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Chapter 7- Closing Case Study 1
International Truck Makes a Huge Bet On a Service Oriented
Architecture

Introduction
In

2006

International

Truck

was

one

of

the

first

major

corporations to implement service orientated architecture, referred to as

SOAs. SOA focuses on the development, use, and reuse of small self-

contained blocks of code to meet future application software needs in a

dynamic environment.(Stephen Haag, 2010) This case study will focus on
how International Truck implements SOAs within its dealer network, what
advantages and efficiencies they hope to gain by using SOAs, how new
software models will integrated within existing ones, which infrastructurecentric metrics will be used to justify the application of SOAs, and what
would be the business continuity plan for major IT components in the event
of a disaster or extended disruption.
In addition to meeting future application software needs, SOAs can
take advantage of resources in the most efficient and effective manner.
Furthermore, SOAs reacts quickly and proactively to perceived changes in
the market. SOAs are bound by very few structural constraints to respond
quickly and adapt to new advances in technology. Also it transforms it
processes, structure, and HR initiatives in a dynamic environment. This case
study will focus on SOA components such as customer and software
development. One of the primary goals of an SOA is to allow your
organization to provide customers with multi-channel service delivery
options and customizable products and services.(Stephen Haag, 2010).
Customers require the ability to plug-and-play into any communication
channel with your company. It is essential for International Truck to expand
into software development of extreme programming (XP).

Navistar is a global manufacturer of commercial trucks, military

vehicles, diesel engines, and school and commercial school busses. Navistar
has also entered joint manufacturing agreements with manufacturing firms
Magindra of India and Tatra of France. With global operations center located
in two countries and three states, IT centers are employing several hundred
IT employees and handling 16,500 jobs each day (Navistar , 2012).
Problem Statement
This case study seeks to answer the following questions:
1.

With respect to its customers (dealers in this case), how is

international Truck using a service-oriented architecture to
meet their needs? How does using an SoA further help

2.

International Truck erect an entry barrier (from Chapter 1)?

With respect to information needs, what advantages and
efficiencies is international Truck hoping to gain by using a
service-oriented architecture? Why are these advantages and

3.

efficiencies not possible with its current legacy system?

Recalling
our
discussion
of
software
development
methodologies in Chapter 6 that focus on component-based
development (i.e., RAD, XP, and agile), how is international
Truck able to integrate new software modules with existing

4.

ones?
What key infrastructure-centric metrics could International
Truck use to justify its movement toward a service-oriented

architecture? For each that you identify, provide a short

5.

description of why the metric is important.

How important is it for International Truck to have a good
business continuity plan is place? What key IT systems and
other IT resources do you believe would be at the top of the list
for quick recovery? Why?

Areas of Consideration
Strength
Weaknesses
Low follow-up costs
High start up infrastructure
costs
Very flexible architecture
Compliance
with
standards
Autonomous systems
Threats
Opportunities
With
high
transfer
Individual systems can be
volumes, there is the risk
integrated
or
replaced
of a performance of
easily
bottleneck, if it is not
separated from normal
traffic

Alternative Courses of Action

1.

Navistar found numerous problems in their legacy system

architecture. Those problems included the inability to track truck
production in real time or flag anything that went wrong. There were
also excessive defects and returns, along with, bottleneck in shortfall
and parts production. Another major issue is that isolated data and
information sharing and commercial ERP software was no compatible.
Art Data, Vice president of Internationals IT department stated, its
not so much embracing a framework is do you have a need(Murphy,
2006).

In seeking an internal solution to the problem, Navistar created

the Common Vehicle Tracking System in order to save $3 million a year
in profit. This system focused on tracking production according to a
specific vehicle or vehicle type in near real time.
Navistars IT technicians created an SOA application called
International Aware. One of the main goals of this new system is to
combine vehicle electronics systems, GPS and cellular technology to
send truck owners information on where vehicles are and what theyre
doing. Another benefit is that Geo-fencing managers can request an
alert if a vehicle goes off course (Murphy, 2006).
Navistars customers have specifically needs for their vehicles
and may keep them in their fleet for decades. In addition, Navistars
400 dealers were allowed to choose their own internal management
software systems to access parts, catalogs and sales tools. To provide
their customers more flexibility, Navistar delivered an external solution
of the Online Truck Configurator (OTC). This allows them to see which
options are available with each vehicle. Instead of ordering vehicles
based solely on options, dealers can now configure trucks in priority of
their technical features, their trade application solutions, and transport
tasks. By implementing the aforementioned software applications
Navistar has erected an entry barrier by becoming a first mover in SOA
application.
2.

Service Oriented Architecture has opened many doors in terms of

advantages and efficiencies. Some of the advantages of SOA software
are in-field diagnostics and repairs by downloadable software
applications, and language translators to communicate with their
international partners. In-field SOA diagnostic software has provided
many advantages to military and long-haul truck drivers. The ability to
track, diagnose, and provide software updates to vehicles in remote
locations such as Afghanistan has improved vehicle in-service
availability and has substantially decreased the time waiting for
replacement parts. Also, a language translator SOA application has
made the transfer of Navistar military vehicles to Iraqi and Afghan
soldiers more efficient.
One of the primary issues with International Trucks legacy
system is that it stored isolated data and information in applications
such as computer-aided manufacturing, in-house developed order
management, and even commercial ERP software. (Stephen Haag,
2010).

3. International uses the extreme programming (XP) methodology, which

is breaking projects into tiny phases and programmers cannot continue
until the current phase is complete. One of the reasons for XP success
is that it emphasizes customer satisfaction. XP empowers developers
to responds to changing customer and business requirements, even in
the late stages of the systems development cycle, and emphasizes
teamwork. The XP methodology supports quickly being able to solicit
and incorporate user feedback. The XP methodology phases include
planning, analysis, design, development, testing, implementation, and
maintenance. To integrate XP into their legacy systems, Navistar
developers built two Java EE-Based interfaces to a homegrown order
management system, which was then integrated into the Baan ERP
System. The next step was to extend the new SOA interfaces to their
customers and trading partners. The primary benefit of XP
methodology is to allow Navistar to swap out software applications
with little or no disruption to current legacy systems.
By integrating the new software with older versions that
employees are already familiar with, they can make the business
boom. It is a lot easier than "plunging" directly into a new software
system that can cause a lot of unwanted problems.
4.

One of the metrics that could be used would be system

availability. International Truck's previous IT systems didn't share
information easily. The SoA allowed information to flow much easier to
and from different departments and systems, resulting in less problems
and
errors
in
areas
such
as
manufacturing.
Another key infrastructure-centric metrics that could be used by
International Truck to justify a SOA scalability, accuracy, system
availability, and through put. These would be justified by the problem
in shortfalls in inventory, excessive defects and returns, more timely
information on assembly-plant problems, and the lack of easily shared
information by their current system,.

Scalability is defined by how well a system can adapt to increase

demands. This is important to any corporation that wishes to expand
its operations on a global scale.

 Throughput is the amount of information that can pass through a

system in a given amount of time. As the size of an organization
increases, the system must be available to handle the increased
amount of information generated.
System availability is usually measured inversely as downtime, or the
average amount of time a system is down and unavailable to end
users and customers. A system must be available to all members of
the value chain at any given time. The industry standard is the
99.999%.
Response time is the average time to respond to a user event, such as
a request for report. International Trucks SOA resulted from needing
more timely information so it could identify assembly-plant problems
sooner (Stephen Haag, 2010).
They are using scalability because their new system they put in
place has now increased their demands. Customers have more access
to the products at hand. It has also made it cheaper and has saved
them over three million dollars.
5.

Business Continuity Planning is defined as a step-by-step

guideline defining how the organization will recover from a disaster or
extended disruption(Stephen Haag, 2010). Having a good business
continuity plan serves as a bases for getting an organization back up to
speed after a disaster or a disruption in production. All systems
including Supply Chain M, ERP, and CRM are all vital to the operation of
the IT infrastructure. This included SOA and electronic data
interchanges (EDI). Navistar International is fortunate to have many
hot sites in place. Although the organizational Information Technology
Office is located in Downers Grove, IL, they have back up hot site in the
Computer Technology center in Brookfield, WI.
A good business continuity plan in place serves as the basis for
getting back up to speed after a downfall or halt of production. It is
necessary and important to have it or else no one will know what to
do.

To create a more robust business continuity plan, Navistar

International entered a service level agreement with IBM. This contract
IBM will transform Navistars IT environment by providing data center
relocation, server and storage management, physical data support,
and utilization of IBM server and storage technology. IBM will also
provide disaster recovery service, as well as a help desk and
distributive observation support at Navistars locations throughout the
United States, Canada, and Mexico.
A quick recovery needs a high-speed software system that can
integrate with others to get back up to speed with the entire company
and get business booming again.
Conclusion and Recommendation
The competitive nature of todays dynamic business environment
requires organizations to find way to differentiate themselves from
competitors. Service Orientated Architecture offers an avenue for
organizations to make significant changes to the legacy system,
without disrupting their IT infrastructure. As a result of International
Trucks investment in SOA, operations are now enhanced and can run
efficiently. Furthermore, SOAs enables organizations to track near real
time production, in-field diagnostics, repairs by downloadable software
and applications, and language translators. Art Data, VP of Navistars
IT, said that, I dont think we know all the doors were going to open
with this, (Murphy, 2006).

Chapter 7- Closing Case Study 2

Denver Health Operates with a Private Cloud and Thin Clients
Along with its main hospital, Denver Health operates the 911
emergency medical services response system for Denver, 12 clinics based in
the Denver Public Schools, the Rocky Mountain Poison Drug Center, and eight
family health centers, thats a big organization with substantial technology
needs.
Denver Health faced a problem of lost time incurred by physicians and
nurses upon entering a patients room and having to log on to a computer.
Even though Greg Veltri, Denver Healths CIO, had procedures and processes
in place to keep patient-room computers as new as possible and to refresh
those computers often to rid them of spyware, adware, and other inhibitors
of performance, log-on time was still about two minutes. If you multiply
those two minutes throughout the day by the number of doctor visits to
rooms, Denver Health calculated that it was losing almost $4 million annually
in physician lost time.
So, Gregg turned to a solution called ThinIdentity. ThinIdentity utilizes a
thin client basically a high-quality monitor, mouse, and keyboard in each
patient room. All processing and information storage are maintained in

Denver Healths private cloud. These thin clients (Sun Rays) need to be
upgraded only every eight years, instead of the typical two to three years for
a PC. Further, each Sun Ray costs only $600, a fraction of the price for a fullblown PC.
Equally important is the sign-on procedure doctors and nurses use now.
Upon arriving at work each day, a doctor or nurse signs onto a single station
(Sun Ray terminal or a PC in an office), which takes about one minute, by
inserting a smart card and then providing a log-on name and password. The
doctor or nurse then removes the smart card, which logs off the session at
that station, but leaves the session active in the cloud for the doctor or
nurse. When entering a patients room during the day, the doctor or nurse
needs only to insert the smart card and provide the log-on name and
password to reactivate the session that is still active in the cloud. This
process takes only 5 or 10 seconds.
ThinIdentity takes advantage of a concept called virtual location
awareness (VLA). VLA maps each room to each patient according to Denver
Healths transaction processing system. When a nurse or doctor enter a
specific room and reactivates his/her session in the cloud, VLA recognizes the
room and immediately pulls up that patients information within that doctors
or nurses session. This saves even more time. In total, the ThinIdentitybased system has saved Denver Health an estimated $5.7 million.
The savings are presented below.
- One-Time Savings
o $1.2 million reduction of desktop replacements
o $300,000 reduction of desktop resource needs
- Annual Savings
o $135,000 reduction of energy needs (Sun Rays use much less energy
than traditional desktop computers)
o $56,000 reduction in help desk calls
o $250,000 reduction in full-time employees operating the help desk
o $3.7 million reduction in physician log-on time
Introduction

Cloud computing has been a tremendous source of cash savings for

Denver Hospital. It has saved hours of log in time and also been cost
effective. It is an important question whether the public cloud can help the
hospital grow and serve as a protection for Denver Healths private cloud.
Since we are dealing with a health facility, it is critical to maintain the
confidentiality of the patients involved.
When disaster strikes, and data seems lost, the cloud can help in a
less costly way than having servers at a separate site. Data on the cloud is
delivered through a web portal belonging to a cloud service provider. The
only expense is that of the resources consumed. Denver health would be
benefitting from the public cloud in two ways: from the computing capacity
and also from the storage aspect, both on a private level. In case of a
disaster, the data desired would be ready and available for processing and
manipulating
as
needed.
Overall, the future of cloud computing and storage is a strong and solid one.
Denver Health should be aware of not entering a long-term agreement with a
cloud provider. A benefit of cloud storage is that you can switch companies if
a better deal becomes available. The information is not locked to one carrier,
if a firm decides to switch. Additionally, in order to minimize a recovery
phase, the hospital should be sure to use a cloud provider that has a fast
recovery phase. Much research should be done before any major decision is
made, but there are definitely solid reasons to use the public cloud as a
backup for Denver Healths private cloud.
Problem Statement
1. Privacy laws and regulations require medical facilities to take
measurable steps to ensure the confidentiality of patient information.
From the case study, can you tell what Denver Health has done to
ensure the confidentiality of its patient information?
2. Think about your school. How could it use the ThinIdentity solution to
support the technology needs of 1) faculty and 2) students such as
yourself?
3. In thinking about cloud computing (focusing on the public cloud), what
role could it play in business continuity planning for Denver
Health? That is, how could the public cloud act as a backup for Denver
Health's private cloud?
4. If Denver Health were to give each patient a smart card, log-on name,
and password, which functions, features, and information could benefit

patients? What security would have to be in place to ensure that

patients have access to only their own information?
5. How could Denver Health extend the ThinIdentity solution beyond its
brick-an-mortal walls? How would it work (i.e., need to change) to have
doctors and nurses log on from home or use a mobile device such as a
Blackberry or iPhone?
6. The reduction in physical log-in time is efficiency metric. What are
some effectiveness metrics that could justify Denver Health's use of
ThinIdentity?

Areas of Consideration

Alternative Courses of Action

1.

Denver Health did create security measures to ensure that only

the proper people can access the information. Doctors and nurses
when they first arrive to work they sign on by inserting a smart card
which contains that doctors or nurses credentials, once the smart
card is inserted the end user still also has to supply their login and
password. The help ensures that if a card is lost or stolen a random
person or a different doctor or nurse is not able to use and look at
other patient information.All processing and information storage are
maintained in Denver Health's multi-tenancy private cloud and the
use of smart card, log-on name and password.
2.
It can help institutions allocate consumption of resources
(chargeback) by different services or departments to better
prioritize IT spend. By taking advantage of the private cloud across
servers, desktops, and applications, education institutions can:

reduce cost. Help reduce physical server sprawl and total

cost of ownership of hardware
simplify desktop management. Provide optimal desktop
solutions for different user needs, while reducing IT complexity
improve access to applications. Help increase academic
institution agility through on-demand access to applications, and
enable anywhere access for students and faculty
integrate technologies. Minimize application and OS
compatibility issues.
For student, ThinIdentity can help to facilitate the dynamic
learning, teaching, and research activities in a university. It centralized
the computing and storage resources, this gives a great convenience
to schools and department across university to self-provision
computing environment, enable lecturers and students to easily access
to the necessary information immediately and efficiently.
Both students and faculty could use it for quick access to student
records. As a student I could then see if what classes are open, if any
are available to audit, etc. all from the thin client. It would also allow
for the faculty to have greater manageability in terms of sharing or
disseminating information such as news, announcements and events.
3. The public cloud could be used as a disaster recovery solution for
Denver Healths private cloud. Denver Health could work with a
public cloud provider such as VADS Berhad to create a backup
cloud.
Denver health would be benefitting from the public cloud in two
ways: from the computing capacity and also from the storage
aspect, both on a private level. The public cloud could be an option
for Denver Healths business continuity planning. The public cloud
could be used as a tool or backup solution for Denver Healths
private cloud. Denver Health could work with a company such as
Amazon Web Service or AWS to create a backup cloud. In the case
that all of Denver Healths assets go down, they would then still be
able to access their information that they worked with Amazon in
putting into the public cloud. They can also work with Amazon and
their public cloud with a collocation facility. This would allow for

Denver Health to still be able to access information on the chance

that something catastrophic happens at their data center.

When disaster strikes the company, and data lost, the public
cloud can help in a less costly way than having servers at a
separate site. Data on the cloud is delivered through a web portal
belonging to a cloud service provider. The only expense is that of
the resources consumed. This is how public cloud act as a backup
for
Denver
Healths
private
cloud.
Overall, the future of cloud computing and storage is a strong and
solid one. Denver Health should be aware of not entering a longterm agreement with a cloud provider. A benefit of cloud storage is
that you can switch companies if a better deal becomes available.
The information is not locked to one carrier, if a firm decides to
switch. Additionally, in order to minimize a recovery phase, the
hospital should be sure to use a cloud provider that has a fast
recovery phase. Much research should be done before any major
decision is made, but there are definitely solid reasons to use the
public cloud as a backup for Denver Healths private cloud.
4. Patients can access their medical records and the doctors can
communicate timely with patients about their health status for
appropriate treatment and diagnosis.
In order to secure that patients access only their information,
Denver Health should consider the following:

 Individual authentication of users

Access controls
Tracking of access and changes to records
Protection of remote communications links and access
Limited data sets
Data use agreements
Procedures for access to sensitive information in emergency
situations
Providing patients access to and ability to amend information
Communication of privacy practices
Organizational approaches to fostering privacy and security
awareness

Patients would be able to look at their own personal patient

history such as office visits, test results, prescriptions, anything that is
related to that patient. Patients could also then utilize the tool to see if
and when their doctor is going to be in the office and try to schedule a
visit. Denver Health could also take it one step further and allow for
patients and the doctors to interact. With a patients history right there
if a patients is asking questions or looking at symptoms doctors would

be better able to diagnose for minor ailments not requiring an office

visit from the patient.
There would still have to be security measures in place. Each
user would have to have their login and password. This would be
similar to what is in place with online banking. Many customers bank,
but with their login information they are only able to access their own
accounts and not another customers.
5.

Denver Health can access patients medical information remotely

out of Denver Healths premises through the use of the public cloud
over the Internet and the use of web browser to access online webbased portal.
Denver Health could expand ThinIdentity outside of its brick-andmortar walls; Denver Health could expand their solution to users
with Smart phones. If ThinIdentity is going to be utilized on a
Smartphone Denver Health is going to have to create an application
that allows for only registered users to access, or create a VPN
connection on the device and then only be able to access
ThinIdentity from behind the VPN.
6.
Effectiveness metrics measure results of the technology or
application of ThinIdentity. Measuring things such as the number of
new patients registered, length of time a patient stay active,
number of medicine stock outs and excess inventory, etc,
I think Denver Health could take a look at employee satisfaction
as one of their metrics. It will be essential that the nurses, doctors
and everyone else who is using ThinIdentity has a positive view of
it. If ThinIdentity is well liked the users are going to be more inclined
to use it the way that Denver Health wants them to.
Denver Health will also want to look at how ThinIdentity impacts
their long-term objectives. Has the implementation created better
patient care, is Denver Health realizing more dollars per patient, or
doctors seeing more patients.
Conclusion and Recommendations
According to Nicholas Carr, IT has started to become less prominent
and mattered less to the competitive edge. History reveals that IT needs to
become ordinary: ; needs to lose its strategic importance as a differentiator
among the companies so as to fulfil its potential (Carr 2004). From the
vendors perspective, cloud computing has proved to be disruptive in nature
and a substitute for the own-hosted hardware infrastructure. This has posed

a serious threat to the established firms who were market leaders in the
traditional server business. These players are increasingly getting into cloud
domain and have started to provide cloud services to the customers.
Private cloud service makes a lot of sense to bigger companies
because it is based on a model where they run their own servers and
infrastructure. The idea of controlling your own infrastructure and only allow
workers within the same firewall to access all the content from the private
cloud makes it comfortable to use for larger companies. Connectivity is often
done through a secure VPN connection and there are many encryptions that
keep anyone else from accessing the network.
Public cloud service does offer a lot of security measures, but some
companies just wont be too open to sharing the public cloud infrastructure
with other companies. Private cloud also ensures there is in-house
management accountability of the cloud service, which is ideal in larger
organizations.
However, from my point of view, this system can lead to security and
confidentiality issues if the system is not well secured and if Denver Health
doesn't have a reliable relation with its cloud supplier (Microsoft).