Prolifics kicks off SAPPHIRE NOW & ASUG Annual Conference this week in Orlando. At the conference, we will be showcasing our SAP testing solutions and share recent success stories with customers like McKesson and Pacific Coast. At booth #2715, we will also showcase a demo of our Test Automation and Data Validation tool - Effecta.
Get a sneak peek of Effecta by viewing the demo below.
Learn more about our SAP testing solutions for our customers here:
McKesson Transforms Business with Script-less Test Automation
Pacific Coast Builds SAP Test Automation Strategy with Effecta
Effecta Demo
To learn more about Prolifics' week at SAPPHIRE NOW, visit: http://www.prolifics.com/sapphirenow-2013.htm
Monday, May 13, 2013
Thursday, May 9, 2013
BPM in the Music Industry - IBM Impact Presentation Replay
At IBM Impact, I had the opportunity to co-present with one of Prolifics' BPM clients Broadcast Music, Inc. The exciting thing about this presentation is that it we introduced BPM in the context of the dynamic and rapidly changing music industry. With new digital music outlets such as Pandora, Hulu and others, music is no longer confined to vinyl albums, CDs or traditional venues like live concerts, karaoke bars or radio. Music is truly global and ubiquitous which presents interesting new process challenges for those in the music business.
Take a closer look by viewing my presentation from Impact.
Howard Webb is a Director of Prolifics' BPM Advisory Services. Howard and his team provides consulting and guidance to clients in transitioning to highly efficient Process Managed business models, and equips them for success in their BPM initiatives. For over 25 years he has been a consultant, trainer, facilitator, and speaker on the topics of Business Process Management (BPM), data architecture, and project management. He founded the Midwest BPM Users Group and has published articles on BPM and enterprise architecture. Prior to coming to Prolifics Howard was founder and partner of Bizappia, a consulting and services firm focused on business agility, performance and innovation. Prior to Bizappia, he was a Sr. BPM Technical Specialist with IBM.
Take a closer look by viewing my presentation from Impact.
BMI: Innovating the Music Industry with BPM from Prolifics
Want to learn more? Connect with me!
Email - hwebb@prolifics.com
LinkedIn - Howard Webb
For more information about Prolifics, visit: www.prolifics.com
Want to learn more? Connect with me!
Email - hwebb@prolifics.com
LinkedIn - Howard Webb
For more information about Prolifics, visit: www.prolifics.com
Thursday, April 4, 2013
API Blog Series Part 2: API Management – The Platform
In my last blog entry, I introduced the concept of API Management and how this area has evolved over the last decade to where it stands today. In this blog entry, I will focus on what are the key components of an API Management platform, what are the different deployment models for the API Platform and who are key players in this space.
What makes up an API Platform?
An API Platform needs to provide the following key components:
API Platform – Deployment Models
The following table describes the three common deployment models that are available for an API Management platform.
The Vendor Ecosystem
The recent Forrester report published on Feb 5th 2013, titled ‘API Management, Platforms - Q1 2013’ shows the key vendors who provide the leading platform for API Management today. Another vendor who did not participate in the Forrester survey but that is a strong player in this space is Apigee.
IBM’s API Management Platform [Cast Iron Web API Services] is a strong contender in this space and in my next blog entry, I will focus on how to build an API using Cast Iron.
Rajiv Ramachandran is the Vice President of the SOA & BPM Practice at Prolifics and an IBM Champion for WebSphere. He has 15 years of experience in the IT field — 3 of those years at IBM working in the development teams at its Object Technology Competency Center in Bangalore, India. He was then a Solution Architect implementing IBM WebSphere Solutions at Fireman's Fund Insurance. Currently at Prolifics, he manages a 100+ member worldwide team that focuses on BPM, SOA & Decision Management. An author at the IBM developerWorks community, Rajiv has presented at IBM Impact and IBM WebSphere Services Technical Conference. He holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management.
What makes up an API Platform?
An API Platform needs to provide the following key components:
- API Builder: Tools for providers to define create and configure an API.
- API Portal: User Interface platform for API providers to socialize APIs with the consumers to enable adoption.
- API Gateway: Manage controlled access to the API layer and protect the services from security threats.
- API Analytics: Provide insight into API usage – operational, technical and business metrics that can help API providers to customize and improves the services they provide.
The following table describes the three common deployment models that are available for an API Management platform.
The Vendor Ecosystem
The recent Forrester report published on Feb 5th 2013, titled ‘API Management, Platforms - Q1 2013’ shows the key vendors who provide the leading platform for API Management today. Another vendor who did not participate in the Forrester survey but that is a strong player in this space is Apigee.
IBM’s API Management Platform [Cast Iron Web API Services] is a strong contender in this space and in my next blog entry, I will focus on how to build an API using Cast Iron.
Friday, March 29, 2013
Which Cloud Model is the Next “BIG THING?!"
IBM's purchase of Cast Iron resulted in another new integration product in the market by IBM, called IBM Cast Iron. I find this product interesting and started working with the technology. Cast Iron provides an approach to connecting to Public Cloud, Private Cloud and On Premise applications. Recently, a colleague and I presented on this topic at an IBM conference about Cast and Cloud Computing.
It didn't take me long to understand that the market is buzzing with the term Cloud. It seems everyone wants a piece of it - IBM, Google, Amazon, Salesforce and many other organizations. Naturally, every industry implements its own model and tries to become a market player in this. I started my journey with Cloud recently. Though there are many confusing terms, let’s talk about some business model that Cloud brings us:
a. Software as a Service – SaaS
b. Infrastructure as a Service – IaaS
c. Platform as a Service – PaaS
d. Business Process as a Service – BpaaS
I thought it would be interesting to see which Cloud model is presently more successful, attracts more market and investors and will maintain the trend in future and thereby become the next big thing in market in next decade.
According to market predictions, I found that cloud computing is expected to cross $121 billion by 2015. SaaS holds currently 73% of markets revenues; this is the largest segment of cloud computing services market. IBM is one of the global leaders in SaaS. I have gone through numerous surveys and market research and it is easy to deduce that SaaS is by far the most successful and will remain so for many reasons.
The graphic shows that starting a business in the US is relatively easy compared to the largest markets in Asia and a few places in Europe At the same time, user survey analysis conducted by Gartner and others has already discerned that North America is the largest consumer of on demand solutions. This region shows the highest SaaS deployments in expense management, financials, and email and office suites.
Now let’s consider Asia pacific , between 2011 and 2012 we see , SaaS revenue for this region has hiked by approximately $200 million. Asia Pacific includes markets in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, and emerging markets, including China, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines. Among them India and China are the leading users of SaaS financial applications. Now if we go back to the infographic by Intuit we can clearly see that the next best countries for starting small business are India and China. This shows a direct correlation between the SaaS usage and their market in regions with booming small business.
It seems the popularity of SaaS will continue in North America especially when the President’s 2013 Budget Bill has given immense importance on supporting small business. The Budget will provide $16 billion for Small Business Administration and thereby expanding small business and in turn generate jobs. Thus SaaS seems to be the next big thing which is here to stay in USA considering its popularity in the small business sector.
Looking at the direct correlation that we observed between the booming small scale and start up businesses in the world market and the growing popularity of SaaS among them, it is easy to conclude that the SaaS Cloud application is definitely the next Big Thing.
Next month, I will be attending IBM Impact in Las Vegas. To learn more about Prolifics' solutions and what we have planned for Impact, visit our conference page.
Note: Market data was referred from Gartner, Intuit and various sources.
Sources:
http://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing/us/en/
http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/applications.jsp
http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/it-spending-forecast/
.jpg)
Arup Datta is a Solution Architect and Integration Specialist at Prolifics and an IBM Champion for WebSphere. Arup has expertise in providing end-to-end solutions leveraging IBM technology across several industry verticals, including Finance, Banking, Retail and Insurance.
It didn't take me long to understand that the market is buzzing with the term Cloud. It seems everyone wants a piece of it - IBM, Google, Amazon, Salesforce and many other organizations. Naturally, every industry implements its own model and tries to become a market player in this. I started my journey with Cloud recently. Though there are many confusing terms, let’s talk about some business model that Cloud brings us:
a. Software as a Service – SaaS
b. Infrastructure as a Service – IaaS
c. Platform as a Service – PaaS
d. Business Process as a Service – BpaaS
I thought it would be interesting to see which Cloud model is presently more successful, attracts more market and investors and will maintain the trend in future and thereby become the next big thing in market in next decade.
According to market predictions, I found that cloud computing is expected to cross $121 billion by 2015. SaaS holds currently 73% of markets revenues; this is the largest segment of cloud computing services market. IBM is one of the global leaders in SaaS. I have gone through numerous surveys and market research and it is easy to deduce that SaaS is by far the most successful and will remain so for many reasons.
- Firstly, its price policy is one of the major factors which has made it very popular and unbeatable. This provides better perks for small business and small scale start up companies, allowing them to avoid the high expenses of purchasing and maintaining software. Any extra hardware for setting up the business is dispensable, makes it more cost effective.
- Secondly, the ability to figure out web traffic in one’s internet based business through different web services such as Google analytics or Google AdWords provided by SaaS makes it very effective to track customer preferences and user behavior and thereby setting the business in the right track.
- Thirdly, the availability of personalization and customization of application makes it very popular.
 |
| http://infographicworld.com/intuit-small-business-in-the-u-s-and-abroad/ |
The graphic shows that starting a business in the US is relatively easy compared to the largest markets in Asia and a few places in Europe At the same time, user survey analysis conducted by Gartner and others has already discerned that North America is the largest consumer of on demand solutions. This region shows the highest SaaS deployments in expense management, financials, and email and office suites.
Now let’s consider Asia pacific , between 2011 and 2012 we see , SaaS revenue for this region has hiked by approximately $200 million. Asia Pacific includes markets in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan, and emerging markets, including China, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines. Among them India and China are the leading users of SaaS financial applications. Now if we go back to the infographic by Intuit we can clearly see that the next best countries for starting small business are India and China. This shows a direct correlation between the SaaS usage and their market in regions with booming small business.
It seems the popularity of SaaS will continue in North America especially when the President’s 2013 Budget Bill has given immense importance on supporting small business. The Budget will provide $16 billion for Small Business Administration and thereby expanding small business and in turn generate jobs. Thus SaaS seems to be the next big thing which is here to stay in USA considering its popularity in the small business sector.
Looking at the direct correlation that we observed between the booming small scale and start up businesses in the world market and the growing popularity of SaaS among them, it is easy to conclude that the SaaS Cloud application is definitely the next Big Thing.
Next month, I will be attending IBM Impact in Las Vegas. To learn more about Prolifics' solutions and what we have planned for Impact, visit our conference page.
Note: Market data was referred from Gartner, Intuit and various sources.
Sources:
http://www.ibm.com/cloud-computing/us/en/
http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/applications.jsp
http://www.gartner.com/technology/research/it-spending-forecast/
Arup Datta is a Solution Architect and Integration Specialist at Prolifics and an IBM Champion for WebSphere. Arup has expertise in providing end-to-end solutions leveraging IBM technology across several industry verticals, including Finance, Banking, Retail and Insurance.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Europe's Consumers Embracing Online Retail
British Computer Society (BCS - The Chartered Institute for IT) has highlighted a new report from Forrester Research predicting Europe’s consumers will shun the high street in favour of online over the next few years.
The research firm also predicts security challenges to e-commerce providers, given the annual growth rates and marks UK to be one of the countries leading the way.
Read the BCS News Flash here: http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/50111
In a recent blog entry, I outlined how Prolifics was able to help a High Street Retail Giant refresh their e-Commerce website using IBM technology. If you missed it, you can read the story here: Prolifics UK Helps High Street Retail Giant Refresh their e-Commerce Website.
Craig Murphy is a Senior Consultant with 13 years experience in the IT industry working with top-tier consulting companies. Throughout his career, he has performed multiple key roles in development & solution architecture, project delivery management and technical sales. His current focus is on Solution Architecture and Application Infrastructure Development for IBM's large Retail Customers. Craig holds a Degree in Computer Science & Information Systems from Rhodes University; is a Certified IBM Professional holding 13 IBM certifications and he is a Professional Member of BCS - The Chartered Institute for IT, making him a world-class resource to his customers, colleagues, and company.
The research firm also predicts security challenges to e-commerce providers, given the annual growth rates and marks UK to be one of the countries leading the way.
Read the BCS News Flash here: http://www.bcs.org/content/conWebDoc/50111
In a recent blog entry, I outlined how Prolifics was able to help a High Street Retail Giant refresh their e-Commerce website using IBM technology. If you missed it, you can read the story here: Prolifics UK Helps High Street Retail Giant Refresh their e-Commerce Website.
Monday, March 25, 2013
Prolifics UK integrates Retailer’s B2B e-Commerce Platform with Blazing Fast Search Engine
Business Challenge:
A UK High Street Retail Giant not only sells its goods to the general public but also to other companies, including UK franchises, international franchises and many smaller overseas customers who stock their products as part of their range.
Our hugely successful Retail Customer decided to grow the B2B arm of their business. In order to do so, they needed to not only expand their existing B2B e-Commerce system capacity but also to find a way to speed up the searching and indexing of their products on the system so that they could more quickly and accurately be made available to their Customers using the website.
Solution:
As part of the Apache Lucene project, Apache has developed Solr, which it describes as “a popular, blazing fast open source enterprise search platform”. Major features include “powerful full-text search, hit highlighting, faceted search, near real-time indexing, dynamic clustering, database integration, rich document (e.g., Word, PDF) handling, and geospatial search.” The Solr solution is “highly reliable, scalable and fault tolerant, providing distributed indexing, replication and load-balanced querying, automated failover and recovery, centralized configuration and more.” And is claimed to power the search and navigation features of “many of the world's largest internet sites.”
Prolifics in partnership with IBM, assisted this High Street Retail Giant in successfully expanding their B2B e-Commerce solution by providing deep product expertise which enabled the Customer to grow their WebSphere Commerce infrastructure. Prolifics also architected and developed the infrastructure solution for the implementation of Apache's "Solr" Search & Indexing application to run on WebSphere Application Server and its integration with the Customer’s B2B e-Commerce platform . This Retail Customer is now armed with a flexible and blazing fast e-Commerce website to offer its new and existing B2B customers.
(Quoted reference: Apache website. Learn more about Apache Solr here: http://lucene.apache.org/solr/)
To learn more about Prolifics, visit www.prolifics.com.
Craig Murphy is a Senior Consultant with 13 years experience in the IT industry working with top-tier consulting companies. Throughout his career, he has performed multiple key roles in development & solution architecture, project delivery management and technical sales. His current focus is on Solution Architecture and Application Infrastructure Development for IBM's large Retail Customers. Craig holds a Degree in Computer Science & Information Systems from Rhodes University; is a Certified IBM Professional holding 13 IBM certifications and he is a Professional Member of BCS - The Chartered Institute for IT, making him a world-class resource to his customers, colleagues, and company.
A UK High Street Retail Giant not only sells its goods to the general public but also to other companies, including UK franchises, international franchises and many smaller overseas customers who stock their products as part of their range.
Our hugely successful Retail Customer decided to grow the B2B arm of their business. In order to do so, they needed to not only expand their existing B2B e-Commerce system capacity but also to find a way to speed up the searching and indexing of their products on the system so that they could more quickly and accurately be made available to their Customers using the website.
Solution:
As part of the Apache Lucene project, Apache has developed Solr, which it describes as “a popular, blazing fast open source enterprise search platform”. Major features include “powerful full-text search, hit highlighting, faceted search, near real-time indexing, dynamic clustering, database integration, rich document (e.g., Word, PDF) handling, and geospatial search.” The Solr solution is “highly reliable, scalable and fault tolerant, providing distributed indexing, replication and load-balanced querying, automated failover and recovery, centralized configuration and more.” And is claimed to power the search and navigation features of “many of the world's largest internet sites.”
Prolifics in partnership with IBM, assisted this High Street Retail Giant in successfully expanding their B2B e-Commerce solution by providing deep product expertise which enabled the Customer to grow their WebSphere Commerce infrastructure. Prolifics also architected and developed the infrastructure solution for the implementation of Apache's "Solr" Search & Indexing application to run on WebSphere Application Server and its integration with the Customer’s B2B e-Commerce platform . This Retail Customer is now armed with a flexible and blazing fast e-Commerce website to offer its new and existing B2B customers.
(Quoted reference: Apache website. Learn more about Apache Solr here: http://lucene.apache.org/solr/)
To learn more about Prolifics, visit www.prolifics.com.
API Blog Series Part 1: APIs – The Next Evolution of Service Oriented Architecture
Talk technology trends today and you cannot complete the sentence without referring to SCM [Social, Cloud and Mobile]. These three domains have changed the way businesses use technology. In this blog series I will focus on the fourth key emerging area in the technology space – APIs - the foundation on which the Social, Cloud and Mobile revolution gains more adaption. In this blog entry I take a look at the evolution path of what is called API Management today.
Remember the SOA books or articles in early 2000. The most common picture I saw in every book –Provider, Client and UDDI [Yes, I still remember that acronym]. I refer to that era as SOA 1.0. The buzzword was ‘Web Services’. The standards (WS-*) were still evolving, the big technology vendors – IBM, ORACLE, TIBCO were still struggling to get mature tools and products to market and enterprises were still trying to understand this value proposition of services.
Then came the age of SOA 2.0 – the standards were formalized, interoperability was achieved, ESB was no longer a pattern – it was a product, it was no longer about Web Services – it was all about a disciplined approach called Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and the new buzzword was “Governance” - UDDI was gone and an Enterprise Services Registry & Repository became the norm. However SOA 2.0 focused more on the Enterprise - services were more for internal consumption or to be consumed with key business partners outside the enterprise.
The innovation that changed the SOA world again did not happen at IBM or at TIBCO or at ORACLE – it happened first in Apple [iOS App Platform] and then at Google [Android] – The World was now Mobile and the new buzzword was ‘App’. Millions and Millions of developers who build mobile apps entered the ecosystem and they needed a standard way to access data and logic. Enterprises saw this as an opportunity to get into new business models to generate new revenues by tapping into these developers who could build new applications for the capabilities that an enterprise already provided. However they needed a standardized way for the development community that was completely outside their control to interact with their services. The world of SOA could no longer be confined to the walls of the enterprise – ‘It had to go public’.
Enter API Management and Welcome to SOA 3.0
While the acronym API is as old as technology itself, in today’s world, API Management is about publishing and promoting the core business capabilities of an enterprise as publicly available services. The intent of doing this is to allow the vast development community out there to consume them in a secure and scalable manner and use them to build new applications that will bring new business and revenue models for both the provider and the consumer of the API.
In the next set of blog entries on this topic, I will delve more into the key features of an API platform, the competitive landscape and will focus the IBM API Management Platform to build an end to end API Solution.
Next month, I will be attending IBM Impact. Prolifics, a Gold Sponsor, will showcase our BPM, Integration and Mobile solutions across various speaking sessions and at booth #G-1 on the Expo floor. To learn more about Prolifics' expertise, visit www.prolifics.com.
Rajiv Ramachandran is the Vice President of the SOA & BPM Practice at Prolifics and an IBM Champion for WebSphere. He has 15 years of experience in the IT field — 3 of those years at IBM working in the development teams at its Object Technology Competency Center in Bangalore, India. He was then a Solution Architect implementing IBM WebSphere Solutions at Fireman's Fund Insurance. Currently at Prolifics, he manages a 100+ member worldwide team that focuses on BPM, SOA & Decision Management. An author at the IBM developerWorks community, Rajiv has presented at IBM Impact and IBM WebSphere Services Technical Conference. He holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Remember the SOA books or articles in early 2000. The most common picture I saw in every book –Provider, Client and UDDI [Yes, I still remember that acronym]. I refer to that era as SOA 1.0. The buzzword was ‘Web Services’. The standards (WS-*) were still evolving, the big technology vendors – IBM, ORACLE, TIBCO were still struggling to get mature tools and products to market and enterprises were still trying to understand this value proposition of services.
The innovation that changed the SOA world again did not happen at IBM or at TIBCO or at ORACLE – it happened first in Apple [iOS App Platform] and then at Google [Android] – The World was now Mobile and the new buzzword was ‘App’. Millions and Millions of developers who build mobile apps entered the ecosystem and they needed a standard way to access data and logic. Enterprises saw this as an opportunity to get into new business models to generate new revenues by tapping into these developers who could build new applications for the capabilities that an enterprise already provided. However they needed a standardized way for the development community that was completely outside their control to interact with their services. The world of SOA could no longer be confined to the walls of the enterprise – ‘It had to go public’.
Enter API Management and Welcome to SOA 3.0
While the acronym API is as old as technology itself, in today’s world, API Management is about publishing and promoting the core business capabilities of an enterprise as publicly available services. The intent of doing this is to allow the vast development community out there to consume them in a secure and scalable manner and use them to build new applications that will bring new business and revenue models for both the provider and the consumer of the API.
In the next set of blog entries on this topic, I will delve more into the key features of an API platform, the competitive landscape and will focus the IBM API Management Platform to build an end to end API Solution.
Next month, I will be attending IBM Impact. Prolifics, a Gold Sponsor, will showcase our BPM, Integration and Mobile solutions across various speaking sessions and at booth #G-1 on the Expo floor. To learn more about Prolifics' expertise, visit www.prolifics.com.
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