Web Services
You will almost certainly have been bombarded with information
about Web Services and how it is going to change the way you do
business. It is an exciting development and we agree that it will
make a fundamental difference, but how will it affect your business
and what should you do about it?
How will it change the way I do business?
The most significant change in the longer term is that more of
the stakeholders that have an impact on your company, from end customers,
to suppliers, to those involved in support and distribution will
be able to communicate with you electronically. This will be primarily
because the cost of entry will reduce and the ability to "join"
will become radically simplified.
How will it change your technology infrastructure?
An implementation that fulfills the ultimate vision of a Web Services,
full democratized and open infrastructure will not only need changes
to the end business system, but also fundamental changes to the
business processes. Any attempt to describe the changes required
to meet this vision within this context would be futile. One of
the most promising aspects of the current Web Services initiative
is its pragmatic approach. There are a number of ways in which a
company can start to build in Web Services readiness and gain clear
business benefits during the transition.
So how do you move forward?
A number of technology commentators feel that the first and least
contentious progression is to provide a Web Services enabled interface
at the business system. Web Services are geared up to a transactional
level response, as opposed to the more traditional batch or document
based EDI processing. The next stage will be to adapt all your existing
communication protocols to use the Web Services interface. In practice
this will require a translation tool that has the ability to convert
from the traditional inbound format to the new Web Services object
and to then present the object to the end system using HTTP. The
outbound process will be similar, although in practice a pseudo
batch mode aggregation of the Web Service outbound objects may be
required. The implications to the business and the technical issues
and long term planning requirement mean that a revision of your
e-commerce strategy is the
next obvious step.
The next stage?
The next stage of progression sees a world in which all your partners
are able to exchange information using Web Services. Universal Description,
Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) will mean that partners know exactly
what information you require and how that information is processed.
Once we get past the inevitable security issues relating to this
knowledge then the panacea of a seamless information system across
business boundaries appears within reach. It is however inevitable
that different organizations will interpret the various Web Services
standards in different ways, and also that some partners will lag
behind in the adoption of these technologies. The continuing need
to incorporate these special cases means that the provision of an
intermediary, specialist translator is a sound strategy.
How can Shared Skills help?
We have an in-depth knowledge and experience of working with companies
using EDI. We work closely on a daily basis with the underlying
technologies that support the Web Services initiative. We have also
sourced a number of tools that
can provide the necessary infrastructure and where necessary have
the ability to produce effective bespoke solutions.
This means that we inherently understand, not only the technical
infrastructure, but also the peculiar nature of the open standards
that underpin the Web Services world. This "open" concept
flies in the face of many of the larger system houses and developers
of some of the existing monolithic e-commerce systems. It is our
contention that they will find the transition much harder and may
not be in the position to provide the genuine independence of selection
that will be so essential for a successful long term strategy.
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