Enterprise Interoperability Center (EIC)
ATHENA Final ReviewMarch 27.-29. 2007Funchal, Portugal
Petra Frenzel, SAP
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 2
Outline
EIC todayEIC in the standardisation landscapeValue Proposition and Way of Working Forum AcquisitionMarketing and EventsBudget
The EIC exploitation role for ATHENA Value Chain Forum: Pilot for Interoperability ProfileATHENA concepts, tools and training in the EIC
Future Activities Interoperability AwardBuilding the Network Forums and Research
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 3
Value proposition - Development
EIC was positioned in a landscape of formal mandated and de facto standardisation as well as sector specification organisations
Focus “mobilise and actively involve the broadest possible number of stakeholders from all constituencies”
Positioning “world-class reference for interoperability work”
The value proposition was difficult to develop and challenging to communicate
To commission and reviewers
ATHENA members
Potential new member users and vendors
EIC has developed a clear and distinct position position in the standards community
scope
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 4
Framing the Problem
Sta
ndar
d
Custom Standard
Cus
tom
Mes
sag
e
Business Process
Interoperability Quadrant
Point-to-point
Industry Standard
1. Vertical standards organizations only move companies so far along this line
3. The proliferation of vertical standards has made even this movement difficult
Within and across industries2. Other companies must follow the same path for this to work
• The reference model aligns the critical factors of integration on two axis – messages (semantics) and business processes
• To simultaneously address cost and complexity, both messages and processes must be standardized
The format of the message is standardized by Industry standards organizations
Legacy installations of custom work processes and message structures
Aligned business processes, standardized messages and connectivity automation
Vertical standards
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 5
Standards and the EIC
Sta
ndar
d
Custom Standard
Cus
tom
Mes
sag
e
Business Process
Interoperability Quadrant
Point-to-point
Industry Standard
The EIC defines a standardized business process and also selects the best vertical industry standards by defining a profile
Standards Reference Model
Within and across industries
Vertical standards
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 6
Introducing the EIC: The Enterprise Interoperability Center
The EIC defines and applies integration methodology and tools leveraging existing standards where possible to define common public business processes for achieving interoperability of networked organizations across multiple industries.
The EIC Addresses the business and technical aspects of a common public process
Leverages existing technology, applications, research and standards
Defines architectures, methodologies, guidelines, best practices, semantics and interfaces
Validates an Interoperability Profile by building prototype implementations of real-world business scenarios defined by precise requirements
Promote a community for training, conformance testing, analysis and other services to facilitate broad adoption in the community
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 7
EIC Deliverables
Interoperability Profile A common public business process definition that is consensus-driven
A concise definition of required business semantics
Guidelines, conventions and best practices for using the Interoperability Profile
Reference Implementation Use cases and usage scenarios based on customer requirements
Demonstrate interoperability in a production implementation
Methodology, Test tools and supporting materials Tools that test profile implementations for conformance
Supporting documentation, results and white papers
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 8
How the EIC Works
So
lutio
n P
rovid
ers
Users
Business Forums
Use case: Scenarios that convey how
the various participants in a system should interact to achieve a specific business goal
Typically avoids technical jargon, preferring instead the language of the end user or domain expert
Business Process: Recipe for achieving a result Contains of inputs, method
and outputs Not intended to be the
“definitive” business process but must be a complete one that satisfies the scenarios described in the use case
Interoperability Profile: Describes a set of standards and
profiles for solution to business process to be created
Describes deficiencies in standards, including any messages specified - three categories: 1) problems within a specific standard; 2) interaction between standards; 3) missing standard
Close interlock between solution providers and users, focused on
Identifying business process requirements Producing Interoperability Profiles defining solutions to
business process requirements
Both vertical and cross-industry
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 9
Forum Life Cycle
Initial Detailed
Forum Operations
Use Case Business Process
IntOp Profile
Use Case Business Process
IntOp Profile
Member Commitment
IP Policy
Planning for Detailed Scoping
Value Prop
Business Process
St-o-t-Art
Best practices
Detailed work plan
Charter
Board ApprovalBoard Approval
scoping
Interest Group
InteroperabilityProfile
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 10
EIC Forum Acquisition Strategy
Co-operation with Usergroups and Standard Bodies Today: IAI – adding value to messaging standards
Construction Procurement
Facilities Management Tomorrow: OAGi: enhanced programme on convergence
Collaboration with Research Initiatives Today: ATHENA – exploitation, Collaboration vLAB
HSG – Value Chain Automotive – follow on activities
ITAIDE – exploitation, Community building Tomorrow: Testbed – initiative AIAG, NIST, OAGi
More research initiatives to join
Events Today: VCF 2006, i-ESA 2007 Tomorrow: VCF 2007 hosted workshops,
I-ESA 2008
Interoperability award
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 11
Analyst Consultations
Profiles: •“Reference Model” for Business Profiles•When addressing an interoperability profile, the EIC needs to focus on business requirements down to technology not vice versa for identifying “optimal” (not “best”) solutions. •Beware that “Standards” have been used as a marketing and commercial weapon and have frequently been manipulated so the press and analysts to a certain extent have “Standards Fatigue”.•Need to clearly articulate and reiterate that the EIC is about business integration.•Recommended using an eclipse like iterative model of freezing a base set of processes for contributors to build off of, then rejoin to review best set of changes to enhance the next level base.
Target Members•Need to differentiate what type of CIO we are addressing—those that are technology v. business oriented.•Value proposition for solution providers needed to be right sized for small, medium and large businesses stressing the strength and advantages of an ecosystem
Launch•Launch of the EIC has to be done in a “soft launch” fashion, be grass roots driven and based on a long list of customers who are focused initially in the areas of building and automotive.•Incubator projects and working groups can be developed for additional sectors before officially becoming Forums in the EIC
Long term Value.•The greatest value of the EIC will be at the intersection of where different forums meet.
IBM and SAP sponsored a range of Analyst consultation meetings Feedback to value proposition and approach was very valuable: 10. July 2006 Gartner 2. Aug 2006 AMR 16. Aug 2006 BURTON 20. Sept 2006 Ovum
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 12
Marketing
Web Site www.eic-community.org
Event Activities Co-hosting Value Chain Forum 06
(350 participants, 14 Workshops)Presentation on Forum MethodologyPresentation on Interoperability in Transport and LogisticsPresentation on Facility Management Interoperability IssuesPresentation on VCA results
Co-hosting I-ESA 07Introduction of Interoperability AwardInitiation of IA committee
Numerous Presentations at ConferencesETSIOAGieBIFAIAG etc
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 13
Scope and organisational form
EIC focuses on “value for money” for the members
Only achievable by low negative cash flow and high ressource contribution of members
The start-up phase focuses on proof and adoption of concept,
The operation and procedures were adapted accordingly The governance documents and the business plan were therefore
reshaped. It was to be expected, that the perceived value of the organisation would be developed over time by the increasing number of communities working in the EIC.
The members decided to concentrate the funds to support communities with specialised resources rather than building an administrative overhead which for the ramp up time, was not seen as appropriate
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 14
Organisation
Board of Directors
Secretariat:
Business ForumChair and Vice-Chair
Open for all Members
General AssemblyApproving annual accounts, budgets and work plans as proposed by Board
Association
Board
Approves charter/ Approves final deliverables
TechnologyCoordinationGroup
Marketing Group
AdministrationInterest GroupSelects Business Scenario
Creates Charter
Acquires members
Coordinates / supports
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 15
Financing up to date
Resources Person Months 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 Total
ATHENA B1Total 3,0 24,0 5,4 0,0 0,0 32,4
Outside ATHENATotal 2,0 12,5 22,4 14,0 0,0 50,9
1000.00 €
ATHENA B1Total 60,0 408,0 108,0 0,0 0,0 576,0
Outside ATHENATotal 224,0 418,4 256,0 0,0 898,4
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 16
Budget
Budget 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
Membership Fee Total 70 78 108
Cumulative Income 70 126 124
Costs Admin 6 7 10
GA 2 2 3
BoardMtg 2 2 3
Forum Supp 2 80 80
Award 5 5 5
Web Site 4 4 4
Events 1 10 10
Total 22 110 115
P&L 48 16 9
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 17
EIC: The balance between vendors and users
Large vendors and other founding members have taken the burden to get EIC off the ground
“this is not the risk but the intention” as more as large vendors understand the better the product for the user
Users have a significant part [] of the board reserved
It was always in the interest of the EIC to assure the attendance of a wide range of representative providers. Work groups are seen as an ideal place to bring together different categories such as industrial users, vendors and solution providers.
Each Working group will endeavour to attract a balanced attendance of different players with regards to industry, size of organisation and category
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 18
Outline
EIC todayEIC in the standardisation landscapeValue Proposition and Way of Working Forum AcquisitionMarketing and EventsBudget
The EIC exploitation role for ATHENA Value Chain Forum: Pilot for Interoperability ProfileATHENA concepts, tools and training in the EIC
Future Activities Interoperability AwardBuilding the Network Forums and Research
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 19
EIC Pilot - Background
In order to define the methodology and organization of EIC Business Forums, the initiative “SOA For Automotive”, started by University of St. Gallen (HSG) in October 2005, has been attributed the status of EIC Pilot in Q2/2006.
“SOA For Automotive” involves 6 Automotive companies, andaims at improving interoperability in OEM - supplier relationships by
Creating a common understanding of the cross-organizational engineering change management process;
establishing a clear semantic for Engineering change documents; leveraging Web Services and SOA concepts for implementation.
Although the approach which was chosen by University of St. Gallen has originally been developed outside the ATHENA project, it is very much in line with ATHENA and EIC ideas.
Targets of the EIC Pilot are to define the methodology of EIC Business Forums, and in particular to evaluate
ATHENA results for their use in EIC to gain insights into the the setup and organization of consortium projects
System
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 20
EIC Pilot - Profiling of industry standards
EIC Profile Engineering Change Management in the Automotive Industry
Relationships to other Standards / Profiles
VDA Recommendation 4965 (ECR/ECM)OAGIS 9.0WS-I Profiles
Use case(motivation, actors, scenarios)
Interaction scenarios in engineering change management (reflecting different cooperation models between OEM and supplier)
Process model “Public” view of engineering change management process as ARIS EPC (BPMN used as shadow documentation)
Role model Role model • organizational level: 2 roles (coordinator and participant)• functional level: 9 roles (Engineering Change manager, comment performer, approver, …)
Interoperability profile:- messages (information model)- web services (functional model)- platform
11 messages (OAGIS BODs) ECR Business Service (WSDL)WS-I Basic Profile; Security (Two-way SSL + WS-Security); in future: WS-I Reliable Secure Profile (WS-I RSP)
Profile conformance (Not yet defined)
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 21
Findings
The EIC Pilot has identified the following ATHENA results to be particularly suited for further use in EIC Business Forums:
The CBP modelling approach and the CBP tool suite (Maestro, Gabriel) will support the agreement on a public business process.
The model-driven approach and in particular the PIM4SOA (platform-independent model for service-oriented architecture) meta-model assists the systematic design of a SOA target architecture.
The service enactment framework (Johnson) and WSDL analyzer tool can be used in piloting and testing activities.
ATHENA assists in modelling business protocols and documents.
So far, ontology-based semantic annotation and reconciliation have been out of scope in the EIC pilot although an information model is considered an integral part of the business level specification. However, these concepts might be introduced into EIC Business Forums at a later stage.
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 22
Guidelines Technical Specifications Tools, Software
Enterprise Models Cross-org. Business
Processes Service-oriented
Architecture Model-driven
Architecture
ATHENA Interop. Framework
Reference Models MDA implementation SOA models
Requirements Mgmt. Tool
Use-case and test-bed platforms
Modelling & Execution platform
EIC Services Portal
Evaluation, Assessment
Implementation support
Training
Conformance Test
Business Forums
Interoperability Profiles
Test ScenariosImplementation
Guidelines
EIC Exploitation ATHENA
ATHENA
Training Curriculum
ATHENA Results for Forum Work
Pilot case VCAFirst selection of modulesLOIs with ATHENA partners6 months forum support
ATHENA Results for community
EIC service portalLOIs with ATHENA partnersEIC Training curriculum
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 23
Future Activities
Interoperability Award
Principle idea: The "interoperability award" can help share the core knowledge of the EIC and its
principles like open standards, flexibility and the formation of public business processes The philosophy of the award needs to be clear and understood:
Focus should be given to evaluating interoperability projects under business aspects Purpose should be to evoke the thought process about interoperability and create awareness about existing solutions and trends
Approach The IA should not be an EIC only activity, some “heavy weight” partners should get
involved for ressourcing and reputation purposes. The Interoperability Award can be an ideal starting point for a cooperation with OAGi based on the signed MoU. Further parties could be involved as well.
The details for the award should be defined by an Award Committee – including the setting of the principles and development of a roadmap.
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 24
Future Activities
Building the Network
Signed MOUs today: eBIF,
vLAB,
OAGi
Support OAGi convergence strategy with convergence around
EIC Business Profiles.
Introduce Business Forums to the Convergence Community
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 25
Future Activities: Research Collaboration
Many research activities are working in the area of interoperability
EIC can support these initiatives by offering a methodology for interoperability cross business
processes offering its platform and portal for the dissemination of results offering sustainability for existing project initiatives
Dynamic Interoperability testbed facilities are planned (Co-operation with NIST and KORBIT)
The EIC can provide industry input for the Interoperability Roadmap
We actively search the European Commission to endorse the future collaboration
eic Enterprise Interoperability Centre 26
Enterprise Interoperability Center (EIC)
Top Related