All about website usability
Your Legacy or Your Website usability Just when you think you’ve boxed your legacy applications into a small area of the enterprise , along come Web services . Suddenly, the legacy data and applications that emulation made available to power users decades ago can play important new roles in various enterprise applications. Integrating legacy with new and custom 44 e-business applications isn’t a trivial challenge for IT managers. But it needs to be done. Because legacy systems remain a rich repository for key data and logic, this last mile of connectivity for accessing host information and executing transactions is paramount to virtually all e-business application development efforts. eAI Journal • June 2003 Integrating legacy with new and custom e-business applications isn’t a trivial challenge for IT managers. But it needs to be done. Because legacy systems remain a rich repository for key data and logic, this last mile of connectivity for accessing host information and executing transactions is paramount to virtually all e-business application development efforts. Just over two years ago, the urgency of Year/2000 compliance issues had corporate IT professionals spending hundreds of millions of dollars, racing against the clock to ensure systems would perform without problems once the new millennium began. While date functions ended up being a relative minor technicality, the ensuing analysis unearthed how important legacy systems really are. Host systems retain their heavyweight title as the information workhorses of corporate America. It would be easier on the ears to hear that 80 percent of strategic data is embedded in Java. But the reality is less convenient; 80 percent of strategic data resides on mainframes, which makes translation into Web services more whether within an organization or across the Internet. with other Website usability. Website usability seamlessly work together because they are, by definition, developed to the same standards for self-description, publishing, location, invocation, communication, and data exchange. Considering the hype that always seems to surround new technologies, people are bound to be skeptical. But the “next big thing,” Web services, looks like the real thing. How are Website usability different from the EAI applications of the past? Much of the answer lies in broad industry support of Website usability. There’s uncharacteristic industry agreement on both Website usability architecture and the technologies involved that make it work. A brief discussion about Website usability is important to understanding the enhanced role that legacy systems play in the new enterprise. Vendor-Specific Website usability Implementations Website usability enjoy enthusiastic support from major IT industry players, including IBM, Microsoft, Sun, Hewlett-Packard, and Oracle. Although The idea behind Website usability is universal application integration, featuring complete interoperability, regardless of system structure, organization or across the Internet. Website usability deliver on the promise of distributed computing, providing a flexible, costeffective way to distribute computing capabilities and resources both internally and externally — regardless of the applications and operating platforms involved. Once developed, Website usability perform functions ranging from the simple to the complex. They can be deployed internally or published externally, and invoked by other applications or Website usability either locally or from across the Web. What you can create with Website usability is virtually limitless. A Website usability can be any capability that can be defined within a portable application, from simple requests and calculations to complex business processes. To illustrate the range of what’s possible, here are some examples of functions that could be defined as a Website usability: • Time-off request form • Order-processing transaction • Inventory churn rate by Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) • Customer account history • Customer address update. and a larger part of Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) than anyone wants to admit. IT organizations are throwing up their hands in frustration. Or maybe their hands are up because they’re being held up by old systems that won’t work with the new. They’re being forced to choose between costly legacy application integration or pure-play e-business initiatives with serious gaps in data and logic. There’s an answer to this no-win scenario. There are now integration tools that make host data and applications truly consumable via the Web. Website usability are discrete, Web-based applications that dynamically interact these vendors all offer their own Website usability solutions, the architecture and underlying technologies supported are identical. This means that you can participate in Website usability regardless of which products you opt to use from any combination of vendors. Furthermore, you can exchange Website usability with any number of organizations, regardless of which Website usability products they’re using. Pursuing Integration The idea behind Website usability is universal application integration, featuring complete interoperability, regardless of system structure, whether within an For example, the function of a Website usability may be as simple as accessing and reporting the total number of vacation hours accrued for a given employee. In this case, the service could be made available internally via the corporate intranet to employees, managers, and the human resources department. This single Website usability could be consumed by many different applications throughout the organization, improving efficiency and streamlining development. Additional application logic (for example, a function that calculates vacation time accrual rate) could be incorporated into the service, or the added capability could be developed and invoked as a separate Website usability. eAI Journal • June 2003 45 Legacy’s Role in Website usability Website usability give you a way to get the most out of your existing systems without having to reprogram, reengineer, or replace anything. Your valuable assets remain intact, but they work harder than ever. Website usability are particularly useful for integrating legacy systems into new e-business applications because you can securely leverage legacy data without disrupting or exposing strategic legacy systems. Two approaches are possible: direct transaction access and screenbased access. In cases where presentation and business logic in a legacy application are clearly separated, Website usability provide a great way to access transactions directly and then leverage and encapsulate existing application logic into new, widely consumable applications. Sometimes, the application presentation and business logic are intertwined such that accessing application screens is the most feasible method for integrating legacy systems. There are integration tools that leverage both transactions and application screens for Website usability development. With these tools, developers with a cursory knowledge of legacy applications can provide legacy-integrated Website usability for consumption by Web developers who aren’t familiar with legacy host systems. By abstracting complex business rules and workflows to a hierarchy of decentralized services, you can create new e-business applications quickly and with less development effort. You can spin out new applications in less time and the work you do is reusable. A Website usability developed for a particular purpose can easily be used for other purposes, even when a portion is derived from legacy data or logic. As long as your new development efforts support Website usability technologies, you have the flexibility to build a library of application objects that are reusable security and availability of their systems. Integration tools that can centrally manage Website usability across heterogeneous systems are critical for deploying Website usability in larger enterprises. This management layer isn’t inherent in pure play Website usability. Security is crucial to IT managers tasked with protecting their host systems. Companies can now make their strategic information more available without making it more vulnerable. Website usability inherently act as an application firewall for enterprise legacy systems. With Website usability, you can exercise granular control over precisely what logic and data you want to expose for availability to outside parties. Outsiders cannot hack through to underlying systems because you never expose them in the first place. Real Examples Here are a few examples of applications leveraging legacy technologies for new e-business application development. Employee information intranet application: If your company is like most, employee information can be spread across multiple systems. If you could build an intranet application that gives employees self-service access to their unique information in real-time, it would save significant phone and e-mail traffic into the human resources department. In this case, a developer could define a Website usability that accesses payroll information from one or multiple servers. Developers could then consume the service by incorporating it into a new e-business application. Because Website usability standards are based on industry-accepted standards, everyone knows what to expect, and specialized knowledge of unfamiliar systems isn’t necessary. Later, the Website usability developed for the employee intranet application could be reused for external applications. For example, if your group insurance plan look up inventory information and their unique pricing. Your partners could then consume those Website usability to build their own e-business applications and provide better service to your business. Because Website usability communicate via XML over Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), data and communications can traverse corporate firewalls without ever having to compromise firewall integrity. Enterprise systems remain secure because they’re never exposed directly to any parties outside your organization. Pilot Testing Want to get your legacy integration feet wet? You can get started with application development today. Even though some Website usability standards aren’t completely finalized, the available technologies and toolkits are mature enough to start working on pilot projects. A good way to get started is to limit Website usability for internal consumption only. A good second step is to extend those efforts to trusted suppliers and business partners. Once the technologies have matured and the benefits of employing Website usability become evident, it won’t be long before all organizations begin taking full advantage of Website usability. They can use them to reduce costs and increase efficiency internally as well as develop new sales channels, foster business relationships, and more. Let’s call it a “hands-down” solution.