"patrickdlogan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> "Enterprise SOA (what SAP used to call ESA)"
>
> SAP likes to change their terms about every six months.
>
> I think the proper term for today is "ESOA 2.0"
>
> But it's copyrighted.
>
> 8^P
>
> -Patrick
>
I believe Esoa is either the name of a prophet of a new female rap
singer - I am not sure which.... Here is the official SAP strategy story:
<<SAP AG's European event in Paris this week had little to add to the
announcements at its recent Sapphire US conference, but it continued
to exhort customers to put the foundations in place for an Enterprise
Services Architecture, upgrading now rather than later, or risk being
left behind.
The corporate message has evolved so that where it was based around
the idea of unique and flexible business processes as the means of
company differentiation, the focus is now the flexibility and speed at
which the entire business model can be changed, both internally and
externally. "Most innovation is about the business model. You cannot
protect the processes, so speed of innovation is key," said CEO
Henning Kagermann.
The SAP view of the world is centered on reducing complexity both
within and outside the enterprise. "If the customer is happy life is
easier. Complexity will not evaporate but we can make it simple. The
issue is to manage complexity better than the customer and you can
manage complexity better if you have IT to manage the people and
processes," said Kagermann, putting forward SAP's ESA SOA
interpretation as an enabler that allows organizations to reinvent
their business with customer needs as the core. He cited Airbus as an
organization that is using ESA strategically, and by getting its
processes in order is able to assemble its aircraft more quickly than
some smaller planes can be assembled.
Processes are only part of the issue. "ESA is also about excellence,"
he said, so IT needs to be used to help make people more productive.
"It is about people who can coordinate [information] flows in a
fragmented supply chain." It is important that these "information
workers" are productive, which is why SAP has invested in the Duet
applications and the forthcoming Muse GUI user interface that will
enable users to choose the most appropriate interface. Both are
component applications that access the same back-end content but serve
it up in a different way.
He said the ability to act quickly entails looking outside the
enterprise, going on to promote the SAP partner ecosystem and
composite applications. "Because speed is important, vertical
integration is not the answer. We see today companies are going for
vertical integration that is much more specialized and engages an
ecosystem of partners. If you really want to solve a problem for a
client it is better to focus on where you are good and buy from
complementary services to bring a complete solution to the customer.
This is the transformation from managing an enterprise to managing an
ecosystem. [You have to] manage upstream of the business." He said
that managing an ecosystem will become a core competency for
organizations.
SAP stresses that ESA is more than a technology framework.
"Connectivity is important, but it is not just technology connectivity
but business connectivity. You have to go to upstream in the business
and see how additional partners can be integrated into the supply
chain," Kagermann said. "What if one supplier is not delivering its
product - can you bring another one in fast enough? The only way to
solve the problem is to use a common business language.... Enterprise
Services is the equivalent of English as a common language.
"Web Services is the language of technology not the logic of business
processes. ESA goes beyond Web Services. It adds meaning - semantics,"
he added, using a traffic-light scenario to explain the importance of
semantics. You know that traffic lights are red, yellow, and green,
but if you drive in another country you have to guess what yellow
means. For some it means drive faster to go through, in others it
means execute a sharp stop. Where Web Services defines the red,
yellow, green combination, ESA describes what happens on yellow. Add
the ability of the underlying IT to speak a common language, to
support for a business process platform and composite applications,
and there is more scope for collaboration and innovation between
partners and customers. Once you have the language, someone has to
provide the services. What you want are ready to execute services,
with a service level agreement, performance and scalability you can
rely on. If you have a backbone that also covers best practise,
flexibility and compliance, [you can have] a provisioning layer, then
you are where you want to be."
Although SAP wraps its ESA message in soft-sell coating of incremental
change, evolutionary development at the customer's pace, and business
value, there is no mistaking the hard core. For its long-term plans to
come to fruition, SAP needs the vast majority of its customer base to
upgrade to ESA and next-generation service-enabled applications.>>
You can find this at:
<http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=3D750EC5-35C4-46C6-BDFC-4233BF14CBA0>
BTW, have you ever heard of a major software vendor who did not urge
customers to get upgrades? The unspoken threat with many of them is
normally that if you don't upgrade now it will cost you more later
when you are forced to do it because they have pulled the support plug
on current versions.
Gervas
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