A WHITE PAPER ON NEXT GENERATION ENTERPRISE SERVICES

The Next Generation Enterprise

Author:

Ravi Kumar Buragapu

Technical Architect

Abstract

This white paper describes the potentials of next generation enterprise

technologies and software services that have the capability to deliver
zero-footprint, Web-based business applications that are easier to build,
cheaper, more reusable, and more maintainable.

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………………….……3

THE SERVICE ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE ……………………………………………..........3

SOA REFERENCE MODEL………………………………….……………………………...5

SOFTWARE-AS-A-SERVICE …….……………………..………….…………………….…..…….6

SOFTWARE-AS-A-SERVICE ARCHITECTURE………….…………………………….. 7

SOFTWARE-AS-A-SERVICE PROCESS MODEL...………………………………….. 8

TRADITIONAL SOFTWARE SERVICES MODEL…..….……..……………….8

SOFTWARE-AS-A-SERVICE PROCESS MODEL………...………………........ 9

COMPOSITE APPLICATIONS & ENTERPRISE MASHUPS ….……………….…….….......10

INFERENCE ………………………………………………………………….....................................11

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INTRODUCTION

The traditional model for selling high-end business software is very

inefficient, and is based on investing huge sums of money in sending
out sales people to find and persuade prospects to buy the software.
The traditional heavyweight, expensive and pay-huge-license-fees-upfront
then try-to-implement-forever model does not work anymore.

Furthermore, why do we buy software? Is it so we can have the joy of

owning servers, doing backups, patches and maintenance? Of course
not! We buy software to get things done. We want to use the services it
provides and frankly if we could let someone else manage the
headaches all the better.

Of course several Open Source packages are available completely

free, which is a perfect solution for the cost problem, but frankly most
of these packages are by geeks for geeks; i.e. you really have to be quite
IT-savvy to implement, integrate, upgrade them, and as we stated most
small businesses simply do not have that type of resource.

The objective of this paper is to describe the brave new world of next
generation software services that provides

 All the benefits of enterprise software.

 A faster way to business value.
 A managed approach that frees staff resources.
 A low-risk option for enterprise management.
 A predictable way to achieve better outcomes.

THE SERVICE ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE (SOA)

SOA is a architecture and programming model, a way of thinking about

building software. An SOA enables you to design software systems that
provide services to other applications through published and
discoverable interfaces, and where the services can be invoked over a
network. When you implement an SOA using Web services
technologies, you create a new way of building applications within a
more powerful, flexible programming model. You can reduce your
development and ownership costs-and your implementation risk.

It's important to understand that Web service does not equal SOA. Web
services is a collection of technologies, including XML, Simple Object
Access Protocol (SOAP), Web Services Description Language (WSDL)
and Universal Description, Discover and Integration (UDDI),

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which allow you to build programming solutions for specific messaging

and application integration problems. Over time, these technologies can
be expected to mature, and eventually be replaced with better, more-
efficient, more-robust technology. But for the moment, the existing
technologies are sufficient, and have already proven that you can
implement an SOA today. SOA is the next wave of application
development. Web services and SOA are about designing and building
systems using heterogeneous network-addressable software
components.

Primary characteristics of an SOA are

• Services are used to divide larger applications into smaller discrete

modules.
• Services are integrated via service composition mechanisms to create
larger applications.

A service in SOA is an exposed piece of functionality with four

properties.

1. Firstly, the interface that contract to the service is platform-

independent.
2. The service can be dynamically located and invoked is the second
property.
3. Thirdly, the service is self-contained. That is, the service
maintains its own state.
4. Finally, the feature of having a neutral interface definition is
known as loose coupling between services. It is not strongly tied
to a particular implementation.

A Service is a callable routine that is made available over a network.

Services have well-defined interfaces. The interfaces are often published
in a directory.

With increasing adoption of SOA, RIA and other emerging trends

discussed above, enterprises will become service providers and will no
longer dictate the type of applications built and deployed on the
enterprise IT infrastructure. An ecosystem of applications built upon
services will clearly benefit the enterprise.

Web services are becoming the preferred standards-based SOA

approach for enabling external enterprise integration, leading to
confusion between SOA and Web Services.

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Simply remember that SOA is architecture and Web Services is one

current implementation technology that can be used to achieve SOA.

Discovery

Discovered
Services Service
Information Service Description

References
Encompasses
Demands

Data Model

Contract

SOA Reference Model

SOAs offer the following advantages over traditional approaches to

distributed computing:

• They offer business services across the platforms

• They provide location independence
• Services need not be at a particular system or particular network
• Completely loosely coupled approach
• Authentication and authorization support at every level
• The search and connectivity to other services is dynamic

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Benefits from the perspective of Business Value

• Ability to more quickly meet customer demands

• Lower costs associated with the acquisition and maintenance of
technology
• Management of business functionality closer to the business
units
• Leverages existing investments in technology
• Reduces reliance on expensive custom development

Although Web services were not conceived as an integration

technology, they can be effective in the application-integration process.
Web services provide a standard way to expose application interfaces
through XML (Extensible Markup Language) and WSDL (Web Services
Description Language). They also use a standard way to communicate,
via SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol). These features help reduce
the cost and complexity of integration, as well as the cost and
complexity of building new applications. Web services are made even
more interesting by the fact that they are supported by both .NET and
J2EE, and run equally well on both platforms. Therefore, Web services
are ideal for bridging the two platforms.

SOFTWARE-AS-A-SERVICE (SaaS)

It's a common experience among software companies today with

increasing cost pressure, high customer expectations, and global
competition all placing new demands on development and delivery
processes. Software as a Service, or SaaS, is proving to be the wave of
the future, enabling software companies to significantly reduce their
time-to-market and time-to-profitability.

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is a fairly a new delivery mechanism that

defined for supporting SOA concept. It provides application designed
from the scratch to be delivered as online services, and enables end
users to use software without worrying about downloads, upgrades,
patches, and other issues related to traditional applications

We believe that SaaS is going to have a major impact on the software

industry, because software as a service will change the way people
build, sell, buy, and use software.

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There can be no question that Software as a Service (SaaS) is changing

the landscape of the software industry. And it’s no longer just hype –
beyond pure-play.
Metadata Services

Directory Services
Security Services
Browser
Smart
Client

Presentation

Process Services

Business Services

File
Metadata Database
System

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Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Architecture

SaaS applications must be specially designed for deployment to

multiple customers. The various hosting options can have a big impact
on how well the software scales and performs as users are added. one of
the highest priorities for a prospective SaaS architect is creating a SaaS
data architecture that is both robust and secure enough to satisfy
tenants or clients who are concerned about surrendering control of vital
business data to a third party, while also being efficient and cost-
effective to administer and maintain, an organization must surrender a
level of control over its own data, trusting the SaaS vendor to keep it
safe and away from prying eyes.

Most true SaaS offerings are built on an SOA foundation. SOA provides
an easier platform to add additional features and greatly simplifies
integration with other systems and services via web services, greatly
enhancing the value of the application to the customer.

SaaS Process Model

SaaS is more of providing services with both behavior and information

for use within the enterprise, or perhaps with other Web-based
applications (dare I say mashups). Indeed, we are not outsourcing
entire applications, but outsourcing services or processes, and have the
power to mix and match processes to meet the exact requirements of the
enterprise.

This is no longer about selling perpetual licenses. When defining the

product strategy we have to think about the underlying business model.
Are our revenues based on Monthly Per User fees, Transaction based or
an Advertising Supported model? This not only impacts the billing
structure and the level of features that we need to build into the
software, but also the strategy we use to migrate customers from our
on-premise to the On-Demand offering.

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Finance
Finance

CRM

CRM

Portal
Enterprise User

Collaboration

E-Mail

Traditional Software Service Model

Today, SaaS applications are expected to take advantage of the benefits

of centralization through a single-instance, multi-tenant architecture,
and to provide a feature-rich experience competitive with comparable
on-premise applications. A typical SaaS application is offered either
directly by the vendor or by an intermediary party called an aggregator,
which bundles SaaS offerings from different vendors and offers them as
part of a unified application platform.

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Software Services
Portfolio
SaaS-Finance
Solution

Finance

SaaS-CRM
Solution

Integrat
CRM Composit
ed
Architect e
Architect
ure Enterprise
User

Portal

Collaboration

E-Mail

SaaS - Process Model

In contrast to the one-time licensing model commonly used for on-

premise software, SaaS application access is frequently sold using a
subscription model, with customers paying an ongoing fee to use the
application. Fee structures vary from application to application; some
providers charge a flat rate for unlimited access to some or all of the
application's features, while others charge varying rates that are based
on usage.

On the technical side, the SaaS provider hosts the application and data
centrally—deploying patches and upgrades to the application
transparently, and delivering access to end users over the Internet
through a browser or smart-client application. Many vendors provide
application programming interfaces (API) that expose the applications
data and functionality to developers for use in creating composite
applications. A variety of security mechanisms can be used to keep
sensitive data safe in transmission and storage. Applications providers
might provide tools that allow customers to modify the data schema,
workflow, and other aspects of the application's operation for their use.

COMPOSITE APPLICATIONS & ENTERPRISE MASHUPS

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Software reuse has been a holy grail of the industry for decades and this
is one of the very reasons mashups are so fascinating. Indeed, mashups
make reuse happen at several different levels.

As part of the adoption and implementation of SOA in the enterprise,

we have also seen the emergence of Composite Applications.

A composite application is composed of other applications and services,

often including coordination between those services. In the Web 2.0
world, this concept is often referred to as a Mashup.

A mashup is a website or web application that uses content from more

than one source to create a completely new service. Enterprise mashup
services will combine information from enterprise search engines, Web
services, messaging systems, BI engines and data integration solutions
with information from external services.

Just type in the city and state and up pops a Google map populated
with the cell tower locations. How'd they do that? Well, the cell towers
are registered with the FCC. They took that information and compiled it
into a searchable database. Then, by presenting that information within
Google Maps, they provided a simple but very effective graphical
interface to display towers within the area. So, they mashed up the FCC
information with Google Maps, and provided a completely new service
from the pairing.

Mapping mashups are all the rage, simply because they transform data
into a visual aid, which is often localized. That makes it a more
meaningful, and ultimately more useful, service. Like the above
example, it transforms raw, flat data into interactive information. Here's
another example: After you've ordered something online, have you ever
clicked on the link to track your package and had the information
passed from UPS or Fedex? We will me more interested in seeing where
is the package is, we would much rather see its progress charted on a
map rather than reading a boring text list of destinations.

Nevertheless, It wouldn't be surprised to hear of legal issues arising out

of some mashups. For instance, is the data or a service truly open for
anyone to mash it up with another service? Some may be limited by
their Terms of Service.

Mashups are collaborative compositions of online capabilities within

rich user interfaces, while Service-Oriented Business Applications are

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declarative compositions of Services within the context of a Service-

Oriented Architecture implementation. Today, these two concepts are
merging into the Enterprise Mashup, a governed, secure composition of
Services within a rich user environment.

INFERENCE

What we're seeing is that the SaaS model changes not only the
technology and the delivery of software to customers, but the
marketing and sales process, too, which is perhaps where most of the
excess "fat" can be cut from. Software companies can now directly and
affordably reach millions of small customers. The entire
marketing, sales, delivery, implementation, support, upgrade process is
seamless, highly standardized, conducted via the Net, teleconferencing,
Webex-like sharing in new low-cost ways.

The challenges to developing and delivering SaaS products are

significant, but with the right SaaS partners, software companies can
reap the rewards and avoid the pitfalls. By adopting an integrated and
coordinated SaaS development platform, coupled with a rock-solid
SaaS delivery platform, software companies are in a strong position to
continuously respond to customer needs with efficiently produced
product capabilities, building customer loyalty and ensuring a steady,
recurring revenue stream.

Getting SaaS applications to market introduces a new set of issues

requiring software companies to not only change their delivery
platform, but also their development mindset. That's a daunting
prospect, to say the least.

ALLUSION

Few insights on what’s the philosophy and vision of the world on the
next generation enterprise.

• http://www.soainaction.com
• http://saasondemand.wordpress.com
• http://saassightings.blogspot.com
• http://www.enterpriseweb2.com

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