it's the enterprise, dude

It's the Enterprise, Dude

Barry WalshIndiana University

• The increase in electronic information and service delivery to our constituents is drawing into sharp focus how we can make interaction with enterprise services a delightful rather than a frustrating experience. But it's not just about the technology. The cultural issues, silos and other, are the greater stumbling block. The work that is being done in the community source initiatives is helping create that delightful experience for our users but with it comes new governance and collaboration imperatives. This session will explore this new and exciting world where policy, requirements, and technology meet.

04/21/23 JA-SIG 2006: Atlanta

Google earth


On the Other Hand


Students……….Faculty………..Staff………..Alumni

Several Forces at Work in our Institutions

• Rapidly expanding user bases;• ERP vendor systems;• Open Source movement;• Portals;• SOAP Web Services;


They’re not necessarily unrelated!

Typical Experience Until Recently

• Users logged on to systems and navigated to find information or perform processes.• training

• Individual apps• different sign-ons• Poor/non-existent user interface standards

• Or worse still, the system sent printed output to them through snail-mail

The point is they usually had to overtly seek out the information in disparate systems*


Gartner on Network Enabled Components—aka Web Services

• Servers at the core of the network will increasingly act as "facilitators" by guiding procedure calls to the locations where they can be most efficiently executed.

• Given such capabilities, the emphasis of software development shifts to re-architecting business functions into modular, network-enabled components spread across a highly-distributed computing infrastructure. This evolution, more than anything else, is the fundamental driving force behind the Web Services architecture.


Future?

Course Catalog

Personal DatabaseDegree Advising

Financial Aid Regs/Processing

Registration for ClassesAdmissions

BursarTranscripts.

Today’s Integrated Suite

Standards BasedCore Technologies

WS; SOA; Workflow

Goal: ZDU (Zero Disruptive Upgrades)

It’s Raining Technology!!


Web 2.0

SOAESB

Directory

MOM

Workflow NotificationAJAX

Options

• More likely you will end up building, buying and assembling

• Loosely coupled systems are more and more the future and that’s why integration is key

• Customization takes on a new form• Based on what and who I am….driven by a directory.• Role based view; not everybody needs the entire SIS

or whatever• Speaks to a functional component model


What might this look like ?

• A more proactive push process to deliver in one place all information and processes I may need…the information finds me.

• The ‘official’ place to which the organization would send stuff it wanted you to address.

• Single sign-on; • Seamless transport between and among

back office and other systems

• Sounds like a portal to me


So…what is an enterprise web portal?

• A web-based framework consisting of a role based, but personalized view of an integrated set of services which provide easy access to information, applications, processes and people.

Some caveats and disclaimers• We in IT and the back office

units are not the primary target audience for enterprise portals• Students (and their parents);• Faculty;• Staff;• Alums;• Not all of them are technically savvy;

• Neither IT nor the service providers will drive the services in the portal….see Rule 1 above

• IT providing a service delivery framework and several specific ‘utility’ services


Enterprise Portals (EPs) and SOA

“To implement a service-oriented architecture, companies must consider what steps and technologies are involved. Portals represent a logical first step in the process.

The portal can be a logical and appropriate first step toward SOA implementation because its fundamental nature lends itself to SOA approaches. --The portal uses service-oriented concepts; --It leverages Web services extensively; --It leverages portlets, which consume services or communicate to provide orchestrated flows and on-the-glass composite applications.”


Gene Phifer: (Gartner’s leading analyst on EPs)

22 September 2005

Technology and Silo Culture in Portals

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, March 31, 2003:“Basically, buying software won't get you a good portal unless you also manage internal company politics. Technology accounts for roughly one-third of the work in launching a good portal;

The real challenge is to get contributors from individual departments to comply with the portal rules, enter decent meta-data, and refrain from fielding maverick intranet servers outside the portal's scope. Intranet portals aim to replace the wild Web model with a tool metaphor, where a company's content and services work together instead of undermining each other.”


internal processes account for the rest.

http://www.useit.com/jakob/

Gartner: The Big Challenge in Portals

• Every Website is a potential new silo • Silo’d service delivery units• Changing people’s habits• Existing methods have to stay in place

during transition• That allows those resistant to change to

linger• A long term commitment is required to get

through the transition


Some ‘Source ‘ Definitions


Pure Commercial Software

Shareholders•Goal to maximize profit•Developer priority profit

Commercial Developers•Revenue and paycheck!•stability of software •Do not even know stakeholders

Stakeholders•Expect indemnification

•allows for a good night’s sleep?

•Users feel they have the best product that money can buy•Can calibrate end-user demands for change

Attribution to Chuck Severance at U Mich

Communication between Stakeholders and Shareholders is in the form of large checks.

= Most Powerful in Structure

Pure Open Source Software

Open Source Developers•Type 1: Passionate individual •Type 2: Paid consultants•Teams formed based on personal time and motivation or a commercial venture with a short-term agenda•Effort level can ebb and flow•Cool features and programming chops rule the day (and night)

Stakeholders•Love “free” stuff.•Hate that there is no one to call - “if it breaks you get to keep both pieces”•Hate that there is no one to sue•Must self-indemnify by keeping lots of staff “in case” something goes wrong.•Once open source is chosen, may find it hard to sleep at night.

Virtually no communication at all between Stakeholders and Developers

Attribution to Joseph Hardin at U MichAttribution to Chuck Severance at U Mich

Community Source


Open Source Developers•Limited ways to play in this game

Core Stakeholders•May represent a significant pool of resources•If they pooled resources, they would be instantly larger than many small commercial R&D operations.•Tired of writing big checks, and begging for features•Form coalition of the “committed”•Must learn that this is harder than it looks - must gain company-like skills.•Actually responsible for both the development and production of the software.

Core Developers•Work for the stakeholders so they want to make the Stakeholders happy:•By, of and for HE!

Commercial Support•Can contribute in several ways•Can make money from secondary stakeholders

Secondary Stakeholders•Look to Core developers for reliability/performance•The Core developers have a boss!•Pay money to Core to get “indemnification”?•Can contribute to the Core “in kind”?•Can join the core with enough commitment•Can pay Commercial Support for “extra indemnification”.

Attribution to Chuck Severance at U Mich

Community Source Projects


“Community source describes a model for the purposeful coordinating of work in a community. It is based on many of the principles of open source development efforts, but community source efforts rely more explicitly on defined roles, responsibilities, and funded commitments by community members than some open source development models.”

…. from www.sakaiproject.org

Attribution to Joseph Hardin at U Mich

Three Critical Stages


Harmonious Execution

Harmonious ExecutionFormation

OngoingSupport

Scope

Funding

Governance

Formation:


Formation

Formation: Choose Partners Judiciously

• Like-minded Institutions• Shared vision

•Functionally•Technically•Ya gotta WANNA!!

• Synchronized institutional clocks•Within reason

• Long term commitment:• Beyond Project?

• Tolerance for ambiguity


Formation: Participants’ Volunteer Modes

Middleware(Apache; CAS)

Applications(Kuali/Sakai)

Operating System(Linux)


Institutional

Institutional/Individual

Individual

So Where’s uPortal?

uPortal

Formation: Creating the resources

• Defined Contributions• Cash or Tendered Resources• Tendered to Board• For Duration of Project

• Qualified Resources• As Judged by Peers

•Functional•Technical

• Grants


Harmonious Execution: Personal

• Good behavior begets good behavior. • If you seed the core development team with

good, well behaved people... they attract good, well behaved people.

• The weaklings and bullies just don't fit in and don't hang around.

• Likewise, well-behaved commercial partners set high bar for future behavior of commercial partners.


…Carl Jacobson

Harmonious Execution: Logistical

• Co-location is optimal but unlikely• Don’t skimp on the F2F opportunities• Always-on Video• Virtual-Meeting Software

• Webex, Breeze, LiveMeeting, etc.• Prototype sharing/demonstration

• Collaborative Software• Sakai, JIRA, Confluence etc.

• Time Zones!!!• Animal House!!


Harmonious Execution: Overhead

• Remote sites • Team makeup/leadership• Work Allocation

• Time-Zones


Ongoing Support


OngoingSupport

Scope

Funding

Governance

Ongoing Support: Funding

• Community Source Requires Defined, Tendered Resources

• Commercial partners A good thing• Long term sustenance?

• A "grant-funded project" is different from an "open source" project.


Ongoing Support: Scope

• Scope Creep• A grant is a contract and an agreement to

accomplish something. • If the grant money was received to "paint it

red" and the community wants to "paint it white"... it will be red as long as the grant is driving the bus. •When the community process kicks in,

they can paint it white.


…Carl Jacobson

Ongoing Support: Scope--The Rules of the Game


Sco

pe

Tim

e

Resources

TheReality

Triangle

You MayPick Any

Two

I Get the

Other ☺

Ongoing Support: Governance

• Strong community is more valuable than strong governance. • Early stages: a little more hands-on?• Later: Zen?

• "Inclusive" is better than "exclusive“• largest possible community;• accept free-riders;• welcome commercial partners;

• Open-open licensing encourages inclusion and therefore the largest possible community.


…Carl Jacobson

Ongoing Support: Governance

• Founding Investors: • uPortal

•UDel, Princeton, Andrew W. Mellon, JA-SIG, etc.

• Sakai: •U Mich, Stanford, MIT, Indiana, Andrew

W. Mellon• Kuali:

•UA, UH, CU, SJD, MSU, IU, NACUBO, Andrew W. Mellon;rSmart

• FEDORA: •UVa, CU, Andrew W. Mellon


In the end, it’s all about the Community


it's the enterprise, dude

Documents

enterprise services

web services architecture

enterprise web portal

electronic information

webbased framework

needthe information

delightful experience

integrated set of services