CI 3 Practices of Interoperability in SMEs Interoperability
CI 3 - Practices of Interoperability in SMEs Interoperability barriers in SMEs © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium.
Barriers to Interoperability The hypothesis behind this approach is that: 1. Enterprises are not interoperable because of barriers to interoperability. 2. Barriers are incompatibility at different enterprise levels. 3. Barriers common to all SMEs can be identified. The approach is: • First identify barriers to interoperability in SMEs. • Then identify solutions which allow removing those barriers. © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 2
Business Process Configuration Barriers to interoperability: 1. Business Process Configuration 2. Service Granularity and Behaviour 3. Data Exchange 4. Process Model Exchange 5. Process/Interface Adaptation © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 3
Three variants Shipper 1 Carrier Process variant 1 • • Shipper 2 Carrier Process variant 2 Shipper 3 Carrier Process variant 3 Three different variants occur as web services can be called from different activities of the process. The business process must be configured in one of these variants. © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 4
Business configuration 1 Shipper 1 Sales Order Carrier Calculate Routing Code Delivery Picking Packing Generate Label Shipment Process variant 1 © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 5
Business configuration 2 Shipper 2 Carrier Sales Order Delivery Picking Calculate Rate Packing Routing Code Shipment Generate Label Process variant 2 © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 6
Business configuration 3 Shipper 3 Carrier Sales Order Calculate Rate Delivery Routing Code Picking Packing Generate Label Shipment Process variant 3 © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 7
The gap between business and IT Business Process Configuration A mechanism is required to bridge the gap between the technical and business level to verify whether the technical implementation fulfills the current business constraints. SME Needs Business Constraints Fulfils? Technical Implementation Fulfils? Software Components © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. Technical Constraints 8
Interoperability requirements The following requirements are expected: • The rules reflecting the enterprise’s constraints should be definable by non-technical persons. • The existent business processes should be configurable and verifiable by these business constraints. © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 9
Service Granularity and Behaviour Barriers to interoperability: 1. Business Process Configuration 2. Service Granularity and Behaviour 3. Data Exchange 4. Process Model Exchange 5. Process/Interface Adaptation © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 10
Business protocol • • There are often several service providers on the market, which offer the same business functionality. If a SME wants to switch dynamically between them, it must support the interface provided by the service. To describe a service completely, it is not enough with its technical interface, the business protocol must be described as well. The business protocol captures the dependencies between the interactions in which a service can engage. © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 11
Granularity is defined as the amount of business function that gets performed in a single exchange of input-output messages. A high level of granularity could cause vagueness and delay in the message exchanges. A low level of granularity, would increase the number of exchanged messages. There is no golden rule for the right granularity. © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 12
UPS and Fed. Ex The main companies offering services through the Web are: • UPS • Fed. Ex © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 13
Message exchanges with Fed. Ex Shipper XML Document Fed. EX FDXShip. Request Click FDXShip. Reply © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 14
Message exchanges with UPS Shipper UPS Shipment. Confirm. Request Shipment. Confirm. Response Shipment. Accept. Request Shipment. Accept. Response © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 15
Comparison of Fed. Ex and UPS © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 16
Data Exchange Barriers to interoperability: 1. Business Process Configuration 2. Service Granularity and Behaviour 3. Data Exchange 4. Process Model Exchange 5. Process/Interface Adaptation © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 17
Data Exchange can have some barriers like: • Wrong Instantiation of Data Models • Different Data Restriction • Incompatible Syntactic/Semantic Representation of Data © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 18
Wrong Instantiation of Data Models Model A Instance 2 Model A Instance 1 © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 19
Different Data Restriction Model A Instance 2 Model A Instance 1 © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 20
Incompatible Syntactic/Semantic Representation of Data Model A Model B © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 21
Process Model Exchange Barriers to interoperability: 1. Business Process Configuration 2. Service Granularity and Behaviour 3. Data Exchange 4. Process Model Exchange 5. Process/Interface Adaptation © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 22
Process Model Exchange Partial Process Model (Shipper) Shipment Partial Process Model (Carrier) Selected Service Rate Routing Code SME Carrier Parcel Info Label Finances V Sales Order ARIS Model Shipment Info Invoicing Invoice IEM Model Process models elaborated using different modelling languages © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 23
Process/Interface Adaptation Barriers to interoperability: 1. Business Process Configuration 2. Service Granularity and Behaviour 3. Data Exchange 4. Process Model Exchange 5. Process/Interface Adaptation © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 24
Process/Interface Adaptation This barrier arises when a partner has to be integrated into a collaborative process for which an obligatory description of the interaction process has already been established. © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 25
This course has been developed under the funding of the EC with the support of the EC ATHENA-IP Project. Disclaimer and Copyright Notice: Permission is granted without fee for personal or educational (non-profit) use, previous notification is needed. For notification purposes, please, address to the ATHENA Training Programme Chair at rg@uninova. pt. In other cases please, contact at the same e_mail address for use conditions. Some of the figures presented in this course are freely inspired by others reported in referenced works/sources. For such figures copyright and all rights therein are maintained by the original authors or by other copyright holders. It is understood that all persons copying these figures will adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each copyright holder. © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 28
FDXShip. Request – XML Message (1) <? xml version="1. 0" encoding="UTF-8" ? > <FDXShip. Request xmlns: api=http: //www. fedex. com/fsmapi xmlns: xsi=http: //www. w 3. org/2001/XMLSchema-instance xsi: no. Namespace. Schema. Location="FDXShip. Request. xsd"> <Request. Header> <Customer. Transaction. Identifier>US Ship</Customer. Transaction. Identifier> <Account. Number>123456789</Account. Number> <Meter. Number>1234567</Meter. Number> <Carrier. Code>FDXE</Carrier. Code> </Request. Header> <Ship. Date>2005 -01 -03</Ship. Date> <Ship. Time>14: 20: 00</Ship. Time> <Dropoff. Type>REGULARPICKUP</Dropoff. Type> <Service>PRIORITYOVERNIGHT</Service> <Packaging>FEDEXBOX</Packaging> <Weight. Units>LBS</Weight. Units> <Weight>4. 0</Weight> © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 29
FDXShip. Request – XML Message (2) <Origin> <Contact> <Person. Name>Contact Name</Person. Name> <Company. Name>Company Name</Company. Name> <Department>Department</Department> <Phone. Number>9015551234</Phone. Number> <Pager. Number>8001234567</Pager. Number> <Fax. Number>9015558957</Fax. Number> <E-Mail. Address>Contact@Company. com</E-Mail. Address> </Contact> <Address> <Line 1>10 Fedex Parkway</Line 1> <Line 2>2 nd fl, Vertical</Line 2> <City>Collierville</City> <State. Or. Province. Code>TN</State. Or. Province. Code> <Postal. Code>38017</Postal. Code> <Country. Code>US</Country. Code> </Address> </Origin> © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 30
FDXShip. Request – XML Message (3) <Destination> <Contact> <Person. Name>Recip Contact</Person. Name> <Company. Name>Recip Company</Company. Name> <Department>Recip Department</Department> <Phone. Number>8705551234</Phone. Number> <Pager. Number>8001234567</Pager. Number> <Fax. Number>9015555624</Fax. Number> <E-Mail. Address>Name@Recip. Company. com</E-Mail. Address> </Contact> <Address> <Line 1>123 Main St</Line 1> <Line 2>Suite 300</Line 2> <City>Berkeley</City> <State. Or. Province. Code>CA</State. Or. Province. Code> <Postal. Code>94710</Postal. Code> <Country. Code>US</Country. Code> </Address> </Destination> © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 31
FDXShip. Request – XML Message (4) <Payment> <Payor. Type>SENDER</Payor. Type> </Payment> <Reference. Info> <Customer. Reference>Reference 12345</Customer. Reference> </Reference. Info> <Label> <Type>2 DCOMMON</Type> <Image. Type>PNG</Image. Type> </Label> </FDXShip. Request> © 2005 -2006 The ATHENA Consortium. 32
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