| ------------------------------------- BrainStorm Bulletin e-newsletter of BrainStorm Group November 20, 2003 -------------------------------------
==================================================== -- INTRODUCTION: ==================================================== BrainStorm New York had a fantastic turn out - we were thrilled to host over 500 Business and IT executives. Once again, the one-on-one meetings were a big hit with attendees! For this issue we are covering two of the presentations from the Business Integration and Web Services side of BrainStorm New York. The first is by JP Morgenthal, Author of Enterprise Application Integration with XML & Java. He explained the need for a Taxonomy of Web Services. JP made the difficult and broad ranging subject of Web Services easy to understand by showing how creating a taxonomy, or a system of classifying, defining, and organizing what Web Services are and do, simplifies the whole process of understanding, creating, and deploying them. Read about what JP has to say about Web Services below. The second presentation is by Bill Chambers of Doculabs. His subject was, "Moving beyond the Buzz, Understanding and Effectively Utilizing Business Process Management." The definition of BPM has expanded lately, to cover almost every process that involves people and systems. Many can be automated or at least streamlined, and companies are using BPM to do this. Bill's talk centered on the characteristics of BPM solutions, how and where they work, and which vendors are the best choice depending on which process and strategy is followed. If you have questions on using BPM in your enterprise, this presentation is a good place to start. Read about Bill's presentation below. It isn't too early to mention that BrainStorm Chicago is scheduled for April 13-15 - mark your calendar. In the meantime, sign up at www.BrainStormU.com to hear the audio and view the slides for all of the presentations at BrainStorm New York. Lets Talk in Chicago! Best Regards,
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| ================================================= New York Featured Keynote: A Web Services Taxonomy, JP Morgenthal Web Services and service-oriented architectures have great promise to enhance integration efforts and streamline many business processes. But despite emerging standards that should hasten their adoption, many problems still exist. This session in New York covered the need for a system to classify and organize what Web Services actually do, and how they can be used. JP Morgenthal calls for developing a taxonomy that normalizes Web Services and exposes basic best practices around their deployment. JP's talk in New York was a more visionary look at the impact of Web Services on business integration, and what it will mean for the industry. "Taxonomy (from the Greek 'taxis' meaning arrangement or division, and 'nomos' meaning law) is the science of classification according to a pre-determined system, with the resulting catalog used to provide a conceptual framework for discussion, analysis, or information retrieval." JP Morgenthal is an internationally prominent expert on the design and implementation of distributed systems for the enterprise, and the underlying technologies of Java, XML, EAI and B2B. He is the author of "Enterprise Application Integration with XML & Java," and the Chief Architect for the Professional Services Group at Software AG. JP posed the question, "Can a well-understood organization of software by role and function really simplify my ability to buy software and build solutions?" In reviewing the history of business computing and how we got to where we are, he said that out of the mainframes of the 70s, we went to distributed computing and applications, and then the Internet and each shift led to a different pattern of buying software and solutions. Buying software today is complex and has a cookie-cutter feel to it, according to JP. The current ways of buying software are:
The problem with one-vendor solutions is that the vendor ends up doing anything they want for whatever price because there is no competition. Buying best-of-breed means spending double for integration while building it yourself means limited scalability and doubling the risk. None of these approaches works very well. This problem, coupled with the hodge-podge of corporate infrastructure that has evolved over time, makes it difficult to see any clear way to integration. JP showed a slide with a typical company's computing infrastructure and the different hardware and software configurations and protocols. Adding Web Services to this does add some simplicity. The message and transport layers have helped build a more simplified approach to distributed applications. "Web Services is a messaging protocol built out of XML which has allowed us to simplify the communications between existing systems. This is the hope and promise of a service-oriented architecture," according to JP. JP thinks that Web Services will change the way we build, buy, and deploy software. "I have been working with some key customers with the deployment of a service-oriented architecture and I can tell you for a fact that the time to build a solution has reduced dramatically. The cost to develop these solutions has dropped dramatically, and the simplicity of deploying has become much easier." A definition of a Web Service is:
JP then began covering what we can do with Web Services, the actual taxonomy. (see above definition) Having a way to organize what a Web Service is and does simplifies the approach to buying the software and implementing the applications. Level One Taxonomy: (high level) Data Services
Orchestration Services
Image and Multimedia Services
Business Services
Management Services
Security Services
Community Benefits include:
JP said that no system is going to be perfect, and there is still a lot of confusion about Web Services. There are risks associated with the taxonomy. There is limited vendor growth, such as in the application server market. There used to be 30 vendors and now there are only a few and they aren't innovating. JP pointed out, however, that even given the worst-case scenarios, the state of software development today is so bad that almost everything is an improvement. He said it is up to the user community to demand that interfaces be standard and software be classified by the vendors so that users can see how it can be used for their data. There were more than ten minutes of questions at the end of his talk To listen to JP's presentation and view his slides, log on to www.BrainStormU.com. Jon Huntress ================================================= Join BPMInstitute.org - A Peer to Peer Exchange for Business Process Management Professionals: www.BPMInstitute.org Complimentary Membership for 2004 when you join by 12/31/03! Join today at http://www.bpminstitute.org/join.html ================================================= BrainStorm New York Track Keynote: Moving beyond the Buzz, Understanding and Effectively Utilizing Business Process Management by Bill Chambers of Doculabs The term, "Business Process Management" has been broadened so that it is now considered to be almost any business function or set of functions that involve the interaction of people and systems and especially distributed systems both within and outside the enterprise. Bill Chambers defined what PBM means today, gave examples of its use, the characteristics of BPM solutions, and what vendors are offering in this space. He also gave BrainStorm attendees a look at where BPM is going for the future. Bill Chambers is a principal analyst at Doculabs and has 20 years of experience providing analysis and consulting, with expertise in, business process management, content management, customer service, marketing automation and other emerging business technologies. Bill began his talk by explaining that not every vendor solution is a BPM solution, no matter what they tell you. "I am going to tell you what the difference is among workflow vendors, solution providers, and BPM vendors. There is a difference, and it is significant. It makes a big difference depending on your process management strategy and the type of applications and architecture you're building around the space. Also, not every business application requires a BPM solution. You have to be very careful. There is a lot of hype. Some BPM solutions are significantly more expensive then those in the workflow category," he said. Bill defines BPM as: "Frameworks and solutions used to develop and implement multiple types of process automation applications involving human intervention as well as straight-through processing." Bill said that customers are looking for BPM solutions that are a development framework with a single platform that they can use to build out all the process management applications they want. The new BPM solutions go far beyond the workflow solutions of just a couple years ago. The key characteristics of BPM are:
Bill showed several slides showing how the BPM architecture stack works and how the stack would look for a company in financial services and for a government entity, giving examples of how it works in specific situations. Bill went into detail on the above BPM characteristics starting with the process design and development.
The future trend is for increased adoption of BPM as an enterprise process management platform with major enhancements in modeling, monitoring, and analytics. Application server vendors are planning to provide a single platform for all BPM, application development, and integration services. Bill ended his talk by pointing out that BPM tools will not fix broken processes. "Don't automate existing, horrible processes," Bill emphasized. It is very important to examine your process thoroughly, define the high-priority requirements for both current and future BPM applications, and to optimize the tools and relationships you already have in place. You can hear all of Bill's talk, listen to the Q & A, and see his slides by logging on to www.BrainStormU.com. Jon Huntress ================================================= A Collaboration
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