Enterprise Information Interoperability EII Thoughts

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Enterprise Information Interoperability(EII)Thou
ghts Observations

• Mike Evanoff, Technical Director
• ManTech International
• Wednesday, Sept 22nd 2004
• AFEI Enterprise Integration Expo

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Slides and related info will be posted at the
following site

• www.meiim.com

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Outline

• Value Proposition
• Ingredients of EII
• EII Methodology
• Integration Server
• Vendor overview various approaches
• Ontology, MDA, XML, etc.
• Closing thoughts

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Introduction

• The problems that exist in the world today
  cannot be solved by the level of thinking that
  created them.
• Albert Einstein
• ManTech is currently supporting DoD in the EII
  space for Logistics Information
• EII for Maintenance Information Sharing
• EII for Logistics Information Exchange supply
  chain, distribution, maintenance.
• Concept of Operations Architectural Framework
• Operational Prototype

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EII Setting the Stage

• The problem of enterprise data access has been
  solved (circa mid-late 90s)
• The problem of enterprise information usage
  interoperability remains unsolved
• There is an increasing need to bring together the
  enterprise data such that the data can
  transformed into actionable information, which
  can then be used to enable new and innovative
  business processes
• Must be assured of the meaning context, and the
  authenticity
• Must operate in a timely to near real-time mode
• Must be more manageable and provide reduced TCO
  vis-à-vis traditional techniques in place today

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DoD / Fed IT Environment Observations

• Decentralized management structure
• Driven first by politics, then by business /
  technology needs
• Supposed to embrace commercial best practices,
  reduce redundancies, and develop / maintain
  enterprise architectures collaboratively
• There are too many disconnected COIs with their
  own sets of cultural peculiarities
• Jargon, vocabularies, etc.
• Not agile, not responsive
• Sometimes we cant see the forest because of the
  trees!

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Interoperability 30,000 ft ViewObservations
from the ground up

• 30k ft - Large Enterprise
• 20k ft - Enterprise
• 10k ft - Multiple COIs
• 5k ft - Community of Interest (COI)
• 1k ft - Multiple Application Systems
• 100 ft - Application System
• 10 ft - Info (Context Semantics)
• 1 ft - Data (Content, Format, Syntax)

LimitsConsistency
Traditional EAI Apps
Overlooks
Focuses on
Information Data Semantics (for a given
Context)
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General Value Proposition
Today
EII

• Information clarity,
• Loosely-coupled,
• Flexible and adaptable,
• Maintainable over life-cycle,
• Scalable, etc.

• Ambiguous,
• Tightly-coupled,
• Brittle,
• High cost to maintain interfaces,
• Not scalable, etc.

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Enterprise Information Interoperability (EII)

• EII represents a breakthrough approach to
  enabling interoperability within and across large
  and complex enterprises such as DoD
• EII represents discipline and a commercial
  marketspace and tools
• The EII approach to achieving semantics-based
  enterprise information interoperability extends
  that of traditional EAI
• EII addresses both the physical and, more
  importantly, the logical aspects of information
• Metadata is at the core of EII
• Design-time metadata is used to capture the
  semantics and context within a shared purview for
  the enterprise
• Run-time metadata is used facilitate application
  integration and information sharing in a
  rigorous, formalized, repeatable, and computable
  manner

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Five Essential Ingredients of EII

• Methodology
• To provide a way to capture and preserve the
  meaning of data and the pertinent contextual
  information in a rigorous, formalized,
  repeatable, and computable manner
• Metadata Management Approach (Ontology, Model
  Driven, etc.)
• Formal specification of how to express semantics
  and context for a particular domain of interest
• Separation of concerns to increase manageability
• Supporting COTS tools
• Technical Infrastructure
• User community

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MEIIM Methodologywww.meiim.com

• Setting up teams
• Project Planning
• Design Discovery
• Formalization Accommodation
• Interoperability Engineering
• Implementation
• Continuous Improvement

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Existing Project Plan
Project Management
VERSION 9-1
Initial Project Planning
Project
Updated Project Plan
Plan
Cross functional team comprised of
Industry/Government and ManTech e-IC, with
Internal / External Subject Matter Experts, and
Alliance Partners
Functional Process Working Group
Systems/Technical Working Group
Interoperability Working Group
1. Planning
Current Architecture
2. Design Discovery
Detailed Design
(20 80 rule)
3. Implementation
Target Architecture
Information InteroperabilityEngineering
Development
Detailed Discovery
Risks and Dependencies
Physical Data Mapping
QA,Test Debug
Interoperability Strategy
Requirements Specification
Logical / Virtual Modeling
Organizational Policy Goals
Interoperability Demonstration
Interoperability Engineering
Legal Considerations
Relate Logical to Physical
Evaluate Accept
Interoperability Specification
Security Policy
Optimize
Refine Requirements
Configuration Management
MEIIM
Deployment, training, and support
ManTech Enterprise Information Interoperability
Methodology
Enterprise InformationInteroperability Solution
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Some Take Aways regarding EII Methodologies

• Externalizing
• To know it exists
• To represent it in an unambiguous, formalized,
  and computable manner
• Interoperability Engineering
• Physical mapping
• Logical mapping
• Relating Logical to Physical
• Manage Interconnectivity collaboratively
• At the enterprise level or shared purview level

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Metadata Management Approach

• Ontology
• Industry driven, e.g. Context Inspired Component
  Architecture (CICA), PDML, etc.
• Model Driven
• Meta Object Facility
• W3C Approaches
• Web Ontology Language

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Evolution of Data Access from standalone Apps of
the 1950s 60s to the connected Enterprise of
today
EII will standardize info usage for the
enterprise!
EII TierArchitecture

• Client / User Agent
• App Server
• Integration Server
• Enterprise Data Stores(i.e. DBMS, etc.)

3 Tier has standardized data access
Application Data Access
3 TierArchitecture
Data Access via RDBMS

• Client / User Agent
• App Server
• DBMS Server

Data Access via DBMS
Data Access via File Sys
Time
(message-oriented)
(service-oriented)
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Some EII and Related Vendors

• www.metamatrix.com
• www.networkinference.com
• www.microsoft.com/biztalk
• www.unicorn.com
• www.compositesw.com
• www.webmethods.com
• www.tibco.com
• www.metaintegration.net
• www.iwaysoftware.com
• www.contivo.com
• www.modulant.com
• and others . . .

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Its not a perfect world!

• After listening to Vendors, Managers, and related
  stakeholders involved with EII projects one might
  think that the EII nut has been cracked this is
  not so!
• EII Revisited
• Enterprise Information Integration will continue
  to be shaped by many forces some seen and some
  unforeseen.
• EII should be thought of as the evolution
  business process automation as it is effected by
  advancements from emerging computing technologies
  (software, data standards, hardware, telecom,
  etc.).

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Profusion of Metadata

• Use service portfolio - registry
• you cant reuse what you cant find
• Profusion of XML Schemas
• WSDL is out of control
• Metadata is key but no single solution exists
• Metadata is spiraling out of control at several
  levels backbone, process auto, workflow, app
  level, BAM, etc.
• EAI backbone
• Process automation
• Workflow
• Application level, etc.

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Enterprise Information Interoperability
EII
Design Time Data Strategy
Virtual / Logical Model
Incremental Implementation
EII
Loosely-coupled
Transport
Security
XML Technology
Non-invasive
Validation
Interoperability
A breakthrough approach to enabling
interoperability within and across large and
complex enterprises.
EII achieves interoperability by operating at the
logical level of information exchange. EII
focuses on the meaning and context of data and
identifies and resolves conflicts that might
affect communication between people,
organizations, and applications that generate or
process the information.
ManTechs e-ICs interoperability team is focused
on researching, developing, and implementing EII
technologies to help streamline enterprise
interoperability infrastructures. For more
information on projects the team is currently
involved with, please visit http//www.dcnicn.com/
xmledicentral/ or http//www.dcnicn.com/mh-60_elit
e_phase_ii/.