Portals are Made for

Enterprise Application
Integration

JA-SIG Monday, June 9, 2003

Barry Walsh
Senior Director, E-Business Services
Indiana University
 `
Early Spec problem?

JA-SIG 2003 Denver

 Chronology of Related Events
 1969: IBM: GML for tagging content in documents for law offices.
 1975: EDI for shipping manifests
 1981: Bob Epstein, Paula Hawthorn and Mike Ubell separate
applications from databases with their Intelligent Database Machine.
This essentially defined C/S
 1983: Xerox PARC: first working RPCs.
 1984: Sun uses RPCs for its Network File System.
 1986: SGML becomes an official international standard.
 1991: Tim Berners-Lee: first Web browser and defines HTTP.
 1996: The W3C begins developing a “simplified SGML,” which
becomes known as XML.
 1998: Microsoft combines XML and HTTP into SOAP.
 2000: IBM and Microsoft announce WSDL and the UDDI directory
system for Web services.
 2002: The Web Services Interoperability Organization is formed by
IBM, Microsoft and other vendors and user companies.

JA-SIG 2003 Denver Source: Computerworld 5/19/03;

 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!

JA-SIG 2003 Denver

 The World as We’ve Known it

 IT systems targeting discrete business functions

 IT systems targeting common (simple) processes

Attribution to Mike Zastrocky of Gartner

JA-SIG 2003 Denver

 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*
JA-SIG 2003 Denver
 Vendor ERP Solutions

 Common Look/Feel?
 Consistent navigation

ECAR Study shows broad satisfaction

 Some possible ‘convergence’?

JA-SIG 2003 Denver

 Obvious advantages of buying

 Embedded best practices in business

process
 Someone else did/does the R&D
 Someone else does the maintenance and
enhancement and reg driven updates
 You get to know the names of legions of
young inexperienced consultants

You get to read exciting news stories about

your vendor on occasion

JA-SIG 2003 Denver

 Non-Vendor Solutions also Working


UT; PSU; IU; others

Any English majors in the room?

To Buy or Not to Buy; that is the question;

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings
and arrows of outrageous consultant’s fees;
Or to take up arms against a sea of vendors;
And by opposing, end their stranglehold.

JA-SIG 2003 Denver

 Obvious advantages of building

 You get what YOU want.

 You control the pace of development and
enhancements

You call the shots on consultant use a lot more

More expertise stays at home

You get to know

scads of really
talented
developers!
JA-SIG 2003 Denver
 Caveats

 Clear disadvantages to both.

 Reality says you may have to
customize

Worst of all worlds?
 Compromised the value
proposition

Paying the vendor for the
vanilla system at every
new release and must re-
customize

JA-SIG 2003 Denver

 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

Mike spoke of “Modular but integrated“ this morning

JA-SIG 2003 Denver

 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.
JA-SIG 2003 Denver
 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

JA-SIG 2003 Denver

 Why do we need a portal?
What are the problems?
 Broadening base of information “consumers”
with varying levels of technical expertise.
 Students and faculty increasingly demand
mobile access to IT resources.
 Aging, monolithic or silo’d applications
 Developed to serve specific audiences;

Current users must find and learn to use
each “silo”.

Disparate information systems that lack
integration and flexibility;

Too complex for majority of end-users
JA-SIG 2003 Denver
 Why do we need a portal? Cont’d

 Every new website is potentially a new silo

 “Age of disintermediation” – more of our students
expect to be able to do things for themselves.
 Dealing with non-traditional campus communities in
traditional ways
 Enable a more cost effective, nimble and sustainable
application development process….. and not just for IT
developers

Bottom Line: Trying to change the

way the institution creates and
JA-SIG 2003
delivers
Denver
e-Services
 Evolution of Portals

 First Generation (Referential)


Search; catalog
 Second generation (Personalized)

Subscribe; personalize

 Third Generation (Interactive)


Productivity and enterprise applications
 Fourth Generation (SES)

Web Services (Gartner definition)

JA-SIG 2003 Denver

 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

JA-SIG 2003 Denver

ibution to Mike Zastrocky of Gartner
Business Case for Enterprise
Portals
Internally facing portal
= productivity

WWW
Externally facing portal
= revenue enhancement

• Soft Benefits
• Dam the “infoflood” Tangible ROI
• Single UI • Cost avoidance
• Single sign-on • Targeted deployment
Information • Presentation layer • Self-service
Access • Correlation
• Business velocity
• User satisfaction
• Ubiquity of access
 Enterprise Portal ROI

 It’s about changing:


The way the institution does its business … align with
the mission

Some institutional behavior

It provides the best opportunity for enterprise
application integration
 Portals encourage common development practices
etc.

Development teams need not create their own individual
(silo’d) solutions for each service

Developers can focus on actual services for their users

JA-SIG 2003 Denver

 Enterprise Portal ROI cont’d


Portals enable Web Services (WS)
deployment

WS encourage Portal-oriented development

The enterprise portal provides a framework
for

Persistent authentication (single sign-on)

Role-based customization

Personalization

Flexible workflow (routing & approval)
 User Interface and Navigation

Accessibility
JA-SIG 2003 Denver
 Enterprise Portal ROI cont’d

 Emphasis on delivery of services to the

user

WS and Decision Support have a huge
future together
 “The point of WS is to make it easier
for people to construct and integrate
applications” Henry Morris, IDC

JA-SIG 2003 Denver

 WS in Application Development

 "You won't see a whole new array of things

that you couldn't do before because of Web
Services, but you'll see application
development enabled much more quickly,"
says Larry Calabro, a partner in the
technology integration unit at Deloitte
Consulting in Chicago. Calabro says Web
services standards will make it easier for
companies to build applications that more
effectively integrate existing software
packages such as CRM and ERP.
JA-SIG 2003 Denver
 Strategy & Tactics/Trends &
Direction

Gartner
Note Number: SPA-16-2749

Related Terms: Portals

Price: $95.00

E-mail This Summary

Portals: A Key Source for the Smart Enterprise Suite Market

8 May 2002
Gene Phifer

Portal products have evolved to take over more functionality from

complementary technologies, such as content management and search. Portals
will become one of the key root technologies in the Smart Enterprise Suite
market.

JA-SIG 2003 Denver

 Gartner:

 By 2004, Web services will represent the

dominant mode of deployment for new
application solutions for Fortune 2000
companies (0.8 probability).
 True interoperability standards won't exist
in the portal product market until 2004,
forcing users to build "uberportals" to
integrate multiple portals within their
enterprises (0.7 probability).

JA-SIG 2003 Denver

 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

JA-SIG 2003 Denver

 Why is IU’s OneStart
“next generation”?
 More than an info-portal…focused on application and service
delivery

Commitment to a strategy for web services
 Ability to reflect customized roles

Integrated ‘e-doc’ routing (EDEN)

Flexible and responsive to change

Service layer insulates user from back end systems

Distributed Group Page/Channel publishing for service/content
providers

Positioned to address future needs for user mobility

Enterprise application integration is the target

One place for all of my data and e-services.

It comes to me!
JA-SIG 2003 Denver
 OneStart & EDEN
OneStart

Customized

Personalized

Adaptable

Desktop
Application
User
Delivered
Interface

Channels
Applications
HRMS

SIS

FIS

IUIE

Other
Other Content

Services
Infrastructure
EDEN
Workflow

Security

Users

Record Application
Keeping Services

JA-SIG 2003 Denver

 http://
onestart.iu.edu

JA-SIG 2003 Denver

 Abstract

 In this era of heterogeneous application services,

the need to integrate these for members of the
university community has never been greater.
Vendors promise integration and that solution
works for many institutions. For others, the single
vendor ERP direction is not an option or is not a
desired strategy.
Enter the enterprise portal. Properly architected
and supported, it can provide a sustainable
platform for delivering Enterprise Application
Integration (EAI).

JA-SIG 2003 Denver

 Integration:
Emphasizing Student Services
SIS

HR/Payroll
Batch
Real Time
Financials

Library MS

0 20 40 60 80 100

Batch and Real-Time Integration of CMS With

Major Systems
JA-SIG 2003 Attribution
Denver to Mike Zastrocky of Gartner