1. Interorganizational System Development
Lecture 22

2. Today Lecture Interorganizational System Development
EXXONMOBIL Discussion Case – Interorganizational Systems Development
HONG KONG EXCHANGES & CLEARING Case Study – Interorganizational Systems Development
Internet-Based Systems
Application Servers
Java Development Platform

3. Today Lecture… Web Service Web Service Advantages for E-Business
Web Services Terminology
Web Service Model
TRADITIONAL WEB-BASED SYSTEMS
WEB SERVER CLUSTERS

4. Today Lecture… BUILDING A WEB SERVICE Case Example
BEKINS Case Example – Web Services
BUILDING A WEB SERVICE Preparing for On-The-Fly Web Services Development

5. Interorganizational System Development
One of the main business trends is the appearance of business ecosystems — “groupings” of businesses that work closely together
Supply Chain Management systems integrate supply chains
These are now a major trend as they compete against one another on their ability to reduce costs and time across their entire chains
Development of such inter-organizational systems requires teams from the different organizations to work together

6. Supply Chain Example

7. Interorganizational System Development cont.
Another type of inter-organizational system is a platform, which provides the infrastructure for the operation of a business ecosystem, a region, or an industry
Sabre
Video game industry

8. Interorganizational System Development cont.
Platform development is a major trend in an increasing number of industries
Following 2 cases
Exxonmobil - Yet to become a platform
HKEx – points out the types of coordination needed to develop an interorganizational system for a business ecosystem

9. EXXONMOBIL Discussion Case – Interorganizational Systems Development
Mobil created Speedpass, a system that uses a 1.5-inch-long wand that motorists can attach to their key chain and “wave” at an electronic reader on a Mobil gas pump to pay for gas
Mobil’s goal was to speed motorists in and out of its stations
ExxonMobil now has five million Speedpass holders
They buy more Mobil gas than non-Speedpass customers, they visit Mobil stations one more time per month, and they spend 2-3 percent more money

10. EXXONMOBIL Discussion Case – Interorganizational Systems Development cont.
To leverage this technology, it has teamed up with McDonald’s restaurants in Chicago to test use of Speedpass to pay for food
How should Mobil leverage this platform even more?

12. HONG KONG EXCHANGES & CLEARING Case Study – Interorganizational Systems Development
HKEx is Asia’s second largest stock market
To extend its reach beyond Hong Kong, it decided to embed its business processes in an open trading architecture by building a third-generation automatic order matching and execution system
HKEx’s goal is integrated end-to-end computerized trading processes, from investors through brokers to markets

13. HONG KONG EXCHANGES & CLEARING Case Study – Interorganizational Systems Development cont.
The project was daunting, involving both internal and external people
40 staff members from varying departments
150 consultants, and
500 brokerage firms

14. HONG KONG EXCHANGES & CLEARING Case Study – Interorganizational Systems Development cont.
Development took two years, and ended with three levels of testing
One level involved testing the systems that some 100 brokerage firms built to interface with the open gateway
Rollout was phased so that Hong Kong’s stock market was not disrupted

15. HONG KONG EXCHANGES & CLEARING Case Study – Interorganizational Systems Development cont
HKEx has built its processes into an open architecture and coordinated the construction of an inter-organizational system – with components from numerous sources and participants of many kinds
It is now the foundation for its industry ecosystem

16. Internet-Based Systems
HKEx’s system is not Internet based but it allows Internet access for online trading as well as other actions
The Internet has opened up the options HKEx can offer
Internet users have become so sophisticated that Internet-based systems must be:
Scalable
Reliable, and
Integrated both internally and externally with systems of customers or business partners

17. Internet-Based Systems
To do this companies recognize they must negotiate ‘language differences’
E.g. a system may have to port old COBOL applications to Java, reconcile interface discrepancies and interface with back-end legacy applications, often without documentation or past experience with those systems
Tools are available to help
Open systems etc.

18. Internet-Based Systems: Application Servers
Originally conceived as a piece of middleware to link a Web server to applications on other company systems
The application server has grown into a framework for developing Internet-based applications
Figure 9-6 shows the basic application server architecture. The virtual server takes requests from clients and Web servers (on the left), runs the necessary business logic & provides connectivity to the entire range of back-end systems (on the right)

19. Internet-Based Systems: Application Servers
The goal of the application server:
automate
manage technical tasks in the development and running of Internet based applications
The result:
Developers can focus more on business issues, rather than technical detail

21. Internet-Based Systems: Java Development Platform
Java has been in many cases the starting point for the development of Internet-based systems with an open system architecture.
Originally – developed to provide applets that run on Web clients
Evolved into a full programming language
Goal = Platform for independent language that could run on any system
Promise applications portability: “write once, run anywhere”
Didn’t live up to promise = evolved into a standard platform for developing server-side applications

22. Java Software Development

23. Internet-Based Systems: Java Development Platform cont.
Major components in Java server-side platform
Enterprise Java Beans (EJB)
Preconfigured pieces of code that IS staff no longer have to build from scratch
Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE)
Defines a standard for developing Internet-based enterprise applications

24. Internet-Based Systems: Java Development Platform cont
Provide an alternative to building online business systems from scratch or buying packaged online business systems because of their multi-vendor platform capability and pre-built, reusable components
Microsoft competes with its own versions:
Component Object Model (COM)
Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM)

25. Web Service Web Service:
“Web-based applications that dynamically interact with other Web applications using open standards that include XML, UDDI and SOAP”
Universal Description Discovery Integration
Simple Object Access Protocol
Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA):
“Development of applications from distributed collections of smaller loosely coupled service providers”
“A collection of services or software agents that communicate freely with each other”

26. XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language that defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format which is both human-readable and machine-readable.

27. UDDI
UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration) is an XML-based registry for businesses worldwide to list themselves on the Internet.
Its ultimate goal is to streamline online transactions by enabling companies to find one another on the Web and make their systems interoperable for e-commerce.

28. Web Service Advantages for E-Business
Allow companies to reduce the cost of doing e-business, to deploy solutions faster
Need a common program-to-program communications model
Allow heterogeneous applications to be integrated more rapidly, easily and less expensively
Facilitate deploying and providing access to business functions over the Web

29. Web Services Terminology
SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)
exchanging XML messages on a network
Like RPC, it provides a way to communicate between applications
Unlike RPC, it communicates over HTTP

30. Web Services Terminology
Because HTTP is supported by all Internet browsers and servers, SOAP can run on different operating systems, with different technologies and programming languages
WSDL (Web Service Description Language )
describing interfaces of Web services
UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration)
managing registries of Web services

31. Web Service Model (1/3)

32. Roles in a Web Service Architecture
Web Service Model (2/3)
Roles in a Web Service Architecture
Service provider
Owner of the service
Platform that hosts access to the service
Service requestor
Business that requires certain functions to be satisfied
Application looking for and invoking an interaction with a service
Service registry
Searchable registry of service descriptions where service providers publish their service descriptions

33. Operations in a Web Service Architecture
Web Service Model (3/3)
Operations in a Web Service Architecture
Publish
Service descriptions need to be published in order for service requestor to find them
Find
Service requestor queries the service registry for the service required
Bind
Service requestor invokes or initiates an interaction with the service at runtime

34. Internet-Based Systems: Web Services
The vision of Web Services is that modules of code can be assembled into services, which, in turn, can be linked to create a business process at the moment it is needed and run across enterprises, computing platforms, and data models
There are two development modes:
One is to wrap an XML wrapper around an existing piece of code that performs a specific function

35. Internet-Based Systems: Web Services
Exposes it
Then = give it a Internet address and let others use it – for a fee!
Second way to build a Web Service = use one someone else has already exposed
The following case illustrates the basics of building a Web Service

36. TRADITIONAL WEB-BASED SYSTEMS
Many Web-based systems are still organized as simple client-server architectures.

37. TRADITIONAL WEB-BASED SYSTEMS
The core of a Web site: a process that has access to a local file system storing documents.

38. TRADITIONAL WEB-BASED SYSTEMS
How to refer to a document?
URL (Uniform Resource Locator)?

39. Uniform Resource Locator
A reference called Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is used to refer a document.
The DNS name of its associated server along with a file name is specified.
The URL also specifies the protocol for transferring the document across the network.
Example:

40. TRADITIONAL WEB-BASED SYSTEMS
A client interacts with Web servers through a special application known as browser.
What’s the key function of a browser?
Responsible for displaying documents.

41. WEB SERVER CLUSTERS
Web servers are replicated and combined with a front end
to improve performance.

42. WEB SERVER CLUSTERS The front end can be designed in two ways:
Transport-layer switch – simply passes data sent along the TCP connection to one of the servers, depending on some measurement of the server’s load.
Content-aware request distribution – it first inspects the HTTP request and decides which server it should forward that request to.

43. WEB SERVER CLUSTERS
For example, if the front end always forwards requests for the same document to the same server, the server may cache the document resulting in better response times.
Approach that combines the efficiency of transport-layer switch and the functionality of content-aware distribution has been developed.

44. WEB SERVER CLUSTERS
Another alternative to set up a Web server cluster is to use round-robin DNS.
With round-robin DNS a single domain name is associated with multiple IP addresses.
When resolving a host name, a browser would receive a list of multiple addresses, each address corresponding to a server.
Normally, browsers choose the first address on the list, but most DNS servers circulate the entries.
As a result, simple distribution of requests over the servers in the cluster is achieved.

45. BUILDING A WEB SERVICE Case Example
Currency converter
The steps involve:
Exposing the code
Writing a service description
Publishing the service
Finding the service, and
Invoking a Web Service

47. BEKINS Case Example – Web Services
Moving company which is using Web Services in its HomeDirectUSA business
Delivers large household appliances
Uses some 1,000 independent agents
Formerly = faxed or phoned these agents to arrange delivery
Slow and not equitable to all agents
Created an online broking system (TBE)
Used to tender jobs to all agents
Once accepted = unavailable to others

48. BEKINS Case Example – Web Services
Results
Lower tendering costs
Faster customer service
Better utilization of agents’ trucks
So efficient = offer lower margin jobs to agents
Increases shipping volume and revenues
Bekins’ E-Commerce Platform
Building the system
Required commitment from several moving partners = an interorganizational system
Involvement = important but equally important was their comfort with Web Services

49. BUILDING A WEB SERVICE Preparing for On-The-Fly Web Services Development
Whilst these can help enterprises develop systems faster, the technology might have other ramifications
CIOs would do well to prepare for
Possibly another round of even more powerful, on-the-fly end user development

50. BUILDING A WEB SERVICE Preparing for On-The-Fly Web Services Development
History repeating itself
Spreadsheets
4GLs
Web sites
Personal silos of data and apps
IS management can address ‘in advance’ this time!
Else = Users will take development into their own hands as they have done so eagerly in the past

51. Summary
Traditional approach from the 1960s evolved to give more discipline, control, and efficiency.
Moved programming from an “art” to a “craft.”
Problems:
Development times
Low user involvement
Lack of flexibility
1970s and 1980s: data-driven development, stressed improving early phases in development:
4GL and software prototyping permitted more rapid development
CASE and object oriented (software re-use)

52. Summary
1990s:
Client-server
Internet-based systems
Integration of components and packages
The 1990s brought the need for integrated enterprise systems and Internet-based systems
Development now focuses on the Internet, interorganizational development, and ecosystem applications
Systems where project management skills are even more important due to the complexity of the systems