Industry thinkers agree that a major shift if taking place in the e-business infrastructure development.
Willie Bezuidenhout business technologist: information management at Computer Associates Africa, looks at one of the most prominent e-business developments - the extended enterprise.
A lot of South African and global companies have gone the e-business route and some are now moving to the next phase - implementing infrastructures that are tightly integrated with "outsider" systems.
These organisations are no longer building `webified` technology silos (separate Web, e-commerce, intranets and extranets). Rather, they are creating environments where digital streams converge from all of a business` constituents - local employees, remote workers, road warriors, customers, sales personnel, suppliers and other partners.
The extended enterprise, which can go by many names, lets constituents work in real-time across heterogeneous environments, as well public and private networks, in order to get the needed information to the right application or person.
Although architectural details vary from company to company, a generic conceptual model of the extended enterprise has started to emerge.
Indeed, the model shows a big architectural shift from the hub-and-spoke model of the mainframe or the tiers of client/server - on which early e-business initiatives were modelled.
Going for the bull`s eye
Imagine a dartboard that has core IT resources such as hardware, mission-critical software and data around the bull`s eye, while e-business-related applications for customers and roving employees reside around the next ring. A security perimeter - meant to restrict access - protects each ring.
Public data or customer applications, if a company has any, go in a third ring. Although a security perimeter also protects this ring, it is less rigid than the perimeters for the inner rings because it only has to protect content, not restrict access.
Seems simple enough doesn`t it? But, defining what goes around the bull`s eye can get complicated, as in the extended enterprise those IT resources don`t all belong to your organisation.
Indeed, the lines can get a bit blurry when it comes to customer, supplier, business partner, and in some cases, employee - that also includes PDAs, cellphones and other connections.
This is why the extended enterprise should clearly define the various elements and recognise that they are shared among the various user groups.
Creating a symbiotic relationship
In the extended enterprise, for example, a customer or automated system via Web services can place a product order through a Web-based application. This application then verifies whether the product is in stock, calculates total cost by adding shipping fees and issues an electronic invoice.
The application also checks with the CRM (customer resource management) system to determine whether the customer needs a purchase order number.
General business processes should also be integrated using Web services, since it is more dynamic and creates agility for the organisation to adapt quickly as demand changes.
Clever design of systems can also alleviate the problem of low bandwidth, improve security and optimise wireless devices. "Faceless" systems can handle the transactions that limit the UIs (user interfaces) to specific devices, but still make it intuitive enough to use without complicating the extended enterprise.
Also, what if your organisation can securely share generic processes such as an automated acquisition process, and get some revenue from it?
With the extended enterprise architecture this could become a reality, since it would be possible to extend processes (or services) beyond the enterprise, meter, automatically billing the "extended user" for usage down to "per second" billing.
Metering of services could also control usage thereof, and maintain auditable logs for compliancy purposes.
Elegant and intermingled
Intermingled ownership can no doubt cause some problems. How, for example, can data be coded so everyone`s systems can understand it easily, plus how can a person`s identity and role be determined when location is no longer a factor?
Even more, can reliability be increased and finger-pointing minimised when a system failure occurs?
In spite of all these obvious stumble blocks, we can see that the extended enterprise is an elegant design. Sharing a single ecosystem is certainly more efficient than telling every company to fend for itself.
Through a myriad of Web services development efforts and the Liberty Alliance`s identity management specifications, the network industry is currently trying to address the technical burdens of sharing data, software and hardware.
Those who follow these efforts will be ahead of the competition as the extended enterprise proliferates and becomes more sophisticated.
Readying the extended enterprise model also means embedding intelligence into the network in every feasible way. Improved automation methods within storage, server, routing and network management products will let systems heal themselves.
Most importantly, companies must take responsibility for their visionary leadership. Your work will touch everyone who comes in contact with your company - changes in your IT systems will affect how you do business and vice versa.
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