs information security. An additional technology for information
security is IBM’s datapower, a product that knows how to transfer a token
between services and also enables use of the LDAP. In future, the AMBER
will report on the usage (possible for the purchase of chargeback) and on the
SLA to the repository.
In future, businessmen, using BPM, will outline the business process; and
using BPEL, the process will forward instruction for running in. Today they
are discussing how this should be done with Organization and Methods. They
will locate a business process that needs several activities. And they will
determine what to do. In future they will decide which BPM tool – the
Modeller process server.
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Moshav Bnei Zion P.O.Box 151, 60910 Israel Tel. 972-9-7444474 Fax. 972-97442444
How was entry effected, what did they manage to do in the organization?
Special example
Conclusion
In the long run, in his opinion, there will be SOA but not a genuine SOA that
unifies the entire organization.
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Moshav Bnei Zion P.O.Box 151, 60910 Israel Tel. 972-9-7444474 Fax. 972-97442444
a layer of all conversions that the businesses update with flexible operating
methods.
BPM – this is being tested over ESB. The BPM assimilation activity is
complicated because it necessitates involvement of the business.
Organizational structure
The organization defines an SOA project and allocates a budget. This is a most
important project on CIO level.
There is an organizational steering committee for the SOA headed by the CIO
and meeting once every two weeks. The steering committee is demonstrating
successes, and showing what others have enjoyed.
There is also an organizational architectural team that meets once every two
weeks – a general team.
At present – processes are being developed for – construction of service,
consumption of service, file transfer and so forth. Forms and procedures are
being prepared.
It is starting at present. There is a list of services. When there is a request for a
new service – it is circulated to everyone, to all the organization’s team leaders
and also to business referents.
There is also a prioritization forum.
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Moshav Bnei Zion P.O.Box 151, 60910 Israel Tel. 972-9-7444474 Fax. 972-97442444
The SOA manager holds separately monthly meetings with each of the
development teams to discuss the services and also any future services and
requests from the business.
SOA EAI - is a means and not an end. For several years they have been
developing services. The services are localized. For example – AMDOCS is
exposing servers in UNIX. The object is to achieve exposure to net or WS.
Interfaces have been opened for the purpose
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