oracle application integration architecture (aia): does it deliver on it’s integration promise?

Ahmed Aboulnaga Technical Director Raastech, Inc.

Does It Deliver On It’s Integration Promise?

Oracle Application Integration Architecture (AIA)

November 15th, 2011

13:00-13:45

Pres. No.: 149

Stream: SOA/BPM

Room: Riga

of 47 © Raastech, Inc. 2011 | All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

2. The Integration Problem

3. Introducing Oracle AIA

4. AIA Usage in the Real World

5. Summary

Agenda


What is AIA?

What experiences have other customers had using AIA?

Should you consider AIA for your integration needs?

Goal of Presentation


THE INTEGRATION PROBLEM


Why do we need Application Integration?

Existence of multiple disparate systems in an enterprise

and their role in performing larger business functions

These systems are disparate in their:

– Technical Architectures

– Programming Model

– Connectivity


Provides a complete, end-to-end solution for

Communication Service Providers (CSP) to deliver mobile

TV, 3G wireless networks, video conferencing, and more

The Oracle Communications Suite consists of the

following applications: – Siebel Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

– Communications Billing & Revenue Management (BRM)

– Supply Chain Management (SCM)

– Point-of-Sale (POS)

– Service Fulfillment (SF)

– Communications Order & Service Management (OSM)

– Communications Unified Inventory Management (UIM)

– Automatic Service Activation Program (ASAP)

– Communications Services Gatekeeper (OCSG)

– Oracle E-Business Suite & Financials

The Oracle Communications Example


Point-to-Point Integration Architecture

CRM

ASAP

OCSG

OSM

OSM

BRM

UIM

POS

Using web services alone is not

enough when integrating Oracle

Communications applications

Integrating these applications can

be very difficult and time

consuming

Upgrading any application will

require code modification to the

integrations

Points of connections grow

exponentially

Limited reusability


AIA Integration Architecture

CRM

ASAP

OCSG

OSM

OSM

BRM

UIM

POS

AIA EBO/EBS

By leveraging Oracle AIA for

Communications, we allow for

loose coupling of the Oracle

Communications applications

A change to any one

application has a minimal

impact on the integrations

Single connection for each

operation

One-time integration

development for multiple

providers


AIA for Communications 2.5

Oracle BI

Analytics

Siebel Customer Relationship Management

Oracle SDP

Service Execution

Data Management

Product

Customer

En

terp

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tion

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ERP

Fins Assets

Procurement

Reporting

Oracle Content

Management

Oracle Service Fulfillment

Activation Network Inventory

Provisioning

Oracle Billing and Revenue Management

Billing Balance Tracking

Rating

Oracle Order and Service Management

Order Fallout Order Lifecycle

Management Ord

er

Ma

na

ge

me

nt

Oracle BI

Publisher

Invoicing

Sales Marketing/

Loyalty Partner

Order Capture

Self Service

Service

SCM

Planning Logistics Execution

Parts Inventory

Order Decomposition

and Orchestration


Oracle Introduces AIA Foundation Pack

traditional SOA

Oracle AIA


INTRODUCING ORACLE AIA


1. Pre-Built Integrations

2. Canonical Data Model

3. Development Methodology

4. Error Management Framework

5. CAVS

6. Project Lifecycle Workbench

7. Other tools and features

Oracle AIA Components

Code

Data Model

Best Practices

Tools


Also referred to as Process Integration Packs or PIPs

PIPS are a pre-built set of integrated orchestration flows,

application integration logic, extensible EBOs and EBSs

9 cross-industry PIPs, 8 vertical PIPs

Developing these from scratch is time consuming

PIPs are supported, upgraded, and maintained by Oracle

Pre-Built Integrations


“Order to Bill” PIP


Companies often spend many months just trying to agree

on a corporate data standard to represent their key

business objects

Eliminates the need to comprehensively analyze your

environment to determine a common message format

Also referred to as Enterprise Business Objects or EBOs

EBOs are based on the open source OAGIS data model

Designed with extensibility in mind

Canonical Data Model


All applications are responsible for publishing as much

information to the EBO as possible

The integration will transform the data from the EBO to

the format of the target system(s)

Explaining the Canonical Data Model

Application A

First Name

Middle Name

Last Name

Date Of Birth

Position

Company

Application B

First Name

Last Name

Age

Salary

Application C

First Name

Middle Name

Last Name

Company

Customer EBO

First Name

Middle Name

Last Name

Date Of Birth

Position

Company

Salary


EBOs are XML schemas (i.e., xsd files)

Examples:

– BankAccount

– CurrencyExchange

– CustomerParty

– Invoice

– Item

– Location

– PurchaseOrder

EBOs


Canonical Data Model

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<xsd:schema xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"

targetNamespace="http://www.siebel.com/xml/CMU%20AccSync%20Account%20Io">

<xsd:complexType name="ListOfCmuAccsyncAccountIo">

<xsd:sequence>

<xsd:element name="Account" type="xsdLocal:Account" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded"/>

</xsd:sequence>

<xsd:attribute name="Language" type="xsd:string"/>

<xsd:attribute name="Locale" type="xsd:string"/>

<xsd:attribute name="MessageId" type="xsd:string"/>

<xsd:attribute name="EnterpriseServerName" type="xsd:string"/>

</xsd:complexType>

<xsd:complexType name="Account">

<xsd:sequence>

<xsd:element name="AccountStatus" type="xsdLocal:string24" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1"/>

<xsd:element name="AccountClass" type="xsdLocal:string30" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/>

<xsd:element name="CurrencyCode" type="xsdLocal:string15" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/>

<xsd:element name="MainPhoneNumber" type="xsd:string" minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1"/>

<xsd:element name="AccountName" type="xsdLocal:string100" minOccurs="1" maxOccurs="1"/>

Below is an example of the BankAccount EBO

It contains a superset of all account related fields


AIA proposes a methodology to follow when developing

custom integrations

Designed to decouple the source and target applications

PIPs are developed using this methodology

Updates to any application requires little to no changes to

your integrations

Development Methodology

Requestor ABCS

AIA EBS

Provider ABCS CRM BRM

EBS Provider

ABCS

ABM EBM EBM ABM

EBM ABM


Captures errors

Notifies on errors

Workflow processes surround the error framework

Can be used by custom code

Errors can be published to other systems or tools

Error Management Framework


Claim, Escalate, and Delegate errors



Error details are available to help in troubleshooting



“Composite Application Validation System”

CAVS is a framework to test integration of AIA services

Provides test initiators that simulate web service

Provides simulators that simulate service endpoints

CAVS

Requestor ABCS

AIA EBO CRM BRM

CAVS Simulator

Provider ABCS

CAVS Test Definition


Functional designs are created to specify requirements

that need to be implemented for an integration project

Used to perform functional decompositions to break down

overall projects into business tasks

Project Lifecycle Workbench


Project Lifecycle Workbench


1. Pre-Built Integrations

2. Canonical Data Model

3. Development Methodology

4. Error Management Framework

5. CAVS

6. Project Lifecycle Workbench

7. Other tools and features

8. Infrastructure

Oracle AIA Components

PIPs

AIA Foundation Pack

SOA Suite


AIA USAGE IN THE REAL WORLD


Large telecom company

$9.1 billion in revenue in 2010

Large number of enterprise applications:

– 6 Oracle applications

– 6 non-Oracle applications

– 3 external applications

Oracle AIA for Communications 2.x

Customer A: Profile


2 PIPs were used

Huge time & cost savings for initial development effort

Customer A: Reducing Cost with PIPs


CAVS not used

– Would not have impacted testing approach

– All code must pass functional testing anyway

Error Handling Framework not used

– Errors were being reported by other means

IAIADiagnostics interface was proposed, not used

– Customer could have implemented a simpler custom

solution

Lack of experience, comfort, and familiarity with AIA

causes teams to not use these features

Customer A: AIA Tools Not Leveraged


Customer A: Benefits & Risks

Benefits Risks

PIPs reduced development time

during initial phases of the project

Lack of developer understanding of

AIA framework

Dependent on Oracle for bug fixes to

PIPs

Unable to upgrade to SOA Suite 11g

(for now)


Global retail company

$9.2 billion in revenue in 2010

Large applications supporting global operations:

– 1 Oracle application (4 more in the future)

– 6 custom applications (50+ more in the future)

600+ SOA projects

Oracle AIA Foundation Pack 11g

Customer B: Profile


A single integration consists of 5 projects, sometimes

resulting in high overhead under load (particularly when

using EBOs which are large in nature) and complicating

the development process

Did not firmly adhere to AIA methodology

Initial design mistakes were made as a result of learning

curve, which introduces risk in a new implementation

when trying to set the foundation

Customer B: Cumbersome AIA Methodology


CAVS was perceived to be great in the beginning

CAVS did not provided much value over time:

– Developers unable to do data validation using CAVS

– SoapUI is a more convenient client testing tool for developers

Customer B: Dropping CAVS


Reuse of integrations became evident:

– As the number of source applications increased

– Due to the loose coupling recommended by AIA

– After 2 years

Standardizing on AIA EBOs eliminated early analysis

efforts

Customer B: Long-Term ROI Evident


Customer B: Benefits & Risks

Benefits Risks

No point-to-point integrations Learning curve was high

Long-term ROI is apparent due to high

reusability

Could not follow AIA development

methodology 100%

Using EBOs eliminated initial

requirements analysis for data model

CAVS usage did not survive in the

long term


SUMMARY


Should you consider using PIPs?

Yes, if they are available; why would you want to develop

this code yourself?

Yes, if they meet the requirements of your Oracle

applications integration (at least 50-75%)

No, if you envision an extremely high degree of

customization to the PIPs (Oracle can provide a “fit

analysis”)

Recommendation


Should you use the AIA Foundation Pack for custom

development?

Yes, if you have a very large number of Oracle

applications, since EBOs are becoming the common

message format for communication among Oracle

applications

Yes, if you envision a high degree of reuse

No, if you have a small number of non-Oracle

applications and/or don’t expect to add many systems

Recommendation


Should you use CAVS?

Maybe, if your developers are strong and you follow a

strict configuration management, release management,

and testing process

No, if you have skillset or time constraints, as it

becomes more trouble than it’s worth

No, if your expectations are high, since it only helps in

binding tests and cannot help in data validation tests

Recommendation


Should you use the Project Lifecycle Workbench, PIP

Auditor, AIA Diagnostics, or other tools provided with

the AIA Foundation Pack?

No, Oracle has a history of removing features after a

major release upgrade (e.g., BSR)

No, some of these tools (e.g., PIP Auditor) are rarely

used by most customers

No, since each tool requires yet another piece that

designers/developers must learn

Recommendation


The “Truth Meter” contains a list of claims extracted from

Oracle AIA marketing material, press releases, and release

notes

12 Oracle AIA Solution Architects were interviewed to

provide, on a scale of 1 to 10, the truthfulness of each

statement

Background of the Oracle AIA Solution Architects:

– 10+ years of IT experience

– At least 1 long term AIA engagement (6-18 months)

– Includes customer architects, systems integration architects

(i.e., consultants), and architects currently employed at Oracle

Truth Meter Description


Truth Meter

Oracle Claim Truth Meter

Reduce complexity, accelerating delivery 58%

Promotes reuse 78%

Leverages industry best practices 76%

Speed up design with pre-built, extensible product data model 73%

Allocate less work on maintenance 63%

Lower integration costs (using PIPs) 62%

Lower integration costs (Foundation Pack only) 61%

Reduces integration risks (using PIPs) 63%

Reduces integration risks (Foundation Pack only) 60%


Truth Meter

Oracle Claim Truth Meter Total Customer SI Oracle

Reduce complexity, accelerating delivery 58% 47% 65% 70%

Promotes reuse 78% 77% 73% 87%

Leverages industry best practices 76% 80% 80% 67%

Speed up design with pre-built, extensible data model 73% 53% 82% 70%

Allocate less work on maintenance 63% 17% 55% 63%

Lower integration costs (using PIPs) 62% 50% 78% 67%

Lower integration costs (Foundation Pack only) 61% 50% 80% 57%

Reduces integration risks (using PIPs) 63% 50% 72% 53%

Reduces integration risks (Foundation Pack only) 60% 60% 63% 53%


My past assessment of CAVS was “avoid at all costs”

Conducted additional surveys of clients and systems

integrators

Was I too harsh on CAVS?

CAVS Survey Question Result

You would recommend using it for an upcoming project 8%

You would recommend using it for an upcoming project

only if the team has prior experience using it 8%

Using it varies depending on the needs of the project 58%

You would not recommend it 25%


AIA can be the solution to the fundamental challenge of

application integration

For small integration implementations, AIA is not

recommended

For larger implementations, expect to initially see cost

reduction, high cost and high risk during the middle, but long

term ROI afterwards

PIPs help reduce risk

PIPs are not available for all types of integrations; custom

development and/or customization is almost always required

Not enough qualified expertise in the marketplace

Competent AIA Solution Architects are very hard to come back

Summary

AIA

Sum

mary

PIP

s

Skillsets


Contact Information

Ahmed Aboulnaga

Technical Director

[email protected]

oracle application integration architecture (aia): does it deliver on it’s integration promise?

Technology

oracle aia

oracle communications

oracle communications

integration problem

aia usage

integration needs

integration promise

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