The Official AIA Blog

On my way in from work this morning, I was stopped behind a car that had a bumper sticker that read oddly enough “NorCalBagels.com” and underneath the URL, “Bagel Rescue”. I readjusted my eyes and realized it actually said NorCalBeagles.com / Beagle Rescue. Phew, I was afraid there was serious bagel abuse taking place somewhere in Northern California.

I bring this up because it reminds me of an analyst article I read recently on Application Integration Architecture. In the article, the author asserted that because they had only been able to find one customer, AIA was not real. Had they taken a closer look, they would have found that what they thought was the case was actually quite the opposite.

Taken directly from the Oracle.com website -
“KPN Successfully Implements Oracle Application Integration Architecture” (Press release)

“Oracle Announces Implementation of Application Integration Architecture (AIA) with Trade Promotion Management System”
Excerpt: The J.M. Smucker Company is the first Oracle customer to deploy the new Application Integration Architecture (AIA) with Siebel CRM Integration Pack for Oracle Trade Promotion Management. (Press release)

“Post-integration ROI”
"Oracle Application Integration Architecture can dramatically simplify what I had assumed was going to turn into a very complex environment," says Martinelli. [Rackable Systems] (Profit Online article)

I guess the moral here is quite simply, if at first it doesn’t look right, it probably isn’t. Better look again through a different lens.

Now where did I put my bagel...

The SOA Design Patterns site (and book) has an interesting chapter on the topic of schema centralization.  The recommended solution is essentially the pattern used in AIA.

1. Establish your service inventory using a top-down business process model driven approach.

2. Identify the Enterprise Business Objects (EBO) and Enterprise Business Messages (EBM). 

3. Create the EBO Schema canonical definitions using the industry standards.

4. Create the Enterprise Business Services (EBS) utilizing the EBMs created above.

The Case Study section in the end is empty, but AIA could very well be its best case study!

As an architect explaining SOA concepts to developers of traditional enterprise applications, I encountered various analogies comparing the concepts of SOA to Lego^TM blocks, which are actually considered by some experts as being misleading and superficial. Therefore, recent analogies by Antony Reynolds and Richard Veryard comparing services to a laundry, brought back memories of yet another analogy I used a couple of years ago - comparing business process driven SOA to home construction.

Let’s pretend you want to build a house from the ground up. You hire a general contractor, who is responsible for the overall execution of the project. The contractor locates a provider of concrete and makes a phone call to ask for estimates and the schedule for pouring the foundation slab. Next, the contractor will call and coordinate the lumber delivery, following which the framers can come out to do their job. In parallel, the contractor gets estimates from electricians and has to decide on the one that not only has the best rates, but also someone who is certified as per city code and who can meet the schedule. And finally, the roofers, plumbers and painters are arranged to complete the job.

Let’s put this in the perspective of SOA technologies. The general contractor is a BPEL Process, whose purpose is to orchestrate all the Services from disparate heterogeneous systems. The services in this example are the different actors – the concrete provider, foundation company, lumber company, framers, electricians, roofers, plumbers and painters. The contractor found the providers by searching the Yellow Pages (UDDI) and found the phone listing (WSDL); communicated by voice (XML) over the phone (standards based Web Service) in English (Standardized Semantics). He got quote and availability information, without having to really understand much about the inner workings of the concrete business (Service Abstraction), and as long as the provider abides by the contract, the contractor does not care who the actual electrician is (Service Virtualization).

I found that this metaphor helped many a legacy developer understand the complex SOA technologies better than the overly simplistic Lego^TM blocks analogy. However, as recommended in the other blogs too, it is best to not push the metaphor too far. Once the SOA basics have been understood, its purpose is served; and no other simplistic metaphor can then explain every one of the prolific WS-<insert your favorite noun here> specifications.

UPDATE 07/30/2008: Richard points out a sequel to his laundry post: Services Not All Like Laundry. And just when we thought we had it all sorted out :)

One of the AIA partners, Infosys, has published an article on their blog listing the six things a company must know if they are ready for SOA. An interesting read that lists the areas where AIA can help in leveraging the benefits of SOA.

That is the topic of Joshua Greenbaum’s recent blog post during OpenWorld, detailing the reasons why he feels AIA is so important to Oracle.

“I used to think that Fusion Apps (did I say I was impressed with what I saw? So what, it’s worth saying twice) would be the make-or-break development on which would ride the future of the company. But more and more that make-or-break role is falling to AIA. This product, which orchestrates all the different processes across the vast, and disparate, Oracle Applications stack, is the place where the vision of Oracle becomes reality: There is no way for Oracle to pull off rationalizing its massive acquisition strategy without AIA making all the interprocess communications between, say, Glog, Siebel, Oracle Financials and PeopleSoft HR (and SAP, while we’re at it) seamless, easy, and fast. Absent a highly performant AIA middleware layer, Oracle’s dream of cross application process functionality becomes a user nightmare.”

A must-read article.

One of the frequently asked questions from those new to AIA or other canonical object based methodologies, is whether AIA is really needed in their specific SOA project.

In short, it depends.

Now, the longer version. AIA provides a robust platform and framework for business process driven, SOA based enterprise application integrations. If your business process already has a pre-built Process Integration Pack (PIP) available from Oracle for your specific enterprise applications, then it is a no-brainer to utilize the PIP.

For example, if you are implementing the Order to Cash process with Oracle Siebel CRM as the front-end system and Oracle E-Business Suite as the ERP system, then the Siebel CRM Integration Pack for Oracle Order Management: Order to Cash PIP should definitely be on your shopping list.  Even if the exact applications (or versions) are not a perfect fit i.e. say, you want the CRM integration to PeopleSoft or a legacy application, then you can start with the PIP and replace the Application Business Connector Services (ABCS) from the Oracle E-Business Suite to the other application. Compared to a 100% custom development solution, this provides you with all the benefits of a flexible integration framework and will be faster to implement since one end of the PIP has already been developed.

So the question “Do I really need AIA” only has relevance for business process driven SOA integrations for which there are no pre-packaged PIPs i.e. comparing use of AIA Foundation Pack (FP) vs a custom point-to-point development using Fusion Middleware. Now, the Foundation Pack is built on top of Fusion Middleware, so it must be providing value-add on top of it. Given my love for analogies, let’s take the following example.

Which is the faster, better way to build a plane?

I think everyone would agree that having pre-built components, engineered and tested to the specifications of what a plane needs, is a much faster and better way, than to do-it-yourself with basic raw materials, even if you have access to the same tools in both cases. The AIA Foundation Pack provides these pre-built components, that are engineered to the demands of EAI-based SOA integrations. It provides the pre-built components such as the Enterprise Business Objects (EBO), the AIA reference architecture and programming model, governance tools (e.g. service repository, integration scenarios) and framework utilities (e.g. error handling, message level testing).

So in the case of an EAI-based SOA integration, the answer is absolutely Yes, you do need AIA!

Now, I know many would argue, “but I am not really building a plane, I just want a one-time, quick, cheap solution, which may never need any enhancements”.  In this case, going the route of direct point to point integration using SOA may be sufficient, but not without risks.  Once you end up building a passenger train (the cheap, quick solution instead of a plane), which runs on a direct track - point to point between SFO and LAX - it becomes next to impossible to later turn it into a flying plane with the flexibility of going to multiple routes (NY) without a new track (point to point interface); and with a higher capacity and faster performance. In almost all cases, you would have to re-implement the project to start building a plane.

So the key is to be clear on the business needs and then plan for the right enterprise architecture to implement it. If the business needs a plane, go for AIA. Evaluate the use of native SOA technologies with point to point interfaces, only when it is absolutely clear - at all levels of management - that you are building a train.

AIA is just shy of 2 years old and already we are seeing tremendous customer adoption and traction. It's exciting to be part of a team that continues to grow despite the current economy. Part of the reason for AIA's success is that with all the cost-cutting that is going around, smart companies are actually investing in areas that can generate near-term efficiencies and revenue growth.

Business processes around Pricing and Sales, Sourcing and Production, Customer Service and Support, are low-hanging fruit for strategic investments in optimization and automation.

Amway, Ciena, Pella, Lyse Energi, BaneTele, Vodafone Qatar, Com Hem and Zebra Technolgoies are just a few of the customers that are using AIA to reap cost-savings and efficiencies with Oracle AIA.

Earlier this month, Oracle announced how AIA helped Zebra Technologies rapidly integrate Oracle Master Data Management to Siebel CRM and two existing legacy ERP systems on time and under budget.

“Zebra Technologies has experienced rapid and extraordinary growth as a company, but all of our disparate systems and applications were not meeting the business’ needs or value required,” said Don O’Shea, CIO, Zebra. “One look at Oracle Application Integration Architecture and Oracle Master Data Management made us realize we had found our key to solve a massive problem.

Amway is also using AIA Foundation Pack to consolidate and modernize their global IT infrastructure.

"We needed to unify our application infrastructure to support our network of over three million independent business owners in over 60 countries and territories around the world," said Tina Abdoo, Manager of Application Development, Amway. "With Oracle Application Integration Architecture driven by AIA Foundation Pack, we have been able to consolidate systems that were created from decades of high-maintenance legacy code, while also supporting and enhancing our broader SOA initiative. This has enabled us to achieve a faster, structured and repeatable approach to process composition that improves and extends the business impact made by our enterprise applications."

Companies like these that take advantage of shifting market dynamics to become more flexible in the face the change will ultimately come out ahead of those that focused on pure cost-cutting initatives, and find themselves with larger returns and margin enhancements in the long run.