Sci.Int.(Lahore),1035-38,2013 ISSN 1013-5316; CODEN: SINTE 8 1035
ENTERPRISE-WIDE SERVICE-ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE
INITIATIVE WITH INFORMATION QUALITY FOR AGILITY IN
SERVICES ENVIRONMENT
Muhammad Suhaizan Sulong, Azlianor Abdul Aziz
(UniversitiTeknikal Malaysia Melaka, Malaysia [email protected], [email protected])
Andy Koronios, Jing Gao
(University of South Australia, Australia [email protected], [email protected])
ABSTRACT: An enterprise transitioning to service-oriented architecture by having an enterprise-wide
initiative leads to a complete enterprise architecture in the services environment. Although service-oriented architecture offers great potential for making enterprises more agile in a highly competitive and fast changing business environment, applying an appropriate information quality management in the initiative, the enterprise can better increase agility in their services environment. This paper addresses the enterprise needs of service-oriented architecture team, considering the fundamentals and common elements of service-oriented architecture, in ensuring information used in the initiative is of high quality through three basic steps approach derived to successfully implement service-oriented architecture with greater agility. Further work would be focusing on binding these two areas; information quality and service-oriented architecture, for enterprises to become enterprise service-oriented architecture-enabled.
Key words: Information Quality, Service-Oriented Architecture, Services Environment 1. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, due to a need to rapidly respond and meet business changes, enterprises seeking a way to achieve business agility, something that current information technology and systems traditionally architected are incapable of [8]. The enterprise should have a strategic transformative initiative in order to provide competitive advantage to succeed in business changing environment and to accommodate evolving information management needs. This is where the service-oriented architecture started in which enterprises plan to implement an enterprise-wide initiative. Service-oriented architecture offers potential values in delivering improved business agility, increased information technology flexibility, enhanced service reusability and reducing operational cost [11].
Once an enterprise initiated work on implementing enterprise-wide service-oriented architecture initiative, it can be regarded to an enterprise changing from traditional monolithic environment to services environment. Being an enterprise-wide initiative that implements a service-oriented architecture, it would be rather difficult for existing services to be adapted to the new design standards and would incur a financial burden as well as to require a considerable amount of time [17]. One of the reasons is lack of information quality such as incorrect, incomplete and outdated information might lead to a serious issue of achieving return on investment and business value of service-oriented architecture [4]. Information quality is defined as “the fitness of information for an intended use” [23]. Hence, in this service-oriented architecture context, it means that the information is fit for use at the beginning of the service-oriented architecture initiative to the point where services are delivered and operated [24]. Thus, information quality is of crucial importance throughout the entire service-oriented architecture initiative; this is the focus of the present article. While the initiative can provide more business agility,
having information quality management in the entire enterprise-wide initiative can better increase agility especially in the services environment.
This paper is structured as follows: first, the enterprise-wide initiative of service-oriented architecture is described include its fundamentals and common elements that are important to consider. Next, the area of information quality with its associated dimensions and frameworks is presented. Then, both areas information quality and enterprise-wide service-oriented architecture initiative is discussed to see whether both have a mutual connection. Last, the paper concludes with ideas for further work.
2. Enterprise-wide Service-Oriented Architecture Initiatives
2.1 Adapt the Conventional Development Approach
In the services environment, many enterprises have enabled their applications across business lines to leverage the full potential of service-oriented architecture. It can be described as an advanced technology solution and a philosophy of architectural practice [14,20]. While service-oriented architecture provides benefits both information technology and business for enterprises, it also provides an expansion of business opportunities. However, there are a couple of things that need to consider before implementing service-oriented architecture that are its fundamental requirements and common elements.
The fundamentals of service-oriented architecture are important to address any issues around organisational governance in order to identify and support the business strategy requirements towards implementing a successful service-oriented architecture [3]. There are four fundamentals as follow that need to consider:
• Maturity – to assess the current maturity of enterprises implementing service-oriented architecture using a maturity model designed for service-oriented architecture [2].
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• Technology – to enable service-oriented architecture to operate reliably and securely through the use of relevant technologies especially web services [15].
• Governance – to control service-oriented architecture implementation in order to realise the value of service-oriented architecture with a dedicated governance model in place [18].
• Change Management – to manage necessary business changes required to create a service-oriented architecture value to promote agility and strong business improvement [3].
The following elements of service-oriented architecture are key important to support the four fundamentals and to ease the implementation of service-oriented architecture.
• Business Requirements – it is captured to reflect the business capabilities which define services to support business real agility [9].
• Component Services – to represent business processes as web services that can be reused easily across business lines [5].
• Service Infrastructure – include enterprise service bus, service registry and repository as well as related products to support scalable and highly available web services [7].
• Implementation Standards – to support service-oriented architecture operations with technical standards for interoperable web services and non-technical standards for management and governance [22].
• Organisational Practices – a dedicated team with specific roles and responsibilities to lead and drive successful service-oriented architecture [5].
• Operational Support Tools – a full suite of specialised tools and technologies to implement aspects of service-oriented architecture in the agile services environment [13].
2.2 Enterprise-wide Initiative
An enterprise-wide initiative in implementing service-oriented architecture refers to, enterprises either considering or have started to implement it across their business lines [24]. This is where the enterprise transforms to services environment which service-oriented architecture provides a solution that can ease integration and be agile as well, that is, can reflect the evolving business changes. For example, service-oriented architecture is able to optimise the value of legacy applications and keep pace with the changing needs of businesses as the legacy applications in the enterprise are often obsolete, have integration issues and unable to meet changing business needs.
The initiative is meant not just to increase the enterprise business value but also to improve business agility and increase information technology flexibility of the enterprise. This is supported by both Forrester and Gartner research, the industry’s leading research firms, in which having the enterprise-wide initiative for service-oriented architecture, the enterprise able to align business and information technology as well as to grow revenue and achieve positive returns [12,21].
With this initiative, the transformation of an enterprise to a services environment from a traditional business model will realise that legacy applications to be integrated and changes across the enterprise include governance and organisational agility [4]. Implementing enterprise-wide service-oriented architecture initiative, therefore, is the ultimate business value in which it helps enterprises to be agile and flexible in-line with business objectives and processes in the face of changing market demands.
2.3 Initiative Process
The initiative process focuses, step-by-step, on four phases to successfully implement the service-oriented architecture [25]. The four phases are:
1) Strategic Planning – It is the first phase of which the service-oriented architecture initiative is to be implemented. In this phase, a workable plan is produced that consists of a step-by-step process to achieve unique needs and goals of which is different for every enterprise. It includes a vision statement, maturity assessment and strategy formulation in order to meet future challenges of implementing service-oriented architecture initiative where energies and resources can be used more effectively and to conduct business more successfully, despite changes in the environment.
2) Building Architecture – The second phase is considered highly important as this is the focal point of enterprise-wide service-oriented architecture initiative implementation. It covers both services development and its infrastructure building with the support of relevant technology in accordance with the established governance plan. The service-oriented architecture team, with the way of thinking about services, that is involved from an early stage of the initiative implementation can help the enterprise with risk management strategies and reduce the potential for future.
3) Services Operation – In this third phase, the service-oriented architecture is in operation once the services platform implemented. It makes available all services that are running continuously utilising full systems integration by focusing an operational guideline that also includes monitoring performance of the services. The critical part is to ensure all services able to react to business change requirements and this is attained through change management processes.
4) Continuous Improvement – This is the last phase of services-oriented architecture initiative which all the operated services are under constant review by the service-oriented architecture team. It includes significant measurement to track performance, enhancement of architecture across the enterprise and refinement of practices. The main objective is to improve the delivery of services that address business changes as well as to optimise the integration with the existing legacy systems and architecture.
Sci.Int.(Lahore),1035-38,2013 ISSN 1013-5316; CODEN: SINTE 8 1037
3. Information Quality
Information quality is a vital part of wider enterprise information management needs of any business and information technology implementation include service-oriented architecture [27]. It ensures that any delivered information is appropriate for a specific use and satisfies user requirements. In the area of information systems, information quality has been studied widely together with the term data quality in which it starts with a foundation of data quality. Hence, both terms are sometimes used interchangeably.
The existing research on information quality revealed that information quality is presented in a multi-dimensional concept that can apply to various contexts [30]. This makes the view of the information quality differently for each context. The application of information quality to a specific context has resulted in a framework in which information quality represented as a set of dimensions that can be considered to practice. Some examples of information quality frameworks applied in different contexts are shown in Table I.
Table 1 Information Quality in Different Contexts
Context Information Quality Framework
Semantic web [10]
SWIQA – an information quality assessment framework.
ISO 25012 standard [19]
Information quality evaluation framework that applies to data quality model.
E-learning [1]
Extended information quality framework for e-learning system content for engineering education courses.
Health informatics [16]
Information quality management practices for health information systems.
Although there are many proposed information quality dimensions, the most referenced dimensions [29] are consists of:
• Believability, Accuracy, Objectivity, Reputation – It denotes that data have quality in their own right.
• Value-added, Relevancy, Timeliness, Completeness, Appropriate amount of data – It highlights the requirement which states that data quality must be considered within the context of the task at hand. • Interpretability, Representational of consistency, Ease
of understanding, Concise representation – It denotes that the system must present data in such a way that they are interpretable, easy to understand, and concisely and consistently represented.
• Accessibility, Access Security – It emphasises the importance of the role of systems; that is, the system must be accessible but secure.
The list of information quality dimensions is therefore considered, but not limited to, in the context of service-oriented architecture seeking to increase the agility in the services environment.
4. Enterprise-wide Service-Oriented Architecture Initiative with Information Quality
As reported many initiatives in implementing service-oriented architecture fail due to non-enterprise-wide and lack of information quality [6,28], extending information quality techniques to enterprise-wide service-oriented architecture initiative is deemed necessary to adapt and gain back its agility. The information used in the initiative can come from either within the services environment that involves the information flow and delivery of services or in the communications and sharing of resources between and among service-oriented architecture team members [26]. Three basic steps (as shown in Figure 1) are required to assure the information used in the entire enterprise-wide service-oriented architecture initiative is at the level of satisfaction and high quality [24]. The first step is to identify and evaluate existing and potential information quality issues in the entire initiative process by obtaining clarification on how the issues raised and might impact on the enterprise. This identification process should be continuously carried out throughout the initiative. Next, the second step is to specify information quality requirements that include ways to resolve identified information quality issues. The approach of specifying the information quality requirements should reflect to enterprise business goals as different enterprises have different settings. Then, the last step is to construct a guideline to monitor the services environment in the aspect of information used to ensure levels of quality and thus, information quality can be controlled to avoid unintended consequences.
Fig. 1 Service-Oriented Architecture Initiative with Information Quality
Through these three steps, managing information quality is possible in which with an information quality framework designed for service-oriented architecture; any enterprise-wide initiative can be successfully implemented with increase agility in its services environment.
5. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
Although implementing service-oriented architecture is able to improve business agility, having information quality management throughout the entire service-oriented architecture initiative can
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increase the agility of services environment. The approach presented in this paper consists of three steps that are identification of information quality issues, specification of information quality requirements and implementation of information quality guidelines. This approach will be taken as a basis to conduct case studies of enterprises planning or initiating their service-oriented architecture initiative. Through case studies, information quality issues will be identified with associated information quality requirements and possible information quality guidelines will be provided for developing an information quality management framework that embeds information quality techniques into a service-oriented architecture initiative across the enterprise.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research is funded by the Ministry of Education Malaysia (MOE), Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM) and University of South Australia (UniSA). We gratefully acknowledge their generous financial support.
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