RFI New Brunswick Update 2011-07 Quick Notes for SMSC Conference Call
RFI Title: Enterprise Business Intelligence, Metadata, Business Rules, Master Data, Integration, and Services Solution(s)
Finding #1: The RFI has put clarity into definitions.
Architecture and integration are complementary enterprise practices that intersect most significantly in the information domain.
Architecture is about differentiating the whole and transforming the business, whereas Integration is about assembling the parts into a cohesive, holistic system.
One discipline takes a top-down approach while the other is bottom-up; both are essential. Broadly speaking, integration solutions typically fall into one of two styles1:
1. Process integration: automation of processes that cut across functional or application boundaries where process state needs to be maintained independently of the underlying application systems or where multiple data consumers or data providers need to be orchestrated as part of a business transaction.
2. Data integration: accessing data and functions from disparate systems to create a combined and consistent view of core information for use across the organization to improve business decisions and operations.
Examples of Process Integration initiatives:
- Process Intelligence, Business Transformation, Process Modeling
- Shared Services – Back Office (e.g., NBISA, ERP, IT, Translation Services) - Shared Services – Customer Service (e.g., SNB, CRM, Licensing and Permitting,
e-Commerce)
- CGRM, Life Events, Service Bundling - Service Components
Examples of Data Integration initiatives:
- Enterprise Metadata Registry: Standards (data, vocabularies, taxonomies)
- Master Data Management: Customer Registry, Business Registry, Vendor Registry, Toponomy Registry, Geospatial Data Registry, Government Services Registry, Government Organizations and Employees Registry
- Data Modeling, Categorization/Facets/Tags - Data Quality
- Enterprise Business Intelligence, E-Discovery, Big Data
- Web-Oriented-Architecture (focus on Web resources not services), Information-as-a-Service
- Open Data, Information Grid 1
Another integration style that some practitioners call out as a separate category is service integration as part of a service-oriented architecture (SOA), where application functions are separated into distinct units, or services, that are directly accessible over a network in a loosely coupled manner and may be orchestrated with stateless interactions. The contrary argument is that service integration and the associated infrastructure of an enterprise service bus (ESB) are simply characteristics of a given process integration or data integration design.
Business Intelligence Definition
According to Gartner, “BI platforms enable users to build applications that help organizations learn and understand their business.” A BI platform delivers integration, information delivery, and analysis capabilities. Integration is involved with BI administration. Information delivery consists of reporting, dashboards (dial, gauges, sliders,…), ad hoc queries, Microsoft Office integration, and search-based BI. Analysis involves OLAP or multi-dimensional analysis (including what-if analysis), interactive visualization (charts, pictures,…), predictive modeling and data mining, and scorecards (aligning KPIs with strategic objectives).
Based on this Gartner definition and our understanding of BI, we can deduce that the essence of the BI capabilities is to help organizations identify their business needs and problems and be able to make more informed decisions on how to satisfy and/or solve these needs and problems in an efficient and effective manner. Undoubtedly, BI supports the Lean philosophy.
There is also a five-stage categorization of BI capabilities introduced by Philip J. Goldstein for the purpose of Academic Analytics: (Source:
http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ecar_so/ers/ers0508/EKF0508.pdf) Stage 1 – Extraction and reporting of transaction-level data
Stage 2 – Analysis and monitoring of operational performance Stage 3 – What-if decision support (such as scenario building) Stage 4 – Predictive modeling and simulation
Stage 5 – Automatic triggers of business processes (such as alerts)
These five stages indicate the depth of the use of BI capabilities applicable to any organization and therefore can imply the sophistication of BI platforms. Clearly, the level of required capabilities has to be aligned with the type of needs or problems to be tackled. Higher or more complicated capabilities (if not needed) are not necessarily better for the business, as they might result in a more complicated implementation, longer time to production, higher total cost of ownership, difficulty of use of the BI platform for the end user, and perhaps lower added value and ROI. All in all, understanding our needs and problems is the key to choose the right platform.
Finding #2: The RFI has put clarity into who’s who in the market.
RFI Title: Enterprise Business Intelligence, Metadata, Business Rules, Master Data, Integration, and Services Solution(s)
The RFI titled “Enterprise Business Intelligence, Metadata, Business Rules, Master Data, Integration, and Services Solution(s)” closed January 2011. CIMS received 16 responses:
1. 3B Data Services LTD. 2. Access Innovations Inc.
3. Cadis 4. DB Group Consulting Inc.
5. Ernst & Young 6. Endeca
7. IBM 8. Innovatia
9. Microsoft 10. Nuxeo Corp
11. OpenText 12. Oracle 13. SAP 14. SAS 15. Software AG 16. Unisys Enterprise Business Intelligence:
- Oracle, IBM-Cognos, Microsoft: (stage 1, 2), traditional BI, need a data warehouse, structured data only, longer time to implement, not Enterprise - use at departmental levels - Endeca: (stage 1, 2, some of 3), converts data into facets, structured data, unstructured
data, hybrid data, old/new/any formats databases or content, reads anything, semantic interoperability, Enterprise, competitors (as I understand): Attivio, Autonomy (both did not respond to RFI), claims to implement an application in shortest time, built on a search engine, can be used for e-Discovery, can be used for auto-categorization, has had success at a federal department
- SAS: stage 1, 2, 3, more complex, competitor: SPSS, for statistics oriented end-users - Methodologies: Ernst & Young, Oracle Insights
- Others: niche Other Solution(s): ESB:
- Prior to RFI, at GNB, we have and still testing (some) products from Microsoft and Oracle. Unfortunately, because of budget, we will not be able to fund more testing. - May work with Region of Peel as they closed their RFP for an ESB.
- I understand the British Columbia purchased many products from Software AG. - New Brunswick uses Orion Rhapsody as the integration engine at the Department of
Health.
Purchasing Opportunity to consider in the future:
- If you wish for other jurisdictions to purchase the product(s) your jurisdiction selects from a RFP process, you can include a clause in the RFP (similar to the attachment).
- Then other jurisdictions can compare their requirements with the ones from the RFP from the (other) jurisdiction. If they are the same, you can purchase the product(s) from that RFP.
- Major time savings (RFP/evaluation process) Taxonomy Management:
- Access Innovations: enables Global Collaboration for Taxonomy Management, can be done in the cloud, can use one year for free, currently planning the pilot project, can do auto-categorization/auto-tagging
o Could we use this for inter-jurisdictional collaboration work? o http://www.accessinn.com/
Metadata Registry, Master Data: - Software AG:
o Value Path (Business Case)
o can it be used for Global Collaboration for Standards Management? o can it be done in the cloud?
o could we use this for inter-jurisdictional collaboration work?
o An example of Data Registry Services can be found at EPA Environmental Data Registry (EDR)
http://iaspub.epa.gov/sor_internet/registry/datareg/home/overview/home.do o Other Registries can be found as well:
- Registry of EPA Applications and Databases (READ) - Reusable Component Services
- Terminology Services - Substance Registry Services - Facility Registry Services
- Initiate (IBM) is used in the Health Domain for Patient Master Data (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick)
Tue 6/14/2011 4:05
MESSAGE SENT ON BEHALF OF DIANE NADEAU, SMSC CO-CHAIR Dear SMSC Members,
As a result of the RFI that GNB issued last winter, I would like to bring up a couple of solutions that could help the Service Mapping Sub-Committee work.
Are any of you familiar with the following software? And if so, what is your experience? If not, we could evaluate if these products could help collaboration among our members to deliver reusable components (e.g., CGRM, MRM, taxonomies, data standards,
service bundling models) and if they could be invited to demonstrate at a future in-person meeting.
Software AG’s Metadata Registry and Master Data Management
An example of Data Registry Services can be found at EPA Environmental Data Registry (EDR)
http://iaspub.epa.gov/sor_internet/registry/datareg/home/overview/home.do Other Registries can be found as well:
- Registry of EPA Applications and Databases (READ) - Reusable Component Services
- Terminology Services
- Substance Registry Services - Facility Registry Services Access Innovations
http://www.accessinn.com/
Enables Global Collaboration for Taxonomy Management
Please send your feedback directly to Diane Nadeau at [email protected] at
your earliest convenience.
Please note: This is not a selection of products for GNB. Other RFI responses offer other kind of solutions to GNB. At this point, the software listed are independent tools that may be of interest to the SMSC for the kind of work we do.
Another note: There may be other software on the market that never responded to the GNB’s RFI. They should also be considered in our future processes, if any. The names of the software listed here are examples of what is available on the market.
Software AG’s Metadata Registry and Master Data Management
An example of Data Registry Services can be found at EPA Environmental Data Registry (EDR)
http://iaspub.epa.gov/sor_internet/registry/datareg/home/overview/home.do Other Registries can be found as well:
- Registry of EPA Applications and Databases (READ) - Reusable Component Services
- Terminology Services
- Substance Registry Services - Facility Registry Services