Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Understand how WebSphere Business Modeler relates to the SOA lifecycle

 
IBM Certification Test 992.1 - Industry and Tooling

How does WebSphere Business Modeler relates to the SOA lifecycle ?

A service-oriented architecture (SOA) lets you build, deploy, and integrate individual business functions and processes independently of the applications and computing platforms on which they run. As a key component of such an architecture, IBM® WebSphere® Business Modeler helps bridge the gap between business objectives and process implementation.
 
An SOA approach separates into reusable components or services business tasks (such as checking customer credit or opening a new bank account) and the underlying information technology (IT) that supports those tasks. You can combine and recombine these services as business needs change. Even when the supporting systems and technologies are quite different, SOA allows services to exchange information using an open communication environment. This connection of interrelated business processes makes it possible to share information across an enterprise and with customers, suppliers, and partners.
 
You can use WebSphere Business Modeler to complete the model stage of the SOA lifecycle depicted in the following diagram and pass business process models on to the next stage in the cycle. Now, you have a direct link from business process modeling to the implementation of software services. WebSphere Business Modeler also complements the SOA modeling capabilities of tools such as Rational® Software Architect.
 
You can start at any stage of the SOA cycle: modeling, assembling, deployment, or managing.
 
SOA Foundation Lifecycle(IBM)
Model
The model phase starts by gathering and analyzing business requirements which are then used to model, simulate, and optimize your business process. During this phase of the process, the model establishes a common understanding of the business processes, objectives, and outcomes between business and IT.

The model also ensures that the design will result in an application that meets the defined business requirements, and it provides a baseline from which to measure the performance of the business.
Assemble
During the assemble phase, you can create services out of existing assets such as ERP and financial systems, CICS applications, and other solutions that are currently running your business. If no functionality exists, you may create and test a service to deliver the functionality required for your business process. Once the required services are available, you can orchestrate the services to implement your business process.
Deploy
During the deployment phase, you can configure and scale the runtime environment to meet the service levels required by your business process. You can optimize the services environment to reliably run mission-critical business processes while providing the flexibility to make updates dynamically in response to changing business requirements.

Once configured, you can deploy your business process into a robust, scaleable, and secure services environment. This service-oriented approach can reduce the cost and complexity associated with maintaining numerous point-to-point integrations.
Manage
The manage phase involves managing the underlying service assets, establishing and maintaining service availability and response times, and managing and maintaining version control over the services that make up your business processes. The management phase ultimately enables you to make better business decisions sooner than previously possible.

You can monitor key performance indicators in real time to get the information required to prevent, isolate, diagnose, and fix problems, enabling you to provide feedback into the business process model to enable continuous improvement.
 
To simplify moving from one stage of the SOA cycle to the next, you can export business process models from WebSphere Business Modeler Advanced in project interchange format and import the models into IBM WebSphere Integration Developer. You can also export business process models in Web Services Description Language (WSDL) and XML Schema Definition Language (XSD) format to WebSphere Integration Developer. Integration developers use WebSphere Integration Developer to view existing IT services and assemble those services together into integrated applications of full business processes.
 
The process implementations created using WebSphere Integration Developer can then be deployed to IBM WebSphere Process Server to facilitate the movement of information between applications based on business rules. To manage your business processes, you can observe and evaluate their performance using IBM WebSphere Business Monitor.
 
Finally, you can import monitoring results (data) from WebSphere Business Monitor into WebSphere Business Modeler, closing the SOA loop and fully implementing continuous performance management.

Design your SOA implementation

WebSphere Business Modeler is a key component of a service-oriented architecture (SOA) implementation. Whether you want to improve customer satisfaction with services that you offer or reduce costs through increased workforce productivity, the SOA lifecycle begins with business process modeling as an input.
Business process models created with WebSphere Business Modeler help you achieve important SOA planning and implementation goals:
  • Capture the relationships among people, processes, and information
  • Build your business case by mapping strategic goals to process capabilities and by simulating process changes to assess impacts on costs, resource utilization, and cycle time prior to deployment
  • Identify where skills are most needed
  • Reduce risk by simulating market changes against current process models
  • Accurately and effectively communicate requirements from the business to IT

Although you can do your core business process modeling for an SOA implementation with WebSphere Business Modeler Basic, you need WebSphere Business Modeler Advanced to run simulations, do simulation analysis, define business measures, and export files for application development.

Service-oriented architecture (SOA)

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is the IT model that enables business value through operational flexibility, responsiveness, and reuse. SOA is an application framework that takes everyday business applications, breaks them into individual business functions and processes, called services, and then inter-relates them through well-defined interfaces and contracts.  The interfaces are defined in a neutral manner that is independent of the hardware platform, the operating system, and the programming language in which the service is implemented. This allows services, built on a variety of such
systems, to interact with each other in a uniform and universal manner.  SOA is an evolution as opposed to a revolution. The growing market momentum around SOA means that companies that compete with you are adopting SOA to gain a strategic advantage. SOA would be impossible without industry standards.  While there have always been standards in IT, finally we are seeing a very broad
industry support for the standards underpinning SOA. This ensures that the standards are real, meaningful, and are here to stay.

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an application framework that takes business applications, breaks them into individual business functions and processes, called services, and then leverages those services through well-defined interfaces and contracts. Thus, SOA depends on common services using an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) delivered through a lightweight interface to suppliers and design partners. An SOA breaks a business function into repeatable business tasks that can be exposed and re-used.

Information technology (IT) is equipped to solve complex technical problems, but only lines of business are aware of key business processes. The primary goal of SOA is to align the business world with IT in a way that makes both more effective. The IBM BPM solution enables service-oriented, end-to-end process management -- plan, develop, implement, and improve business processes -- based on SOA. In other words, the SOA framework has similar life cycle stages map closely to those used in BPM and, thus, is an excellentto BPM candidate for execution of business process management strategies.

Service-oriented architecture

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is an application framework that takes business applications, breaks them into individual business functions and processes, called services, and then leverages those services through well-defined interfaces and contracts. Thus, SOA depends on common services using an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) delivered through a lightweight interface to suppliers and design partners.  An SOA breaks a business function into repeatable business tasks that can be exposed and re-used.

Information technology (IT) is equipped to solve complex technical problems, but only lines of business are aware of key business processes. The primary goal of SOA is to align the business world with IT in a way that makes both more effective.  The IBM BPM solution enables service-oriented, end-to-end process management -- plan, develop, implement, and improve business processes -- based on SOA. In other words, the SOA framework has similar life cycle stages map closely to those used in BPM and, thus, is an excellentto BPM candidate for execution of business process management strategies.

Benefits of SOA

Establishing a service-oriented architecture can help prepare both IT and business processes for rapid change. Even in the early stages of adopting an SOA, your organization will benefit from:
  • Increase revenue—Create new routes to market and create new value from existing systems
  • Provide a flexible business model—React to market changes more quickly
  • Drive down cost—Eliminate duplicate systems, build once and leverage, and improve time to market
  • Reduce risk and exposure—Improve visibility into business operations
 
The SOA approach can bridge the gap between what you want your business to accomplish and the infrastructure tools you need to get there:
  • Decrease development and deployment cycle times by using pre-built, reusable services building blocks
  • Integrate across the enterprise—even historically separate systems—and facilitate mergers and acquisitions of enterprises
  • Reduce cycle times and costs by moving from manual to automated transactions
  • Make it easier to do business with business partners by increasing your flexibility
  • Bring adaptable, scalable solutions to complex business problems by using best practices, such as layering and loosely-coupled components

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