Where the Rubber Kisses the Tarmac

When a business process need to synchronize with other business process for generating synergy (or to weave the process flow) , foremost challenge is -"interfaces need to couple". Often Orchestration faults at this very juncture.

Following Question need to be answered to take the plunge :

- Business Process (BP) Significance (What BP stands for in the Value Chain)
- Interface Exposure ( What the BP expects and delivers)
- Heartbeat ( How BP are aware of each other presence )
- Referee ( In case the touchdown not possible between BP's, managing process needs to be informed for alternatives)

Interface is the key component for a Business Process in order to communicate to the external world. More often technologies involved in creation of Business Process are varied. This leads to Silos and eventually gaps in value chain labeled as "not Fit For Automation".Building an Interface (Adapter) to expose the Business Process, can make it " Fit For Automation".

Standards of engagement need to follow universal principles of communication - Messaging Protocol, Channel Specification, Transmitter and Receiver Identification.

Competition is driving businesses to build new business models in the blink of an eye. Technology need to reuse granular business processes to deliver. Need of the hour is to be a expert weaver of Business Process.

When It Happened One Day ..

Flood came and a business was shut down forever. A human error and we were history. Scary thoughts ,lets think again does these things,happen. Yes Sir/Madam they do. A big question resounds 'So, What we need to DO ?'.

Lets understand what we are up against : There are either of the two : A Natural Disaster or A Human Error (which includes wilful ones also). Depending on the Location and Business Stream a list of the disruptive events can be built. ( to emphasis :: we are only listing events which we don't have control on )

Now the aim is to build a Plan of Recoverability. Answer the following questions :

• Time Required to Recover? - How much time the organisation have or can provide to recover.
• To what Degree we want to Recover? - How much Loss the organisation can bear.
• What's the Cost of Recoverability? - A million dollar question.

Stage is finally set to brainstorm and build the plan. These plans will be function of (business stream,location,threats) so it will be specific and unique.

When It Happened One Day - We Survived.

A System Is Born!

Drive to act, is genesis of any system. Motivation propels the human logic to conceive a system, building it is a saga of trial and errors culminating into a workable model. Continuum of refinement has no limits as perfection is never absolute. Everyday, we go about using System without conscious of the fact how they came into existence.

Pause, right now are we using one? -yes!. What's the excitement all about its a routine affair? But here is the seed of a System yet to be born. First in human mind then in the world.

My memory throws names :: Wright Brothers, Steve Jobs, ............. list is big, commonality, they all brought new systems in existence for civilization.

Innovative, Futuristic, Ambitious, Daring synonyms for all these personalities, but that’s the post era accolades , when the system was born in their mind, to a normal routine affair person, it would have been too adventurous, hypothetical and too ambitious to be true.

Opportunity is right now right here; wake up call, to person, to break the mundane daily routine affair attitude. System take shape when reflection on the existing system is done. Meaning of being conscious is State Of Realization, and that’s how civilization have grown. A System is BORN!.

Architecting Performance

Architecture is all about scale and performance - " Striking a balance between extremes ". Technology per se is a tool in the hands of an Architect.

The journey of architecture starts with conceptual framework , at this stage ideas take shape in virtual world of the architect. Vision plays the most important role here and logical framework is built around it.

Till now architecture is only on papers - to bring it to life it needs POC "Proof of Concept" (Prototype, Small Scale model etc).

Above phase brings most of the learning to the team as the room for experimentation and errors is wide open. Experience can cut down time spent in above phase but there is a caveat "Tendency to Innovate reduces as experience increases", thus the team needs to be a healthy mix of both young experimental brains and wisdom of seniors to guide it.

Stream of architecture application has greater influence on the Implementation or physical manifestation as even ounce of error translates into immense cost. Case in point is "Architecting a Robot for Operating on a Patient" Vis-a-Vis "Architecting a Information Platform".

Architecting Saga is evolutionary, as factors change so the reach and impact. Success is always relative here.

Commonality Factors of Architecting are

• Available Technology
• Experience
• Lateral Thinking
• Eye for Detail
• Focus on Scalability
• PERFORMANCE

Technology for Masses – PACS on WWW

“Problem diagnosed correctly is precursor to getting the right treatment/cure/solution”

Statement holds ground in every aspect. It is a matter of life and death when a disease has to be confronted i.e. to be correctly diagnosed.

We often come across situations “if only we had diagnosed it earlier, the situation would have been in our control”.

Scarcity of Experts seems the reason for this. But with technology innovation we have options. “Enabling Virtual Presence of Experts”

Medical Imaging is the eyes of Doctor. Radiology labs can take these images. Interpretation and Diagnosis is where the experts move into the scenario. These images should be accessible to the experts.

World Wide Web (WWW) is the global infrastructure which can enable this accessibility. So these images should be accessible on any device which can connect to the www – Mobile, Tablet PC, Laptops, Desktops ……

PACS (Picture archiving and communication system) on World Wide Web is ready to Bridge the Expertise Scarcity Gap.

GLOBAL INFORMATION PLATFORMS (G.I.P)

Imagine every human being owns a personal airport near their house or a reserve lane from their house to office. Are we talking of infinite resources at our disposal? But this is far away from reality. Human intelligence in material affairs is very practical, thus we have international airports and national highways and roads being utilized and reutilized on need basis. Thus an international airport can cater to millions and similarly a four-lane highway is utilized by millions.

Nonetheless Information Age has dramatically changed human lifestyle, both in personal and professional subjects - "It has transformed the way we think, govern and perceive human interactions".

Digitization is “ever-evolving” continuum of technology. Despite of tremendous advancement in information technology, it has yet to catch up with pace of basic human needs; Even today, world of information technology is full of architectures of personal airports and personal lanes resulting in - resource crunch and cost overruns!

Era for Global Information Platforms (GIP) is ripe: Conformed Human needs across the Globe, are driving factors for advent of GIP's. Practicality of material world is greatly pursued by digital world here and GIP needs to comply with specific parameters termed as “GIP Params”.

Herein Global Information Platform Params (GIPP) ::

1. RTS (Response Time Signature)

2. IE (Interface Ergonomics)

3. GA (Global Availability)

4. DOP (Degree of Perfection)

5. SE (Scale Elastic)

6. LT Cognitive (Language & Time Cognitive): Globalization Compliance

Architectural Paradigm Shift for making GIP's a reality ::

(Session is a private airport/private lane. Pooling is close to private airport/private lane pooling. Scaling an application of this architecture is matter of brute force rather then applied intelligence. Soon this approach makes GIP ROI turn negative.) -Scaling GIP'S to cater to millions with positive ROI needs Particulation of Session.

XML, A Universal Protocol of Information Highways!

Species with intelligence evolve on the backbone of effective communication and we are witnessing the dawn of global presence of humanity on the omnipresent platform of internet. We team up by exchanging data thru common translating protocol to synergize seamless integration amongst independent systems. Information age data exchange is the function of delivery protocol – XML; XML forms the basis of data flow on information highways, which can be deciphered by the intended audience.

So let’s see this in action, any page we visit on internet highway is an html page and html page is a markup language translated by browsers. Age of windows has made things easy for us, obscuring the configuration behind the scene. Every program is a logic; environment of this logic always comes from a markup document, globally known as configuration, which facilitates dynamic control over appliance behavior . This is evident to anybody who has worked with UNIX machines.

SOA is in vogue and overused jargon of IT professionals though fundamentally it joins the ends (bridge the services); is it XML? “A Service is a specialized process, which can accept defined input to produce a definite output”. Services integrate to produce business support system to optimize operational processes; In turn the glue for orchestrating these services is XML.

Global Application glorified as Cloud Computing, needs reinvention of good old days mainframes but with spiral up thought process; No more dumb terminals but intelligent interfaces termed as BROWSERS. Technology innovation tickles; how XML fits in this mega gimmick of basic need of the information age? Yes, here is the thread for the next breakthrough of the APPLIED COMPUTING.