What is common between SOA and BI projects?

(This is one of my favorite topics, so please bear with the long post…)

Both kinds of projects fail to deliver their promises most of the times…! :-)

Here are some evidences – Anne from Burton group reports that SOA is not working in most of the organizations. She also adds that many companies have stunningly beautiful SOA infrastructure and deployed the best technology. Yet those initiatives fall out. I can personally vouch for this statement. I have seen the same experience in the recent past. And more importantly, she says Techies have not been able to communicate the value of SOA to business partners!. Absolutely true! Out of the interviews she conducted so far, She confirms there is only one company that can be classified to have done true SOA.

What a startling observation?

While System Integrators are boasting of 100s and even 1000s of SOA case studies, an industry analyst says there is only one. It all boils down to the question of - do we understand SOA enough?

Now coming to BI projects, my fellow architect in the team confirms 40% of BI projects typically fail to meet their objectives purely because of data quality, data ownership issues. 40% is not a small number, especially when we deploy fancy DW/BI tools in place.

Now, what is so common between these projects?

As I have written in mashup posts, anything beyond plain vanilla operations – say Operational Excellence, Generating Insights/Analytics, Growth, Innovation, Governance, Reuse and Sharing – requires not just ‘tools and technologies’ but the ‘people’s hearts and soul/Passion & Energy’.

If the SOA/BI/Mashup initiatives do not culturally transform the company in terms of org structure & collaboration, they are bound to fail immediately.

As I have written a comment in Anne’s post, these projects to take off and provide real business value, it requires change agents in the company. And IT architects/ consultants and Project Managers do not have enough credibility or skills in performing the role of change agents and that’s where the root cause of the problem lies. To perform real changes, it requires a leader who understands the potential of SOA/BI projects, articulates effectively to stakeholders and persuades the people to buy it for their goodness. And that’s not easy!. And that is typically thankless job!

Some of the similarities I could list:
1. SOA deals with owenership of services. BI has to deal with Ownership of data. When the projects need to deal with multiple owners for a single initiative where they have no immediate benefits, there is a challenge
2. Semantics is important to SOA. Data Quality and Semantics are both important to BI projects. Both cannot be achieved easily / automated easily and requires peoples’ knowledge and collaboration.
3. Both initiatives require Strong Governance processes
4. Both the initiatives have challenges in terms of defining the ROI and achieving it pragmatically.
And there could be few more…

Windows 7 Sensors!

Another revolution in waiting…! The ‘internet of Things’ could soon become a reality!.
While lot of unofficial news floating around about Windows 7 and its features!. I was curious about one feature that is ‘Sensors’, naturally because of my company’s expertise in Sensors market.
Though Microsoft has not clearly articulated the features of Windows 7 in detail, it was exciting to imagine the potential of this new feature. It is stated that one of the goals of sensor-enabling Windows is to provide a platform for enabling ‘context-aware’ applications in Windows. The sensors will provide the context of where the PC is in current location and the Windows app will react based on the context.
Some of the windows applications that could be sensor enabled are – Outlook where the app interacts with Multi-touch sensors to drag and drop emails from/to folders, Windows App automatically adjusts the monitor brightness/contract based on the room lighting arrangements using a light sensor, etc.
Now, this is just the beginning…!
Imagine the possibilities – Like Windows automatically detects the standard devices like USB, Cameras, etc, will the new Windows 7 automatically detect the sensors like accelerometers & barometers?
And the biggest advantage will arrive when Windows application starts to interact with those sensors in bi-directional communication. That’s when the Windows starts directly to interact with real world in real-time and becomes truly enabled to provide a whole new range of new applications – like Thermostats/Temperature control, device control/remote control for home based devices. Nokia is already doing lot of experiments with Mobile Sensors. And it would be a great to see the sensory mechanism is built directly into the hardware and software/OS infrastructure so that value-added business applications can be easily developed on top of the platform. This could be the beginning of next generation business applications!

Are you ready to develop Smart Web Apps?

When I am trying to hard to create just a ‘tag cloud’ in this blog, Reuters, using its Calais web services takes any unstructured content, understands it and discovers the entities, events, relations and categories in the text and returns the results in RDF context.
Now backtracking a little…
What if your traditional business model gets challenged by the Globalized and Connected Environment?. Will you Surrender, survive or Lead?. The ‘Reuters’ says it will Lead. Very Timely, Intelligent and Courageous Move by the Leadership at Reuters.
When the information is redundant, open and freely available in the internet, why would any one want to pay for the information (to Reuters)?. It looks like Reuters has clearly understood threats and opportunities in the changing world and responded with not just a fitting response but leads the way for information-centric companies.
In the world of abundant information, it’s the ‘attention’ and ‘quality of information’ is scarce and that is what Reuters planning to monetize on. To provide high-quality content that would be useful to its customers, Reuters have turned to one of the most promising technologies of the next generation Internet – that is – Semantic Web. And the result is its acquisition of ClearForest technologies.
The smarter the web gets using Calais Web Services, the more the benefits for Reuters. The fact is Reuters will be in a much better position to deliver high-quality information and insights into its customers, not just raw data.
As far as end-users are concerned, pls do check out Open Calais website. The potential of these services look promising. As a blogger keys-in the text in the blog post, the wordpress blog plugin enriched by the Calais will understand the patterns and recommend pictures from Flickr. Sounds Cool!
Think about these possibilities in real business applications…And am sure the Semantic Web has the potential to generate the next killer app!

Pervasive Computing @ LeapFrog

Couple of Years before, I bought a LeapFrog learning pad in Canada for my son. I found the experience very impressive. The device enables a range of catridges to be loaded and learning different subjects with kids-specific themes. The catridges are sold separately and it works offline independently with no need to connect to computer to play those catridges.
Now back to 2008/2009, Same company is set for launching next-generation transformational services. The same LeapPad devices can be connected to internet. By connecting the leappad devices to your computer which in turn connected to the net, the device can directly talk to LeapPad Services hosted on the web. There is a host of services to be made available - like new games/learning modules, tracking kids' learning pace/activities, Sharing the learning with Teachers via Web. Now, thats what I call as a True Transformation towards SOA. A device that was once passive and selling only standalone products, comesup with a 'services' business model. The business model opens immense opportunties for LeapPad as well as for Parents and Children. It adds more interactivity and liveliness to the learning experience. Above all, it turns the device 'smarter' and 'connected'. And Look at the way things change where connectivity becomes Ubiquitous. But what would have been really nice is that - if the devices themselves could talk to the Web Services directly without needing for connecting to a computer. Maybe that will follow next...
Now, coming to the IT part, the way they have built the IT system that supports this service-oriented business model is also impressive. No Big-Bang System Integrators, No Complex Vendor Products, Open-Source style development, Geographically distributed teams, Empowered Team members, Specification-driven Development, Least-expensive, Open-Source software and Faster Time-to-Market. If you are seriously thinking about achieving a 'Faster' SOA, then you should not miss this story. This case study also disproves the fact that SOA is complex and time-consuming. There are many different ways one can venture into SOA and which class to follow purely depends solely on one's Organizational needs and culture.

Oracle Fusion Apps in 2010 : Anyone waiting?

Are you surprised that Oracle Fusion was not in the limelight during the recent Oracle OpenWorld 2008 event?. Well, it looks like there are valid reasons. For one, Oracle Fusion Apps may not be available to the customers until 2010. And the rest of the reasons follow...
I have always questioned the value of 'Big SOA' as called by ERP vendors. And this recent CIO article only helps to validate my opinion. Some of the important observations from the article:
1. It is going to be hard to justify a ROI for the new product (Fusion)
2. There is no competitive pressure from other vendors like Microsoft and SAP to achieve a faster time-to-market
3. Above all, there is no pressure / demand from customers for the new product
Same goes with SAP's SOA story as well. But, SAP is committing billions of dollars towards revamping their product and creating a completely new breed of ecosystem to support ESOA. But, What is the business case for an existing SAP ERP customer to move to ESOA ecosystem?. I have not found a compelling answer yet.
Given the fact that SAP/Microsoft and Oracle are delaying their SOA offerings,Guess who is benefitting from it?. Its none other than IBM. If an existing ERP customer wants to do SOA 'today', the cohesive & comprehensive solution could be built out using IBM SOA infrastructure.
Am not trying to sell IBM products here. But the message I wanted to pass across is that 'There is no SOA without a compelling business case. And Make sure you have one before deep diving into SOA, especially Big SOA'.

Google Patent hints at new dimension of Mobile Applications

Google has filed a patent application which "suggests it is planning to rid users of the need to choose a single network at all. The patent describes a system where instead of always connecting to one network, a phone, laptop or other wireless device invites all available networks to bid for your business."
If this patent comes to reality, it will mean a lot of convinience for end-users - Switching from one network to another multiple times a day to get the best rate for more bandwidth. Yes, changing the cellular/connectivity network and mode of communication on demand!. (Wi-Fi/CDMA or GSM). Ok!. This is purely from economic perspective!.
What does this mean for Mobile apps?. Hypothetically, for this patent to work, a thick client has to be installed in the Mobile device that directly communicates with service providers or to a central Google gateway to perform the tariff negotiations. The negotiations and agreements can be based on pre-configured preferences/business rules or the application can automatically pick up the best rate. Now, doesn't this sound like a B2B scenario where the buyer and seller gets into receiving quotes, negotiating over the quotes and making a purchase order?.
It sounds exactly the same.
So what we are talking about is that - Mobile applications would be Smarter, Intelligent and Do more Hardwork than in the past, Can work in the background while the user is working on some other application on the device. I could see these applications getting directly into the OS layer like Android to enable the app to execute seamlessly in the background.
Am sure more such apps would emerge in the future that would 'quietly' do the value addition. Incidentally, this idea alignes with Microsoft's strategy on Software + Services, where the Services are delivered from the cloud and Software sits on your device and possess the intelligence!

Oracle on Amazon Cloud

Amazon Cloud computing is gaining enterprise credibility. Now with the biggest announcement, Oracle Database, Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Enterprise Manager can be licensed to run within Amazon EC2 Cloud. Customers can even reuse their existing licenses with no additional licensing fees to run in the cloud. These products along with Oracle Enterprise Linux are prepackaged and ready to run in the Amazon cloud. In addition to that, Oracle Developer tools and Middleware are readily availabile to build and host enterprise applications on the cloud.
Thats definitely a welcome change!. Now, Provisioning, Building and Deploying applications on the Oracle suite does not need a huge upfront / capital expenditure on the hardware infrastructure and all can be done within minutes!.
But, this only means that the enterprise customers will get an advantage at leveraging Hardware/Infrastructure-as-a-Service and they may need to wait till the next level of granularity of services arrive, which is Oracle itself becoming available as Software-as-Service.
One more interesting observation was - with recent acquisition Oracle has made out of BEA systems, having double the power of SOA/middlware platforms, Why didn't Oracle decide to build and host its own SaaS platform?. Instead, why did it decide to partner with Amazon's cloud?
The answer only adds credibility to Amazon in the Cloud Market and I believe this move by Oracle may invite some more Enterprise vendors to Amazon Cloud. Would it be SAP?

Social Media - Yet another Delivery Channel?

While we talk about Multi-channel / Pervasive applications, have we ever thought of Social Media websites as one of the delivery channels?. And thats the news today...Gone are the days where the customers will reach out to company's website to access their applications.
The trend today is that...Apps are reaching out to customers where they are...
I was thrilled to see this - Online Banking Module for Facebook called MyMoney. This module offers transactional online banking services to Facebook users such as view account balances, review account history and transfer funds right within the Facebook itself.
What this means is that Facebook / Social Media websites are slowly emerging as Enterprise Application Delivery platforms where company's can unleash a whole new set of services targeted at Generation Y. And the added bonus is the viral marketing where the existing connections among members can be easily leveraged for marketing new products/services. The possibilities are immense.
And it looks like Top banks have realised the potential as well. Its impressive to see what Wells Forgo is doing in web 2.0 / Social Media space. And as of yesterday, Wachovia Bank has ventured into using Twitter to reach out to customers.
And Apple iPhone Store has quite a few serious apps including Financial services.
This proliferation of apps trend in web 2.0 can be taken for granted by the Gen Y customers and companies may need to seriously evaluate the options for venturing into web 2.0 / Social Media. Today, if a company does not have an online presence / very good online presence, its brand value may be affected which may eventually lead to reduced sales / customers. Similarly, in future, the company's may be forced to have a presence in the Social media sites as well..

Can your competitor innovate for you?

Yes, its possible...and thats called 'Open Innovation'. :-)
SAP attempts to innovate in web 2.0 style. It has tied up 'Innocentive', an Open Innovation marketplace. It connects people from various organizations, academia, talented people across the world who are looking for breakthrough innovation. The platform has so far been used for Pharma, and Retail industries and this is the first time a technology company like SAP has ventured into this paradigm. Am sure there would be tons of IP issues involved in terms of incorporating the open ideas into the product and licensing it out.
But, its a good start. Now, anyone in the world can contribute to the product development at SAP. I have been a subscriber to Innocentive mailing list for quite sometime now. It is interesting to see such a quiet firm suddenly getting the media attention by association with industry leader like SAP. I wouldn't be surprised if more such technology industry leaders join the bandwagon!

Do you know what is Imagineering?

Of course, you can guess - Imagination + Engineering. Walt Disney is the pioneer in creating a Organization known as 'Imagineering' that does the master planning, creative development, design, engineering, production, project management, and research and development arm of The Walt Disney Company and its affiliates. Representing more than 150 disciplines, its talented corps of Imagineers is responsible for the creation of Disney resorts, theme parks and attractions, hotels, water parks, real estate developments, regional entertainment venues, cruise ships and new media technology projects.
In simple terms, Imagineering is defined as 'the fine art of deciding where we go from here'. What a simple and elegant definition!.
In this discipline, imagination/innovation is not seen as extra frills. It is blended with the actual engineering work!.
Now, you may be wondering why am I talking about it in Enterprise Technology blog!.
Here is where I come from ... SAP has setup a similar 'Imagineering' organization whose main purpose is to help SAP and its customer navigate the future. You can visualize this department as a Startup within a Large company like SAP. The imagineering dept works on cutting-edge new/futuristic technologies & business models (yes not just technologies, but business models as well) and comes out with Proof-of-Concepts and Pilots within SAP. The dept currently works predominantly on web 2.0 technologies and pilots them in SAP employee community.
Here is a podcast from the Head of Imagineering at SAP. Don't miss it, if you are curious to know where the Enterprise Software is headed in the future.

Remote Infrastructure Management - the 3D way!

If you think Virtual Worlds/Second Life are only for fun & marketing hype, think again!. Big Vendors like IBM, SAP and their partners have started experimenting the Virtual World platform for more serious applications.
If we can have clones for humans, called 'Avatars', Why not 'clone' your infrastructure? - Thats the idea.
Implenia, a Swiss based Building Mangement company is trying unique and innovative solutions to build more sophisticated services such as Remote Building Management, Carbon Emission/Energy efficiency and Temprature control. The idea here is to link your real world buildings to virtual world buildings in real-time. Sounds Exhilarating!.
Have a look at this article. If you have your little window in the house is open, Close it via Virtual world. Control the real world using Virtual world from being anywhere in the World!. And thats the novelty!.
And take this idea and dip into business scenarios and you get intuitive solutions!. And thats what IBM is experimenting with 3D data center management!.
And You may ask - Can't I do all of this in conventional 2D world using Web/HTML interfaces?. Of course, you can. But the intuitiveness and the exploration the 3D could offer is far ahead of 2D interfaces.
The only bottleneck that I see is the bandwidh availability to support those huge amounts of visual elements data transfer over the internet.
But, if the internet bandwidth becomes a commodity like the mobile airtime has, the 3D world would take off!.

Visual SOA on your way!

Have you ever wondered why Google Maps leads over others in the mashups world?. Why do you think iPhone is so attractive over other phones? In India, iPhone 3G was recently launched and it costs $800, twice as much as the US price and people are still buying it. Why? - I strongly believe it is because of its visual appeal, ease of use and the purpose it serves. The user interface doesn't make one to 'think' to figure out what purpose it serves and how to use it. And thats the quality of good UI.
Now, let us come back to SOA world. Have you ever convinced a business analyst about why SOA is required? or beneficial to the company?. If you have had, you would know what I am talking about.
Whether its an Operational SLA explanation, product issue, or new strategic initiative like SOA - The communication between IT and business holds the key. If you are unable to communicate the technical message that is understandable and appreciatable to the business, your success is uncertain. Especially in the case of SOA, without business involvement, its just not qualified to be called as 'SOA'.
Take the case of next level from business owners to business process analysts. I couldnt think of business analysts modeling complicated business process diagrams using the famous, sophisticated modeling tools. I have interacted with those business analysts in SOA initiatives and their experience most of the times is found to be 'messy'. Though they may be able to create and author certain artificats for a while, ongoing maintenance and governance is a nightmare in those modeling tools.
So what is the solution?. - Zapthink has a take here. Zapthink is one of my favorite and admired analysts in the SOA space. And I have heard its lead Analyst Jason Bloomberg speak in one of the events. Zapthink is vendor agnostic and approaches SOA purely from business drivers perspective.
In this article, Zapthink analyst Jason Bloomberg ideates that applying 'Semiotics' to the SOA will ease the communication of Service abstraction to business. Semiotics is a study of sign processes using signs and symbols and typically used in communication. In this article, Jason gives a simple but an illuminating example of how we all use the 'Window' symbol in our Desktop to manage applications within the System.
The point Jason makes is that SOA will not be useful to the business without working visualizations. And we have a living example - Mashups. Consumers all around the world have created so many visual mashups only to prove that, if they find something visually appealing and understandable, they can put their imagniative ideas around it and create a all new business purpose serving mashups. Can we create this magic in the enterprise world?. Can we expose our business services in a Visual appealing environment?. Not in the form of 'Service repositories'.
If we can, and I would call that as SOA tipping point.
And one can see for himself the progressions being made in the visual environments. We are moving from web 1.0 to web 2.0/RIA. And from web 2.0 to Virtual worlds. Intel is actively working on a whole new paradigm called 'Visual computing' to provide a new visual computing environment for graphically intensive computing environments such as Gaming and Engineering.
I strongly believe there is one disruptive innovation that is waiting to happen between RIA and Virtual Worlds. Virtual Worlds interface is just processor-hungry. (When I tried Second Life in my Laptop, it simply hung). RIA is so good but I find it not so mature to front-end business applications. So an interim technology that brings the benefits RIA/Virtual World and a mature programming model coupled with SOA Semiotics is waiting to create a magic.

Phone Banking in 150 languages!

Can you believe it!. Its yet another innovation by Royal Bank of Canada. In order to respect the diversity in Canada and to assit and attract new immigrant customers in Canada, RBC has recently rolled-out a customer service help line that works 24/7 and assits clients in more than 150 languages. I love Toronto!. I had been to the city twice and worked with major banks in the city. I can understand and appreciate how valuable the service would be!. The RBC bank has roped-in 2600 interpreters for this service.
More than this, I found another idea interesting...where in the Bank's website, the new immigrants can locate a RBC branch where their preferred language is spoken by more than three people. Guess what, its a Google Maps mashup!. If an immigrant is going to stay in canada for few months, I am sure this service would be invaluable. Apart from this, the website also provides various such as locating a house where a preferred cultural composition is high (sounds like BI heatmaps to me! :-))
Now, thats what I call Business Innovation that is truly sensitive to the local context!.
On a side note, RBC is also working on a Pilot with Visa to launch Contactless payments in Mobile devices. Just swipe your phone with the cash register at the merchant store and payment is done. Absolutely no contacts and no bills either!.

New way of Banking @ ATM

Bank of America has recently rolled-out an enhanced ATM facility where customers can deposit cash and get immediate credit on their account for the same-day deposits. The ATM also includes a fake currency detector that can immediately alert about fake notes in the deposited cash.
For cheques, the ATM gives out a receipt that contains the 'scanned image' of the cheque that was deposited. On seeing the cheque image in the ATM transaction slip, the customers will be immediately assured of the deposited cheque and the exact amount. There is no need for math and fill-up deposit slips as the ATM automatically adds-up if there are multiple cheques.
Some of the benefits that are quoted:
- Paperless transaction in the deposits
- Improved Customer Experience
- Real-time security
Its interesting to see the way technology & innovation touching consumers' lives. :-).
Slowly, but steadily, innovation is making inroads into the enterprise. Looking forward to the tipping point!

Integrated Tech & Ops

In times where CIOs themselves dont see their positions attractive or influencing in the corporate, the article recently published in CIO magazine raises hope. The gist of this article is that the new role of the CIO could be a SVP for Technology & Operations. One can find many number of instances in the industry where CIO is complemented with additional responsibility to IT. In most cases, the Operations is merged with IT. In other cases, the CIO is given additional responsibility for other support functions such as HR, Infrastructure/Real Estate, etc.
I see this transition as a very good opportunity for bringing IT close to business. Under the unified umbrella of Technology & Operations, IT can influence lot of business process automations/optimizations and Business Processes can benefit a lot from IT. Of course, there is a catch, provided if they both work together.
Having an Enterprise Architecture body that talks to business trying to create a business-IT alignment is a top-down approach, whereas having a SVP who heads both Technology& Operations can be a bottom-up door opener for achieving business-IT alignment. I will be curious to read successful case studies where these two functions really sit along the same side of the table , 'not' across the table to discuss their problems and improve them together.
On these lines, I would like to bring up a fact that a company in India, called iGATE, have sensed the significance of this organization model five years ago and came out with a integrated tech & ops offering for Mortgage/Insurance and Banking industry. It was a really interesting and visionary model for the maket, to start with. It will be interesting to see how this model shapes up and how this model gets adopted by other IT majors in India.
The consequence of my earlier apprehension - only if the tech & ops in the customer organization are really integrated and working together in spirit, not in letter - the vendor outsourcing will happen as a unified entity. Otherwise, it would still be treated as two different offerings - one for BPO and another for IT.

MBA is a course that is dead on its feet!

How is the title?. :-) . This is something I didnt make it up. And its a reference from an interesting article in India business magazine 'Businessworld'.
I was tempted to pickup the last week edition of Businessworld, as it was a special issue having the theme called 'Using Design as Competitive Advantage'. Of course, the title is so tempting to read in detail, because of its one of my favorite subjects and me being an architect! :-)
The point in story is that, in recent past, the companies that are admired most are the ones that have achieved global success though design!. Do you agree?. I do. Examples - Apple, Intel and Sony. Apple was rated as the No.1 Admired company in the World by Forbes magazine recently. The next No.2 being GE. The rating indicates that it does not matter what products that you manufacture - whether its for lifestyle segment or aerospace segment - the question is how well do you manufacture? - It matters how well the product is designed and whether the product explictely demonstrates the company's vision, passion, creativity and innovation. So, the question for successful companies of the future would be - Not how much revenue you generate, but how well do you design your product/service that will truly 'delight' your customers?. Of course, this yardstick cannot be applied to all companies. But, it will be really be applicable to companies that want to make a difference to their respective industries.
Another key point to be noted from the story goes like this - "Design when practiced at strategic level, it can alter the fortunes of the business dramatically as it engages the core offering of the company - be it product or service". Absolutely!. This is exactly what Zachman said in his conference on how Enterprise Architecture can be positioned strategically within the company to give itself a competitive advantage.
Now, coming to the 'impeachment' on MBA, it is a part of a Indian CEO's interview. He states "MBA degree signifies nothing more than the acquisition of a resource allocation skill, and now it is time to move from that to a more creativity-based mode where design becomes the heart of problem solving, the driving seat of business innovation.” And interestingly, the CEO himself is an MBA.
Not to trvialize the degree, the point the story wants us to buy is that that design has to be given equal importance as Management within any company. And I endorse it! :-)

Software+Services gaining momentum!

Internally, we have played with Microsoft Office Business Applications for quite sometime now. But, its very exciting to see industry majors like FedEx experimenting with those ideas.
Fedex has recently launched an application called 'QuickShip' which lets you to execute critical functions like shipping&tracking without leaving Microsoft Outlook. It is basically a Microsoft Outlook add-in that talks to FedEx services. I looked at the demo and I should say it was impressive and exhaustive. It has forms and menus built right into your outlook. Above all, FedEx distributes the app for free!.
Its a paradigm shift where companies are moving away from websites to consumer-side apps. And the next logical step would be composite apps that integrates not just FedEx services but with other external/commercial services as well.
Have a look at a list of other experiments that FedEx is engaged with, in Microsoft Sharepoint / Office areas. In one of the offerings, the FedEx data is integrated with Virtual Earth as well.
I firmly believe that we are few steps away from the tipping point for Composite applications.

What does it take to create Mashup Corporations?

I was recently discussing with a Business Objects report designer regarding a customer's requirement for Ad-Hoc Reports. The Ad-Hoc Reports are targeted for Business Users, who are not really IT savvy. That scenario flashed me an interesting thought on the lines of web 2.0.
If the business-users/Operational users are comfortable in composing 'Ad-Hoc Reports' on their own, why not 'Ad-Hoc Solutions'?. 'Ad-HoC solutions'= 'Mashups'.
If the business users are provided a platform for composing their own mashups, I am sure they would love to compose their own solutions. The million dollar question is - How easy the mashup platform would be for the end users to compose their own solutions?
But beyond Technical limitations, I see the cultural factors play a stronger role in rolling-out Mashup platforms
- Need for educating/informing the business users regarding the new 'Empowerment' of composing apps on their own
- The comfort factor of the new empowerment from all quarters including the security department
- Joint Governance of mashups created by both Business IT

Whether a user constructs a data mashup or a business process mashup, the need for a mashup will typically arise from the respective business user's curiosity/ambition and deeper commitment towards his day-to-day operations. One can correlate this scenario to a well- known situation - How can we make the business users interested towards using Business Intelligence solutions? There is no easy way to sell BI solutions. Similarly there is no easy way to sell web 2.0 or Mashups as well.
They are not just IT solutions. These are solutions have deeper impact in a person's motivation, organization structure and culture.

Risks in Composite Applications

Here is my recent experience on Composite Applications. Yes, Composite Applications are cousin brothers of Mashups in Enterprise World! :-). While Mashups are situational apps that are predominantly built using Web Interfaces (SOAP/REST), Composite Applications are custom applications that are defined around existing assets in the enterprise. The assets can belong to any technology and be available in any consumable form, not necessarily in the form of Web Services.
If you google for Composite Applications, You will get different definitions from different vendors each of them woven around their own set of products/technology stack. But, Ultimately they all define the same. These are the applications that are composed to serve the unstructured needs of the customer. For the same reason, you will find Microsoft weaves around Office Business Applications, IBM tells the story around Lotus Notes and SAP has Adobe Forms. And have a look at this Microsoft blog which explains the architectural differences between traditional apps and composite apps.
Of couse, the very idea of 'Composing' apps (and not 'building' apps) looks tempting and interesting!. Of couse, the idea of getting apps to the clients, instead of clients reaching out to apps, looks enriching and rewarding!.
Some of the interesting apps could be - clients accessing a purchase order information from SAP without even leaving his Microsoft Outlook and working through the Order collaboratively with his peers.
But, be warned for the following reasons:
- We are increasing the number of tiers in the application. Two-Tier / Three-tier no longer hold good.
- We are increasing the number of COTS in one vertical slice of the application. Its no longer pure custom app (100% coded). You will have participants from multiple platforms/products/technologies in a single business process.
- Security. The whole game would be easy if all the tiers in the app belong to single vendor/single technology/single OS. The moment where we compose the app out of assets from different participants, the security reconciliation of ID and Roles will be cumbersome!. In my recent experience, I realized that a Security platform, something like TransactionMinder, that would ensure end-to-end security across all tiers will help.
- System Management. If your custom apps have some footprint of desktop elements, then we are going a couple of decades back (unknowingly) in the app architectures. Performance - In Three tier web apps themselves, there is no single product/tool that is available in the market that would give me end-to-end performance of a vertical slice in the app. Imagine the amount of complexity involved in tracking the performance and other SLAs in a multi-tiered composite apps!.
- Last but not the least - the composite apps are pervasive and multi-channel enabled. We need new set of tools and techniques to manage the SLAs across channels for a single business capability that is exposed as composite!.

Analytics beyond Technology Boundary!

This is another interesting story from Outlook Business. There was an interview with Future Group Chief Kishore Biyani in this month edition. In this interview, Kishore talks about his future plans in retailing & customer experience. Future Group is a large Indian business conglomorate that has its presence in vairous sectors including Retail, Media, Logistics and Finance. The Flagship business of this group is Retail and its one of the pioneers in low-cost large-scale retailing in India.
When we consider Technology and Business Intelligence as key sources of increasing sales in retailing business, Kishore thinks differently. This is what he has to say about his plans...
"We have a chief customer director. We have also appointed mythologists, sociologists, and anthropologists. We monitor everything that is happening in this country, and we try to respond as fast as possible. We’ve been building this team over the last six to eight months.".
I can understand psychologists. But look at the list - he has mythologists, sociologists and anthropologists. And for me who is from a Tech mindset, this perspective was a revelation!.
Yes, Technology, BI and Analytics alone may not be enough for driving business in your stores. While at one end, we are increasingly codifying the user experience using personalization, rule engines, inferencing and recommendation engines, the other end, another set of people are seriously looking for ways that would interact with Humans with Humanity!. And that is unique!.
Am sure, this approach will certainly and significantly improve the customer experience at Retail stores in the days to come...!
My thought is - How to match that unique customer experience in online stores using Technology?

Now, SaaS is a Corporate Social Responsibility!

WoW!. It was quite a revelation when I read the column by Arun Maira, Senior Advisor, Boston Consulting Group in Outlook Business titled 'Look beyond Products and Profits'.
In this column, Arun proposes five new dimensions to the next generation of business models. The article is completely technology-agnostic and talks purely about inclusive growth. When I was reading one of the dimension for the new framework of business, he says - "The second is the distinction between having access to a product or service and owning it. The more business models are geared towards providing access rather than insisting that people own the stuff, the less stuff will be put through our production and supply processes, and the less will be the pressure on the earth’s resources".
After reading this, I said to myself 'Wow!', How clearly this dimension correlates with SaaS business model? It makes the end consumers to access the resources without owning it, and that saves not just money, but lot of resources, including earth's resources'.
Now, I would say 'SaaS is a corporate social responsibility'. Like various other social-sensitive initiatives like recycling paper, green IT - SaaS also makes a company unique by consuming less resources.

A new language for SOA!

While the end objective of SOA is to achieve enterprise agility, the actual path to achieving the same is 'counter-agile', as Thomas Erl states. The actual process of building and hosting the services in a distributed environment is not simple. And on top of it, if you add the products that promise to implement successful SOA, the complexity will only multiply.
This post is a continuation of my two previous posts - IT industrialization and Product Line Architecture. When I was discussing with my fellow Architect in this regard, we concluded that the need of the hour is 'simplicity'. And I can no way refer any of the existing products in this category.
And there is also lot of discussion going on in the web about the promise of SOA. Someone has asked, if SOA is evolutionary and promising to bring tremendous benefits to the enterprise, how come we are building SOA with same old technologies?. - very thought provoking. You may say - Web services is new technology. But, the fundamentals are still the same.
The only way I see the complexity can be reduced is by bringing a fundamentally new technology or language that would simplify 'building' SOA. And I am not wrong!. Check out this language - Somebody is not only thinking but working on those lines.
Another way of looking at simplicity is use of 'Domain Specific Languages'. I see DSLs are the only thing that is common between Agile Camp and SOA. Both of them agree to gain benefit out of them. While the 'Agile' camp approaches DSL for productivity/Accleration in Development cycle, SOA approaches DSL from 'semantics' perspective. Both stand to gain from it. I believe well designed DSLs would make the 'building' part of SOA lot more 'faster', not necessarily 'simpler'.
But unfortunately, it looks like DSLs are going to become obsolete even before they mature! Yes, Microsoft is planning to adopt UML instead of DSLs for modeling SOA.

IT industrialization is a Mirage?

Gartner has recently identified 'Seven Grand Challenges for IT' during next 25 years. Interestingly one of the challenge that is mentioned is - 'Increase Programmer productivity by 100 fold'. Though I find the number - 100 fold - to be too greedy :-), I have to admit that I see this challenge as the fundamental to the IT industry for the years to come.
IBM endorses this view saying IT industrialization is still in early stages. While recent developments like SOA, SaaS and Utility computing have industrialized the buying and selling side of IT, we have not seen anything that is concrete that will truly industrialize the way we 'build' our software.
There are so many enablers such as Open source frameworks, SOA, sophisticated IDEs, but none of them have seems to have solved the problem to a greater extent. I practically experience in my company where developers are still burdened with mundane activities such as UI issues/Table-to-Object mappings. And we have not achieved significant reduction in the development time as well. Am not talking about rapid application languages such as Ruby, etc. They can help to certain extent, but they have not made inroads to enterprise apps yet.
So, the need of the hour is a magic bullet that would slash the development time spent in mechanics of the actual application.
If MDAs, Software Factories are answers to this problem,we would not have seen this in Gartner Report as a challenge for next 25 years.
I believe one way of improving the developer productivity is to enhace the capabilities of application server platforms. Its the right time to elevate the application server platforms to provide application related capabilities from pure infrastructure capabilities.

SOA Vs Product Line Architecture

While I was contemplating with an idea of Product-Line Architecture concept to a series of projects in my company, it triggered me the thought of comparing the same with Service-Oriented Architecture. I plunged myself into this comparison of Product-Line Architecture and Service-Oriented Architecture and the journey was quite interesting and insightful.
I also saw that CMU is doing lot of work in bringing the synergies between the two paradigms. The university views that both paradigms can complement each other and each can add value to the other at broader architecture level - Applying Service-Orientation to the Product-Lines and Applying Product-Line approach to Service-Orientation / Composition. While I completely agree with this idea, I believe a greater synergy can be achieved when they are applied at their respective contexts, where they are best at.
To explain a bit more, in one of the scenarios, SOA and Product Line Approach can perfectly co-exist, where SOA addresses the interface part of Services and Product-Line addresses the implementation of components behind the services. The Product Line concepts can be applied to model the service inventory within a specific domain in the enterprise. Applying Product-Line concepts to the implementation portion of SOA will significantly benefit in terms of accelerating the development time of services.

Rise of new ERP

Came across this interesting article titled 'The Next Revolution in Productivity' in Harvard Business Review few days ago. The article advocates that - To harvest the maximum benefits out of an SOA initiative, it is required for the companies to revisit the fundamental design of their operations & their organizational structure. If they dont do that, all they will achieve is just IT efficiency, while SOA's true potential can achieve lot more than that.
This perspective generates a lot of thought process. I always tried to understand the value proposition behind the SOA strategy of bigger ERP vendors. The ERP vendors' SOA stack primarily unwraps its huge monolithic bundle in the form of prolific services and encourages the ecosystem to innovate and compose new business processes. However, I would see this model as 'innovation' happening on the 'Edge'. The true innovation in this space would be the one that could be applied at the 'roots' of the business processes.
As mentioned in the above article, using ERP vendors' SOA stack, is it possible to fundamentally redesign a specific business process?. Is it possible hot swap, sell or buy the inner most activities of a business process that is composed around ERP?. If the HBR hypothesis cannot be delivered out of today's ERP ecosystems, then as the article states, one may not leverage the fullest potential of SOA. And the one that supports the complete enterprise transformation with innovative business processes would be the new ERP...

Virtualization overtakes SOA?

Am not trying to draw any parallels between Virtualization Technology and SOA Architecture here. Am classifying both of them in the category of emerging trends and trying to see which one is progressing faster.
Though I am an ardent fan of SOA and the potential impact it could create on the IT and Business, I should acknowledge that there are significant complexities involved in implementing SOA. Zapthink partner David Linthicum talks about it persistently in his blog. SOA makes tall promises. However, to realize the promises, it requires skilled SOA architects/designers, business consultants, sponsors and above all patience. :-)
Having said that, I should say Virtualization leads the game in terms of realizing the promises and achieving the benefits. Here is a reference. PC Quest has recently announced the Top IT implementations for the year 2008 and I couldnt find a single SOA focused project. Almost all of them are pointed solutions that are targeted towards solving a specific business problem. Am not saying that pointed solutions are bad. The point here is SOA has not been mentioned as a key stragic enabler in any of those implementations.
However, I could see a virtualization success story. ICICI bank has recently completed the enterprise server virtualization project and this project has been selected as one of the best implementations. More than the project, the metrics made me to say Wow!. Here it is - The bank was able to condense more than 550 servers in about 43 servers using VMWare Virtualization Technology. This is a strong metric that speaks the benefits of Virtualization.
Virtualization as a technology concept is slowly making in-roads into the industry and Even conservative IT shops are bound to invest in this technology for the solid proof statements that can be seen around the industry.
There are plenty of SOA case studies as well. Am not denying that. However, I strongly believe that virtualization has a direct impact on the fundamental economics of an IT shop and hence it succeeds, whereas SOA has an indirect impact via the business solutions and the actual architecture that gets implemented.

So My suggestion would be - Invest in virtualization today to save money so that You can invest in SOA tomorrow! :-)

SaaS is rocket science!

Yes...Am not talking about a SaaS consumer here...but the provider.
This is what analysts quote when SAP delays its SaaS offering. I was surprised to see SAP officials saying the SaaS offering will prove to be expensive for SAP itself. This is what SAP co-CEO says...
"We have to work out how expensive it will be for SAP if we run this product in a hosted environment. We have to make sure we make enough money with the product"
The offering is targeted at SME businesses and supposed to be cost-efficient for them. While the offering may prove cost-effective for end customers, it looks like it will prove the other way for the provider.

Having this story, I was trying to understand why is it so complex? What could be the technical barriers in building a platform and rolling-out the services, considering the fact that you have so many appliation platforms in the market?
ButI couldn't agree more that its not going to be a cake walk, because of the following reasons:
1. Multi-tenancy architecture is not easy. If the SaaS vendor wants to host multiple tenants in the same infrastructure and still able to deliver the SLAs which are different for different tennants, thats not a default feature of conventional platforms. You will need a new architecture to address the challenges.
2. Only if the multi-tenancy is in place, it would prove to be profitable for the service provider, where you get to host more tenants on less number of instances.
The same challenges apply to in-house shared service providers as well..who would build and host services that are consumed by different LOBs within the same company.

Enterprise Mobile Wars - iPhone 2.0, BlackBerry and Google Android

I thought blogging about Google Android platform few days ago. But, then I was waiting for iPhone 3G launch to happen...
First and foremost, have you had a chance to view the Google Android application gallery?...If not, I would strongly recommend to checkout...It has an interesting range of applications - personal productivity, social networking, context-aware apps, m-commerce to carbon credit measurements. I also happen to view the Google Android Demo that looked like iPhone's cousin in touch-screen interface.
As some of the bloggers are writing, there must be something cooking behind Google Android and Google is not disclosing the actual plans and potential of the platform. It always says...It is the developers who would come out with a killer application for the platform and not Google. Hard to believe!. Couple of other reasons;
1. In the application gallery that consists of 50 applications, I agree that many of them are innovative and interesting. But, none of them would qualify for a 'killer' application that would give a competetive edge to the platform itself.
2. There are speculations that Google is planning a GPhone in collaboration with Dell, Google is interested in only grabbing a ad space in mobile...But, the actual intent is not known yet.
3. From all of the above, I see Google Android to be only next to BlackBerry and iPhone. While BlackBerry clearly scores in enterprise market and gets into significant partnership with Enterprise technology vendors such as SAP, iPhone is clearly targeted at consumer space (to start with) and leads brilliantly in multimedia space. If the market is segmented that way, Google Android can be positioned for low-cost phones with innovative apps for the common man.

Now, after yesterday's announcement of iPhone 2.0, Apple is readying iPhone slowly into enterprise email market in collaboration with Cisco. And tons of consumer apps with blistering speed!. If Apple continues to invest in enterprise readiness, it could give BlackBerry a run for its money in near future.

Whether its Apple or RIM or Google, I strongly believe its going to make good for mobile customers as it increases competition and it will continue to bring new releases to the market with innovative features!

Next Generation Outsourcing

Few years before, I had read Cognizant CEO sharing his thought process on how would the next generation of outsourcing look like?. His vision was to move from labor-arbitrage to intellectural-arbitrage combined with global sourcing. Ok, that sounds like obvious?. Let me get into details...The service value chain can become atomically global. Each step of the process can be decontructed to set of activities to find out the most appropriate location which is best suited to perform that specific activity at a given point of time.

And yesterday, when I read a IT magazine, I found a company which has just ventured to realize the very same idea what Cognizant CEO talked about. The company name is called 'Anantara Solutions'. The company defines itself as a SGO / Second Generation Outsourcing company. It acts as a master system integrated and works with an ecosystem of partners who build and deliver solutions in specific technology areas. But, Anantara owns the final responsibility of delivering the business solution to the client, combined with its own business consulting skills. Sounds intesting!. The company has only 40 people and already works with an ecosystem of 25 companies that are spread across various geographies. Sounds definitely innovative..and interesting.
Now, I would be interested to know further...
1. The SGO can be more valuable compared to FGO (First Generation Outsourcing :-). But Would it be cost-effective as well on an on-going basis?
2. The SGO certainly creates an edge for the solution provider. It creates a unique value to the provider. But, it requires a lot of intellectual property to sustain it on a longer term. Will it be sustainable?
3. As Cognizant CEO has talked about being an enabler of next generation outsourcing, What would be Company like Anantara's business model, if other big players venture into this model?
4. Some of the analysts being skeptical about a smaller player's success in this market.
All these questions will be answered while we wait and watch Anantara growing...

Telepresence Wonder

Ever since Cisco announced their Telepresence product, I thought it would be affordable and appicable only in Corporate context.

However, I recently read that Wachovia Bank is planning to deploy the Telepresence solution for a specific customer service segment. That was interesting!.

I wonder the Telepresence channel will compliment / replace Branch Banking in future...

Some of the other contexts where the solution will largely add value are Telemedicine (especially in Rural areas), Offshore-based Consulting. (This is one area where we have not figured out how to improve the effectiveness of consulting without being at onsite).

But, the price points are inhibiting the potential early pilots!. Hope to see more such business solutions in near future!.

Another disruptor arrived!

Did you check out SpringSource's recent announcement on 'Application Platform' and OSGi compatibility?

If not, you are in for a surprise.

SpringSource's application platform is a new container to host Java applications that is NOT compliant with JEE. And that was the intention.

Check out Rod Johnson's interview on SpringSource application platform. His views about present offering and future platform's interoperability with JEE profiles looks interesting. Certainly, I feel its going to ease out lot of complexities in JEE application development right now.

And, in light of this development, I would be interested to know the future roadmaps of IBM Websphere application server and other vendors app servers. Will they follow the path of SpringSource?. Or will they collaborate?

The good news - The enterprise java development and deployment will be easier. Especially, for SOA development, the platform promises to ease out lots of versioning related issues.
Bad news - the enterprise JEE world is further fragmented.

He Who Owns the Information, Has the Power!

Ok, I made that title up!.

This is what I felt when I came across Google Health recently. Google Health is a comprehensive health portal which allows people to maintain their health information in the Google Website and consult with Doctors on the medical conditions/prescriptions.

If you have observed, Microsoft is toying with similar idea in Microsoft HealthVault.

So, what is the business implication for Google:

- Hospitals are already looking at Partnering with Google to service the patients
- Targeted Adwords that are much more specific to patient's context and needs
- Lock-in to Google Health system
- Analytics possibility on Health Information and gaining intelligence on trends

Wow!

Google is also evaluating the options of integrating this app with other Google apps like Calender, Search, etc. which will make Google apps much more pervasive in our lives. This is much more interesting and captivating!.

Check out the same idea in Google's another new offering http://www.rememberthemilk.com. Simple, but Brilliant offering upto BlackBerry.

Now, some of the lessons for our Enterprise apps space:

1. He who owns the data has more control and influence. Address this layer first, before thinking about anything else.
For example, in banking, the group that owns Customer Profile becomes the backbone of the Information systems.

2. Mashup the apps to generate more value / new opportunities as Google does.

3. Enable Multi-channel access...

4. Even if an idea is simple enough, don't hesitate to try and implement it. If you do that, Google may overtake you! :-)

Also, recently evaluated, Google App Engine recently...will reserve the observations for future posts.

RIM and SAP to change the way people work

A recent innovation announced by RIM and SAP inspired me..
Following the footsteps of Duet alliance with Microsoft, SAP has now embarked into a partnership with RIM BlackBerry. The idea of this innovation is to enable anywhere mobile access to SAP enterprise applications through widely adopted BlackBerry Platform. This initiative tears down the walls between mobile connectivity and enterprise applications. At the same time, it brings in lot of assurance to the solutions in terms of communication, security and management.
The first output expected out of this partnership is a "native" BlackBerry client application that will merge the power of SAP CRM application. The wonder doesn't end there. It will also enable merging the SAP CRM applications with the core BlackBerry smartphone applications such as mail, Address Book, and Calender applications. What a "mashup" of applications from two different platforms?
This partnership simply makes the "middleware" layer irrelevant if someone wants to integrate RIM and SAP platforms. And that is a significant benefit to IT shops!
From this instance, I derive if two product vendors can collaborate, they can bring out innovative set of solutions to the end-customers which will make their life easy.
I have seen the 'Duet' demo in SAP TechEd event couple of years ago. And I was impressed.
Am sure this RIM offering will be very useful as well.
I am waiting to see this kind of partnership happening in the middleware/SOA space as well.
Will we see a similar announcement from IBM and SAP where we will be able to host SAP's Enterprise Service repository in IBM middleware and able to seamlessly connect to SAP without adapters?.

Secret of Success

Recently, Apple has been rated as the Most Admired Company, No.1 by Fortune Magazine. GE comes No.2. I was personally surprised by this positioning, for one reason, because it is not the product or its critically earns the reputation of a company. It is the innovative mindset and Passion to excite customers. That has become the new mantra of current generation!. Otherwise, why the whole world would wait for a mobile phone when there were thousands of models already available in the industry from Nokia and others.
The magazine also featured an interview with Steve Jobs. Steve was asked about his competitiveness in the industry. For that question, Steve answered as the the composite chemistry. "We make the hardware, We make the OS and We write the applications on top of it. So, there is a lot of intimacy between Mac Notebooks and OS X. You cannot expect the same level of initmacy between Dell notebooks and Microsoft Windows". Thatz a spectacular answer!.

If you go back to history, you can relate to this principle very well. RIM/BlackBerry had this same combination which led the company to roaring success. Palm pioneered this idea and there are thousands of palm fans around the world,including me! :-)
So As I read in the past, the secret of success lies in the ability to lock-in the customers with best value and cost of change is expensive. And thatz what all Microsoft and SAP are doing...
Whether SaaS/Open Source will break this pattern is yet to be seen...

The value of EDA

Have not realized the value of EDA (Event-Driven Architecture) so much until recently.
I was always thinking whatz so great about EDA when your J2EE MDBs were supporting just that.
But, We are designing an EDA project right now and I could see the immense potential of the architecture. And there is no wonder people call it SOA 2.0 = SOA + EDA.
Truly, the next gen of business applications need to be designed in SOA 2.0 mode to ensure the business agility and performance.
While SOA relates to business functions, EDA necessarily models the business events and its consequences on business services.
The EDA addresses different levels of complexity right from Simple Event processing to CEP. While the traditional MDBs were designed to support simple event handling mechanisms, EDAs are designed to handle end-to-end event centric architecture and design of business solutions.

Space-Based Architecture - End of Tiered Computing

One of my colleagues recently talked to me about Space Based computing in the context of Mule ESB.
I see SBA as the evolution of virtualization. Virtualization is evolving from Harware, OS, Portal Server, Application Server...and finally penetrating into the application itself. SBA basically eliminates the tiered computing model where each tier is physically located / distributed in a different machine altogether.
Each tier that requires the services from another tier is virtualized and your required service may be served from a cloud (that is implemented by spaces runtime environment).
Now you may be wondering - that is exactly the job of ESB is...right?
ESB provides virtualization for services. And when SBA gets integrated with ESB, the service client makes a call to Space which in turn invokes the actual service that is spread across the computing cloud.
While ESB provides virtualization for services, SBA makes virtualization possible for any tiers within any application - be it data access, business tier or messaging tier.
The solution would be more suitable for high-volume / high-performing apps.
Checkout www.gigaspaces.com

Listening to Zachman

I must tell you this. I had the opportunity to attend Zachman's conference held in Bangalore yesterday. It was a great event that I had a chance to meet one of the enterprise architecture legends of our time and listen to him directly about his framework and viewpoints. At the end of the day, my belief and conviction on the concept of having an architecture was only re-inforced.

First of all, Hats-off to him for driving this concept of EA for the past 2 decades are so. Almost anybody and everybody in IT who is working on EA cannot ignore the work of Zachman. From that perspective, Zachman's effort is a significant contribution towards IT maturity and its truly an effort that is made towards advancing the state of the art (IT).

Some of the quick observations:
1. The framework has in't changed for so many years. There are no significant updates to the framework in the last few years. It means, the framework has stood the test of times.
2. The IT complexity has never reduced, 2 decades back or now. There is lot of stuff happening on Technology evolution. But, what about Engineering maturity?.
3. As I anticipated, Zachman has a different viewpoint about SOA. He said he would like to call it as Service-Oriented Implementation rather tha Service-Oriented Architecture
4. Inspite of his work all these years, he is still not hopeful that EA will mature and be implemented in all corporates proactively. He said it may take another 20 years or so...:-(
5. Another valid point, EA is thought about only when the company is in a Titanic situation. And that would be too late to prepare anything.

Agile Methods Detrimental to Architecture?

We are piloting Scrum Development Method for few of the projects in our organization.

Some of the key questions that triggered me are:
1. Relevance of 'Architecture/Design' in a Agile method, where BDUF is not recommended.
2. Is it really possible to execute a 'Incremental Architecture/Design' approach in a full life cycle project?. Is it really required?
3. Importance of Testing in Agile practices is significant. How is Testing & Architecture are associated?.
4. Can TDD lead to incremental Design? Or the Design Can be Tested? (Very Very Interesting Subject)
5. Generally, Are the Agile practices detrimental to Design practices?
What do you say?
Will blog about the answers in future posts..

Web Apps without Web

Technology Review magazine has identified 'Offline Web Applications' as one of the Top 10 Emerging Technologies for 2008. Adobe AIR, Google Gears are such platforms that support accessing web applications without the web.

In fact, Goolgle Gears + Google Apps combination has been touted as the Microsoft Office killer.

Certainly, this is the new programming model and it demands new ways of thinking. The programming model is bound to innovate new set of applications that we haven't had access to in the past.

Some of them which I can think of are:

1. BI on SaaS/Analytic applications

2. Offline Employee Portals with Search capabilities

3. Content Management / Web 2.0 apps

The primary motivating factor for such applications would be a hybrid model that leverages both Internet connectivity and Desktop processing power capablities

Instant Mashups

Initially I thought of blogging about technology behind one of my favorite movies 'Shrek'. I will certainly blog about it in my next post.

But, before that, I found something more interesting...

For those of you who are thinking 'Semantic Web' exists only in text, think again...

If you have observed what is going to come out in IE 8, FireFox 3 and Apple's Safari, You know what I am talking about...

Am talking about 'Microformats' that would make context sensitive communication between web sites a reality. The possibilities of end-user programming mashups looks promising. While the tradional mashups programming requires little bit of programming knowledge, the Microformats aims to eliminate that burden as well from the end-users. Building a mashup between two web sites is going to be lot more easier when the technology maturity evolves in this area.

Two thoughts that came to my mind on observing this trend.

1. The concept looks more appropriate in the HTML world. It would be intersting to see how the concept evolves in the context of Rich Internet Applications, especially during times when Internet is becoming omnipresent across devices/formats.

2. If you observe closely, slowly the infrastructure software is morphing itself into enterprise application client software...A sure short example is this scenario...where browsers are becoming little more smart in understanding the context.

Are you ready for the next IT boom?

You may be thinking that I am crazy....by reading the title...especially in the context of a recession fears.

I strongly believe that the next peak for IT is in waiting because of following reasons..

1. Now that outsourcing and offshoring is proven and given, what the companies in US would want to do?. If they have cut down costs by outsourcing, able to demand more value from offshore vendors, what would they do with that extra money?. Ideally, if you are outsourcing your non-core activities, your core should start to improve. Is it really happening?. Are the companies thinking about Growth, now that productivity is almost taken care?. Are there are any new generation companies that have come up in the last 10 years?.

The answer is NO. Why?. The economy is red. Though the companies have mastered the skill of outsourcing and negotiation, they are yet to master the skill in various areas like - IT value measurement, Enterprise Architecture, Business Transformation using IT.

2. US is importing more than exporting. If US has to export to other countries, it needs a globalized thinking. It needs to think about Globalized Products and Services in Emerging countries. How do they do that?. More and more MNCs are opening shops in emerging countries. The only way they can reduce the time to market their products/services ahead of competitors is using IT.

3. Irrespective of the countries or economy, there are universal issues like health and poverty. IT can play a huge role in solving some of the critical problems in this universal problem areas.

4. The Enterprise IT is still complex. Though there are few innovations like SaaS, etc. They are in the process of maturing and more innovations need to follow to make the IT landscape simpler.

Now, if there is a slowdown in IT, it is only interim. And when things change for the good, the leaders will be racing ahead of rest of others. So, slowdown/recession is good that it makes people to think and introspect to come up with new ways of doing business/new products and services that would solve real problems.

Photoshop & Mashups

Recently, my management wanted me to present a formal photograph for the organization brochure. Formal includes a blazer and a tie.

When most of the leaders including myself presented the photographs on time, one person couldn't submit it ontime due to various reasons.

But, He managed to get a photograph with a blazer, but without a tie.

At the same time, He managed to submit the formal photograph wearing a tie.

You want to know how he did it?

He used Photo Editor and digitally borrowed a tie from a fellow collegue's photograph and fixed in his photograph and saved it.

And nobody could identify this change. The photo was as precise and close to real.

OK, Why am talking about all these?

When I heard this story, immediately I felt it is a 'Mashup'. And in this case, the person who did the photo editing was from non-technical background.

That is exactly the purpose of Mashups, isn't it?. It should enable the non-technical users to do a plug-and-play, mix-match of data sources and services to provide a totally new business solution.

So, We have all been doing mashups knowingly or unknowingly...

And, am sure, when we have a platform that provides a seamless interface for business people to drag-and-drap, mix-and-match, the vision for business mashups will get realized.

I can visualize the future enterprise IT, where the IT department will only do Mashups / Composites. No more App development. No more Service Development, either.

J2EE losing the enterprise IT battle?

Slowly but clearly, Java as a platform for building enterprise applications is fading. One of the primary reasons is that, since the maturity cycle of Java platform to get new features added, is prolonged, the vendors went ahead and added their own properietary versions of features into the platform. This lead to vendor lock-in on one side.

On another side, to fill this maturity gap, the open source communities evolved and provided their own versions of solutions. Again, there is multitude of open source frameworks in Java that solves the same problem in different ways.

Another disruptor is SOA. How J2EE platform is addressing this paradigm?. Again, vendors took the lead by introducing SCA. But, there is a split between SCA community and JBI community.

Now, with all these, J2EE is also evolving with its own EJB 3.0 etc.

As a J2EE solution provider, the cycle for design decisions just got longer and longer...

This is not something which anyone would want in the ruthless race to achieve productivity and reduce the time-to-market of new solutions...

At the same time, there is no competent/equivalent platform is also available that could replace J2EE in the enterprise space.

So, There is a clear need for a replacement. But, there is no substitute.

The moment that substitute arrives, J2EE will lose the battle completely. I strongly feel that the new set of dynamic programming languages like Ruby has a strong chance of getting into enterprise space, provided they demonstrate 'enterprise-readiness'.

OK, Who gains from this fragmentation?. Obviously, Microsoft.

Microsoft has a very clear roadmap for an 'Integrated' solution set addressing the SOA and new set of capabilities in Office and Communications. Microsoft is clearly ahead of the game in terms of providing integrated solutions.

It would be interesting to watch who wins the game eventually?. Microsoft or a New Disruptive Platform.

ROI on Web 2.0

I was always cynical about Enterprise Web 2.0 and ROI on using web 2.0 technologies.

But, my recent research showed me enough data that web 2.0 has tremendous value potential within the enterprise.

The key success driver behind deploying any web 2.0 technologies is that it calls for a 'change' in the organization's management.

Unless the 'change' in organization's management science is integrated with technology and deployed, the web 2.0 platforms would just 'be there' as a wallflower. By management science, I mean the corporate policies, processes and management style.

Two concrete examples:

1. AJAX/RIAs when used effectively for business applications, will improve the productivity and lead to tangible cost-savings. The cost-savings can be calculated by the perceived savings in the man-hour spent on the application to accomplish the business functions. Now, you know why SAP is re-building its UI using Flex for future versions.

2. If your company is knowledge-driven & depends on collective intelligence/creativity (e.g. Marketing), then having web 2.0 is a MUST for your enterprise. Read McKensy's report on 'Competitive Advantage from better interactions' to know more on this.

3. I think its more of a mindset change rather than technology change. Look at these latest technologies like SOA, web 2.0 and SaaS by wearing your ROI glass & a pinch of creativity, I promise you that you will find innumarable possibilities for future Growth.

Not Doing SOA can invite Lawsuites?

Very interesting perspective!

Why would someone do SOA?...Two reasons:

1. To make your IT environment simplified
2. To fuel growth initiatives using the Agile IT enabled by SOA

Now, what if the corporates who have implemented SOA are more profitable than the corporates who have not implemented?. The farmer will be able to deliver more value to stakeholders than later...

David Linthicum of Zapthink group has this very interesting insight into SOA Vs Shareholder Value in the InfoWorld.

I couldn't agree more to his point. The Days are not far where the corporates are audited not just for their financial controls and security procedures, but also for effective IT systems & enterprise architecture. And if the audit reports that a company's IT is ineffective, will the stakeholders keep quiet?

So, its time for corporates to question themselves...Whether SOA makes sense for them?

Innovation Sourcing

IT outsourcing companies are talking two things as of today.

1. If your business thinks IT is non-core to you, outsource it to us. We will manage better. We have the expertise.

2. If your business thinks IT is core for your business, then partner with us. We have the experise. We can innovate for you.

The two claims are extremely simple to understand. But poles apart. It requires totally different set of competencies to offer these two claims.

The trouble will come only when the outsourcing company has to make both the claims to the same client over a period of time. The companies's relationship with the client, branding, competency and cost would be scrutinized by the client to accept the transition.

So, the best approach would be to find a middle ground between the two, which would seamlessly, but incrementally take the service provider from stage 1 to stage 2 without much turbulance.

Enterprise Mobility - A Myth?

There is lot of buzz around Mobility these days - iPhone, Skype, WiMax and Smart Phones.

But, Are we really ready for power applications on the mobile?. Not yet.

There are two key reasons that are inhibiting the surge of mobile apps:

1. The platform is inherently limited in features. Beyond, J2ME, if one has to develop powerful applications, they have to adapt the native platforms that are specific to the devices. This limits the developer community and the portability of apps.

2. The technology is maturing. Rich Internet Apps/Flash support are still awaited on popular platforms such as BlackBerry.

3. Expensive. If one has to write a 'connected' app on mobile, it has to go thru carriers and utilize the bandwidth. This is not so easy and the bandwidth is not so cheap to consume. So, the spread of connected applications is still limited.

4. Most of the mobility apps consumers are field workers or senior management teams. The senior management people are not 'power' users, in the sense, they dont use anything beyond email. The field workers, except, white collar, are still waiting to get access to those devices in work.

Having many such limitations, we dont know what we are missing today in the mobility world.

However, things are changing and maturing slowly....

With Google working on Android platform with Open Handset alliance, there may be a new 'killer' application waiting to explode. If Google can crack it, that could be the tipping point for Enterprise Mobility....

So, Enterprises....keep watching Android...

Architecture for Business Improvements

Read a very nice article on Microsoft Architecture Journal on 'Business Improvements using Software Architecture'.

My thoughts on the same follows...

Traditionally, in IT services, the solution implemention happens in passive model. There is no consulting element involved. The true intention of the outcomes of the business requirements is not understood in detail like productivity improvements, business enablement, Growth potential, etc.. These factors need to be understood purely from a business perspective.

These perspectives need to translate to architecture decisions in terms of usability, extensibility, performance etc. These architecture decisions also need to be in sync with enterprise architecture standards.

If these two factors are not taken into consideration during the solution architecture phase, then the system will end up as another silo.

From project execution standpoint, we need to factor effort and time for involving these elements at the relevant stages in the SDLC cycle.

Enterprise Mashups Vs Composite Apps

Today morning, while I was driving, I was listening to 'Enterprise Mashups' podcast from Gartner.

It immediately triggered one interesting question - what is the difference between Enterprise Mashups and Composite Applications?.

Some of the observations:

1. Enterprise Mashup are addressed to 'Long Tail' of the enterprise. They are primarily targeted to individuals or small teams. Composite applications are the cousins of Mashups in Enterprise applications world.

2. Enterprise Mashups - Development and Management/Governance is left to individuals/Community.

3. Enterprise Mashups are 'assembled' by individuals/small teams. Composites are 'built' or 'developed'.

4. Enterprise Mashups are not supposed to have any business logic on its own. Composites can have business logic / orchestration logic.

5. Composite applications are much more critical/serious in nature compared to Enterprise Mashups. So, Composites are typically left to IT development teams officially. Composites require a strong governance as well.

6. Enterprise Mashups are based on web 2.0 'Culture' rather than 'Technology'. Composites have their roots in 'Mashups' and 'Web 2.0' but there is more technology flavour to it.

7. Enterprise Mashups are loosely-coupled. Composites are also loosely-coupled, but not to the extent of Mashups.

I think, from pragmatic perspective, its is the company's 'culture' and 'organization structure' that is going to be the key decision factor in web 2.0 or Enterprise Mashup initiatives.

From today's world, it looks like the 'solutions' are pushed to the IT shop to try out new things like web 2.0, Mashups, etc... What is the need of the hour is 'Identification of problem statements or potential pain points or improvement areas' that could be alleviated by these new solutions.

Change in CIO

Today, our CIO has addressed a townhall meeting...

Some of the key take aways are:

1. CIOs have started to realize the potential of Enterprise Architecture and Service Oriented Architecture.
2. CIOs understand that it should be from their sponsorships EA and SOA initiatives have to be funded.
3. Change Management is the key for strategic initiatives. Why dont we use HR practices of organizational change management while introducing Technological change or EA change?. Very interesting perspective. I am going to hunt for HR management practices that talk about change management.
4. In a company where metrix management is heavy, there are multiple bosses, organizational re-alignment is the order of the year, the leaders come and go, How would an investment such as SAP implementation cope up with that?. Very Good question.
5. The answer is SAP implementation is rigorous and anything and everything that gets implemented should be meticulously planned.
6. Run IT like a business - Not necessarily towards making profits...But atleast it should start by getting recognition from business for the value that is delivered by IT. That by itself, is an achievement.

Competetive Differentiation

Of late, I have become more curious and interested in learning the developments happening in DW/BI analytics area.

When the products are really becoming commodities, services are outsourced, what would be the true differentiation for a company?

A tough question, right?...

As I learn, the only remaining space for making competitive differentiation is the innovation in business processes that sorrounding the products and services. So, How do we innovate?. We innovate on what we understand very well. We innovate on the landscape that is closer to us and when we are able to spot the opportunities in the existing business processes.

So, thats where the analytics comes on, the company that collects information on every business function, gathers insights and identifies potential opportunities for optimization/differentiation, is going to be the winner in long term.

I see this is one of the few areas where Business-IT alignment is the Key and the involvement of Business is critical to the success of BI programs

Next-Gen Technology for the Poor

If you have read CK. Prahalad's book on 'Bottom of Pyramid', you can guess what am I talking about...

Today, I read another article in Times of India that states that most of the BoP initiatives that are started by corporates are aimed at exploiting the poor than benefiting them. So, the need for BoP 2.0 arrives. In BoP 2.0, it is not just required to understand the underserved, but to truly partner with them to provide solutions that would serve them.

As we all know, the traditional markets are over-served and they carry the "legacy" baggage. So, it is diffult to introduce any new technology or product into their markets, as it would call for a 'change'. I know, how difficult it would be to introduce a 'technology change' in the enterprises.

But, the BoP market is just opposite to the capitalist market. They dont carry any legacy technology platforms that need to be dealt with. Groundbreaking/Breakthrough innovations can happen without much interruptions in that BoP markets only. So, Keep watching for the arrival of next generation of technology from the BoP markets.

The future is in Mainframes

OK I made up that title!.

There is lot of talk in the industry on the latest Sun Microsystems CTO's speech on 'Red Shift' that is happening in the industry. According to him, the investment towards hardware infrastructure for web applications is growing. And it is growing to the extent where it is going to exceed the supply generated by Moore's law. He goes on to say, in future, we will need systems that would be massive enough to cater to huge set of end-users, in the scale of Google and eBay infrastructures. The traditional blue shift market - like ERP infrastructure or Wintel infrastructures - are in the mode of server consolidation.

So, if his words to be believed, in future we will need infrastructure that is as massive and as capable as old mainframes....atleast in logical anology.

Couple of thoughts on the same lines:

1. According to Moores Law, there is going to be tremendous demand for new software technologies/multimedia applications that would leverage the abundant power of hardware infrastructure. Hence, if the demand needs to be met, there needs to be software technology innovation that is happening at the pace of hardware innovation.

2. Grid Computing/Virtualization can go a long way to meet the growing demands of infrastructure needs. For example, why would a manager / information worker need to have a a high-end laptop when he only utilizes a quarter of that computing power. Can't he plug-in to the network to utilize the computing power as well?

3. While the Hardware computing power innovation leads to productivity / cost savings, the software innovation would lead to not just cost savings but Growth / New possibilities as well.

Business Intelligence just got Smarter

One of the emerging trends highlighted in the Accenture Power Breakfast session was 'Closed-Loop Business Intelligence'.

I could correlate this trend with what I read yesterday on the business value of BI solutions. Typically, the BI solutions enable the business users to consolidate metrics and analyse and generate reports. The traditional BI solutions are open-ended, in the sense, it "supports" taking informed decisions. However, the end decision is left to the user himself. The BI solutions typically dont enter into that area where they recommend possible actions based on the metrics and data. So, its hard to justify a BI solution investment in a corporate unless until significant value could be earned out of it.

So far, there was no channel available to realize the business results. Now, its becoming a reality.
The vision for closed-loop business intelligence is to not only just analyse the metrics, but also 'recommend' suitable actions to the business user that would improve the overall business results...Sounds interesting!

Am just curious to know which BI vendor will be first in the industry to offer these smarter BI solutions.

Do you see a trend where all the individual domains of business applications are slowly converging and morphing themselves to be much more smart and adaptive?

Technology Adoption

I attended a breakfast meeting organized by IASA bangalore chapter with Accenture Chief Technology Architect.

First I should appreciate the IASA team for organizing such events for the Architects community in India.

The key Take Away from the meeting is that - There are plenty of innovations happening in the industry. All we need to do, as System Integrators, is pushing for Adoption. Adoption is the key and the need for the hour for the businesses. I couldn't agree more to this.

The thoughts that triggered to me on this statement

- How can an Architect play the role of a 'Change Agent' in evangelizing the adoption?
- What are the key challenges that are being faced by the businesses in going for adoption?

The result and the single answer is 'Have Enterprise Architecture Govern your enterprise IT'.

SaaS being Safe

There are always apprehensions about data security in a SaaS model. These apprehensions were holding the enterprises to move their business critical information to a SaaS model software.

Recently I read a very good example in Economist that relates to this fear. Remember, when the locker systems were introduced in the banks decades ago, people were reluctant to keep their money in lockers. But then, slowly things got changed and now people think that bank lockers are much more safer than their own house to keep their valuables.

Am sure in the next couple of years, this trend will begin to be visible in SaaS segment as well..

In banks case, probably one thing that has reassured people about the safety of their valuables is 'Government Regulation'. Similarly, I think we may need some kind of 'Industry regulation controls' across SaaS vendors to ensure data security.

[22 Aug 07] Today in the IASA meeting, I learned that organizations are already practicing SOX compliance when adapting SaaS model. So the regulatory requirement is already in place.

Align Your Business based on IT

All long, we have been hearing that align your IT to business. Sounds good..The whole objective of enterprise architecture is to create better alignment between IT and business.

But, the problem is - IT space is always more active. And its supply of products and technologies happen in a much more faster pace than the changes/initiatives that happen in the business space. So, How do we create an alignment when the supply is more than the demand?

Recently, I read a management article which articulates that the existing organization structure/processes and best practices may need to undergo "changes" if it has to accomodate and leverage the introduction of a new technology. Absolutely agree!.

For example, the web 2.0 suite of technologies cannot be simply deployed into an enterprise and made it successful. To make web 2.0 technologies successful, the org. culture has to change and accomodate the technology. If the org. culture changes, may be it will lead to better collaboration and yield better results in business performance.

Same applies for other new range of technologies as well...

So, align your business based on IT capabilities, if you really believe that IT could transform the business..

I was thinking that IT will only be glorified and shining in industries like Banking and Insurance. No, its not the case. Any industry can leverage IT and IT can be differentiator for any sector. It all matters on how IT is managed and bridged with the business. If IT house is seen only as a enabler/supplier, then the maximum potential of IT will not be utilized.

Application X-Ray

Is it possible to scan the existing IT solutions for their underlying business processes and tune them for optimization, perform gap analysis or improve them for gaps, innovate for new services?

For a new business process modeling, there are tons of tools exist for designing and analysis.
How about for existing IT apps which embodies business processes?.

Often, the IT solutions which are old for sometime are taken for granted. And the only thing that is worried about is their performance, availability, etc...which are non-functional in nature.

How do even look at the underlying business processes for improvement and innovations?.
Who knows the kind of potential that the business process has, if it's innovated to a new channel or new platform. These solutions might have been architected/designed a decade before and still undergoing regular support.

Unless until, the processes are understood, the application potential remains untapped...

Hype is Good

Last Friday, our MD was addressing an Open House meeting...

One of the interesting news that he brought out was - our CEO has asked every functional head such as Sales, Marketing, and other LOBs to present their thoughts and proposals within their division for leveraging Web 2.0 technologies.

Am surprised that web 2.0 has got the attention of the CEO.

Though personally I dont believe in those 'technologies' (pls dont get me wrong here..I believe in underlying concepts though), in an enterprise context, I am happy that some technology is disruptive enough to get the attention of senior leadership to even talk about it and act on it...

So, all the Hype is Good

Hyperactive Market

I was talking to my brother-in-law who is running his own business for the past 20 years or so..

Got an interesting insight while talking to him...Those days, the focus of the business was on reducing the operational expenses, reducing the profit margin and focusing on Customer delight. But, these days, the focus is more on operational expenses (expenses like marketing, branding, expensive showrooms) and increased sales. In olden days, businessmen were not really thinking about increased sales and growth year-on-year. But, its apparant that, these days, any business has to be a growth business, for it to survive. Do you read the lines from the book 'Goal' here?

And there is a mad rush from every business house to achieve that double-digit growth year after year...

My question is, if every business grows "big" enough, where will the space for small and medium enterprises to sustain?. Are we doing justice to nurture a business ecosystem, where all players have a fair chance to play the game?. Or are we restricting the market open enough only for big players?.

The outcome will be increased costs, less number of choices. There has to be some way... I dont know the perfect solution.

But, the optimal solution for big as well as small players would be 'Innovation'. For big players to grow on certain targets year after year, and for small players to survive on their key strengths, its required to 'innovate' and 'innovate niche' that other players would find difficult to replicate.

I think we will reach a point where it would be 'Innovate or Die'.

In summary, Business is getting tough but interesting...

Applications with "Presence of Mind"

Scanning the next set of emerging technologies in the industry, it looks like its going to be 'Adaptive' technologies that would make the applications to have presence of mind. Interesting isn't it?

Moving from to 'Being Agile' to 'Being Adaptive'. The boundaries are always stretched...

If not intelligence, the applications should be able to 'learn', 'predict' and 'auto-correct' on its life-cycle. It surely sounds a natural progression...Already, the vendors have started providing solutions that would enable apps to behave in a adaptive manner.

For example, The traditional rule systems have morphed themselves into 'Enterprise Decision Management' System. All the other suite of technologies such as Complex Event Processing, Business Activitiy Monitoring, Serivce-oriented Business Intelligence started to fuse the application with Intelligence. And thats going to roll-out a new set of solutions in the market very soon..

Already some smart customers have started using some of those technologies...

While seeing the pace of the technology advancement, I tend to think that the speed of technology offerings sometimes outpaces the speed of business..and enables a whole new suite of opportunities...

Is the Business ready for it?