tools such as Shared Security Services, Enterprise Service Bus, etc. Service ...... Available from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc164026.aspx.
ADOPTING A THEORETICAL METHOD FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A SERVICE-ORIENTED INFORMATION SYSTEM
FATEMEH ALSADAT NIKAYIN
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment (12 out of 36 credit hours) of the requirements for the degree of Master of Computer Science at the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur
December 2009
UNIVERSITI MALAYA ORIGINAL LITERARY WORK DECLARATION Name of Candidate: Fatemeh Alsadat Nikayin
(I.C/Passport No: I10463093)
Registration/Matric No: WGA070003 Name of Degree: Master of Computer Science Title of Project Paper/Research Report/Dissertation/Thesis (“this Work”): ADOPTING A THEORETICAL METHOD FOR DEVELPMET OF SERVICE-ORIENTED INFORMATION SYSTEM
Field of Study: Management Information System
I do solemnly and sincerely declare that: (1) (2) (3)
(4) (5)
(6)
I am the sole author/writer of this Work; This Work is original; Any use of any work in which copyright exists was done by way of fair dealing and for permitted purposes and any excerpt or extract from, or reference to or reproduction of any copyright work has been disclosed expressly and sufficiently and the title of the Work and its authorship have been acknowledged in this Work; I do not have any actual knowledge nor do I ought reasonably to know that the making of this work constitutes an infringement of any copyright work; I hereby assign all and every rights in the copyright to this Work to the University of Malaya (“UM”), who henceforth shall be owner of the copyright in this Work and that any reproduction or use in any form or by any means whatsoever is prohibited without the written consent of UM having been first had and obtained; I am fully aware that if in the course of making this Work I have infringed any copyright whether intentionally or otherwise, I may be subject to legal action or any other action as may be determined by UM.
Candidate’s Signature
Date
Subscribed and solemnly declared before,
Witness’s Signature
Date
Name: Designation:
ii
ABSTRACT
Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) has attracted much attention due to its ability to provide flexibility in sharing data and information and fast responsiveness to dynamic business environment. Many studies have been done on technical and practical issues of deploying SOA in enterprises; however few of them investigated SOA applications in Information Systems (IS) considering the organizational environment, human factors and political aspects.
In this study SOA methods and techniques were assessed and technical and environmental issues of organization were studied. Consequently a definition for SOIS and a theoretical methodology which supports deploying SOA in organizational information systems to develop Service-Oriented Information Systems (SOIS) was proposed. Finally, the proposed methodology was applied in a case study to determine its feasibility. A prototype which is a web-base information systems offering some services to users in order to facilitate finding information was developed based on the results of the case study and tested successfully.
iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, the greatest appreciation and gratitude are expressed to my supervisor Prof. Salimah Mokhtar for giving me the opportunity to be her student and carry out this interesting research topic. Her keen insight, fruitful suggestions and ceaseless encouragement were a great source of inspiration and an incredible driving force throughout the entire course of this research.
Cordial thanks go to my best friend Ramin Vakilian for giving me his useful comments to improve my research work.
I also want to take this opportunity to thank my sincere friends, Masood Mansoori, Hasti Khorasani, Hanieh Madad and Amir Shareghi. They gave me a lot of help and brought much happiness in my postgraduate life.
I would like to express my deepest thanks to my parents and my brother and my sister for their encouragement and support.
Special thanks to my husband who was patience in all the time and helped me to fulfill my research.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
CONTENT DECLARATION
PAGE II.
ABSTRACT
III.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
IV.
TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES LIST OF TABLES
V. VIII. X.
CHAPTER 1 : INTRODUCTION................................................................................... 1 1.1
Research Background ..................................................................................................... 1
1.2
Problem Statements ........................................................................................................ 3
1.3
Research Objectives ........................................................................................................ 3
1.4
Research Questions ......................................................................................................... 4
1.5
Significance of the Research ........................................................................................... 4
1.6
Scope of the research ...................................................................................................... 5
1.7
Limitations ..................................................................................................................... 5
1.8
Research Approach and Methodology ............................................................................. 5
1.9
Publications .................................................................................................................... 6
1.10
Definition of Terms ........................................................................................................ 6
1.11
Organization of the Dissertation ...................................................................................... 7
CHAPTER 2 : LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................... 10 2.1
Introduction .................................................................................................................. 10
2.2
The Concept of Service ................................................................................................. 10
2.3
Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) ............................................................................ 13
2.4
Implementing Service-Oriented Architecture ................................................................ 15
2.5
Advantages of Service-Oriented Architecture ................................................................ 18
2.6
Web Services ................................................................................................................ 20 v
2.7
Service Orientation in Enterprise................................................................................... 23
2.8
Integration of Information Systems ............................................................................... 25
2.9
SOA in Information Systems Integration ....................................................................... 28
2.10
Conclusions .................................................................................................................. 32
CHAPTER 3 : REASEARCH METHODOLOGY ..................................................... 33 3.1
Introduction .................................................................................................................. 33
3.2
Research Stages ............................................................................................................ 33
3.3
Data and Information Used ........................................................................................... 35
3.4
System Development Methodology............................................................................... 35
3.5.
Justification of the System Development Methodology ................................................. 38
3.6.
Conclusion.................................................................................................................... 39
CHAPTER 4 : THE EIGHT STEPS SOIS METHODOLOGY ................................. 40 4.1
Introduction .................................................................................................................. 40
4.2
Conception of Service-Oriented Information System (SOIS) ......................................... 40
4.3
Steps to Propose SOIS Methodology ............................................................................. 41
4.3.1.
Philosophy ............................................................................................................ 44
4.3.2.
The Eight Steps SOIS Methodology Model ........................................................... 47
4.3.3.
Techniques and Tools............................................................................................ 49
4.3.4.
Scope .................................................................................................................... 49
4.3.5.
Output................................................................................................................... 66
4.3.6.
Practice ................................................................................................................. 67
4.3.7.
Product ................................................................................................................. 67
4.4
Conclusion.................................................................................................................... 67
CHAPTER 5 : APPLICATION OF EIGHT STEPS SOIS METHODOLOGY IN A CASE STUDY ................................................................................................................ 69 5.1
Introduction .................................................................................................................. 69
5.2
Case Study Overview .................................................................................................... 69
5.3
Case Study Objectives .................................................................................................. 69
5.4
Using SOIS Methodology in Ministry of higher education of Iran (IMSRT) .................. 70
5.4.1
Organizational Analysis ........................................................................................ 70
5.4.2
Information Requirements Analysis....................................................................... 73
5.4.3
Service Analysis.................................................................................................... 74
5.4.4
Technical Analysis ................................................................................................ 76
5.4.5
Technical Design .................................................................................................. 77
5.4.6
System Development and Implementation ............................................................. 78
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5.4.7
System Testing...................................................................................................... 79
5.4.8
Management and Maintenance .............................................................................. 79
5.5
Conclusions .................................................................................................................. 80
CHAPTER 6 : PROTOTYPE DEVELOPMENT ....................................................... 81 6.1.
Introduction .................................................................................................................. 81
6.2.
System Analysis and Design ......................................................................................... 81
6.2.1
System Overview .................................................................................................. 81
6.2.2
System Objectives ................................................................................................. 82
6.2.3
System Scope ........................................................................................................ 82
6.2.4
Software, Hardware and Technology Consideration .............................................. 83
6.2.5
Project Selection ................................................................................................... 85
6.2.6
System Development............................................................................................. 85
6.3.
System Testing ........................................................................................................... 109
6.3.1
Unit Testing ........................................................................................................ 110
6.3.2
Usability testing .................................................................................................. 111
6.4.
Conclusion.................................................................................................................. 113
CHAPTER 7 : RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ..........................................................114 7.1
Introduction ................................................................................................................ 114
7.2
Results of Research ..................................................................................................... 114
7.3
Discussion of Results .................................................................................................. 114
7.4
Accomplishment of Research Objectives .................................................................... 116
7.5
Limitation of Research ................................................................................................ 118
7.6
Conclusion.................................................................................................................. 119
CHAPTER 8 : CONCLUSION ...................................................................................120 8.1
Introduction ................................................................................................................ 120
8.2
Research Findings ....................................................................................................... 120
8.3
Recommendation ........................................................................................................ 121
8.4
Conclusion.................................................................................................................. 122
REFERENCES..................................................................................................................... 123
vii
List of Figures Figure 1-1 SOA Model ...................................................................................................... 1 Figure 2-1 A schematic service ........................................................................................ 11 Figure 2-2 Enterprise Services ......................................................................................... 12 Figure 2-3 Change of business environment ..................................................................... 28 Figure 3-1 Research Stages .............................................................................................. 34 Figure 3-2 Phases of WSDM ............................................................................................ 36 Figure 4-1 Web-based Information System Development Methodology (WISDM)............43 Figure 4-2 Different aspects of SOIS ……………………………………………...………46 Figure 4-3 Eight Steps SOIS Methodology....................................................................... 48 Figure 4-4 A typical SOA infrastructure........................................................................... 62 Figure 5-1 Main entities of SOA ...................................................................................... 78 Figure 6-1 Audience Classification .................................................................................. 86 Figure 6-2 Type of tasks .................................................................................................. 89 Figure 6-3 Login task modeling ....................................................................................... 91 Figure 6-4 Service task modeling ..................................................................................... 91 Figure 6-5 Information modeling of the web site .............................................................. 92 Figure 6-6 Navigation design ........................................................................................... 94 Figure 6-7 The web site structure ..................................................................................... 95 Figure 6-8 Home Page ..................................................................................................... 96 Figure 6-9 Registration page ............................................................................................ 97 Figure 6-10 Services page ................................................................................................ 97 Figure 6-11 About page ................................................................................................... 98 Figure 6-12 Contact page ................................................................................................. 99
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Figure 6-13 Registration .................................................................................................100 Figure 6-14 Successful registration .................................................................................100 Figure 6-15 Sign in .........................................................................................................101 Figure 6-16 Password recovery .......................................................................................102 Figure 6-17 Research service ..........................................................................................103 Figure 6-18 Research results ...........................................................................................103 Figure 6-19 Event service ...............................................................................................104 Figure 6-20 Event search results .....................................................................................105 Figure 6-21 Scholarship service ......................................................................................106 Figure 6-22 Scholarship service results ...........................................................................106
ix
List of Tables Table 1-1 Definition of terms ............................................................................................. 6 Table 4-1 Techniques and tools ........................................................................................ 49 Table 6-1 Database design ..............................................................................................108 Table 6-2 System testing functions ..................................................................................109 Table 6-3 Unit testing .....................................................................................................110 Table 6-4 Usability testing ..............................................................................................112
x
CHAPTER 1 : INTRODUCTION
1.1
Research Background
In recent years inter-organizational service-based systems have attracted significant attentions due to the matured technology, standardized languages and protocols. With the help of Service-oriented Architecture (SOA) and Web Services technology, an appropriate support for collaboration between service providers and service users can be established. SOA is an architecture standard that brings applications together throughout reusable services which are independent from the context of other services. Services are defined as activities which are created as values by provider for user and are distributed in several locations of an enterprise. The communication among services is normally performed through well-founded protocols such as Web Services, Messaging, RMI/DCOM in a specific local network, Internet or geographically various networks, combining services in Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and Bangkok. According to IBM, Service-Oriented Architecture basically consists of three main entities which are shown in Figure 1-1.
Figure 1-1 SOA Model (Bih, 2006) 1
Bih (2006) defines these three entities as following:
Service provider is “a Network node that provides a service interface for a software asset that manages a specific set of tasks”. It can represent either the services of a business entity or the service interface.
Service requestor is “a Network node that discovers and invokes other software services to provide a business solution”. It represents a business application component that executes isolated procedure calls to a service provider. It can exist either inside an intranet or be located remotely over the Internet.
Service broker is defined as “a Network node that acts as a repository, yellow pages, or clearing house for software interfaces that are published by service providers”.
Practically information systems are not based on service orientation concept; therefore using SOA is necessary for enterprises to change from traditional infrastructure to serviceoriented systems which enable them to provide an appropriate communication between suppliers and customers in online businesses.
This dissertation is aimed to investigate information systems, SOA and web services standards in order to explain the conception of Service-Oriented Information Systems (SOIS) and propose a methodology for applying it in organizations. Moreover technical challenges, business issues and legal aspects of an enterprise are considered in this investigation. The proposed SOIS methodology can be used to integrate several Information Systems in different locations of an enterprise and present them as serviceoriented information systems to users inside and outside of enterprise.
2
1.2
Problem Statements
Regarding to changing business environment, reduction of response time to customers’ demands, emerging complex technologies and increasing competitive market, enterprises need to react faster to market. Service oriented paradigm enables the enterprises to integrate their existing information systems to provide new required ones which is resulted in reduction of costs in development and maintenance process and capable them to respond to market more quickly in order to bring agility and value to business. However, applying SOA standard and web services technology within the information systems of an organization and creating service oriented systems seems to be impossible without deploying a suitable methodology.
Based on the literature study, no general methodology has been found for developing service oriented information system which recommends required methods, techniques and tools. Accordingly, in this study a general methodology which describes different steps in developing SOIS in different types of organization is proposed.
1.3
Research Objectives
The research objectives are:
1.
To
investigate
the
benefits
of
Service
Oriented
Information
System
(SOIS) in an organization 2.
To
study a
methodology for
developing
Service-Oriented
Information
System based on Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Web-based Information System Development Methodology (WISDM)
3
3.
To develop the proposed methodology in a case study to determine the correctness of it in action
1.4
Research Questions
1. What is the definition of Service Oriented Information System? 2. How Service Oriented Information System (SOIS) will be beneficial for an organization? 3. What is an appropriate methodology for implementing Service Oriented Information System in an organization?
1.5
Significance of the Research
The first shift in computing model was the downsizing of platform and transition from mainframe to client-server. Another transition that is happening now is the transition from client-server to service oriented computing which will affect organizations significantly.
The flexibility of service-oriented computing makes it easier for enterprises to interconnect stand alone applications (Gulledge, 2007). Rushing into applying SOA standards and web services technologies within the information systems of an organization without thinking about the business environment and cultural, legal and political aspects of organization could be resulted in an unsuccessful, costly and useless system. Therefore, lack of a suitable methodology for developing SOIS increases the significance of this project.
4
1.6
Scope of the research
This dissertation will target the concept of service oriented architecture, web services technologies and information systems to introduce and define Service Oriented Information Systems (SOIS) and propose a methodology for developing it by the help of proper methods, techniques and tools. Moreover the proposed methodology will be applied in a case study to show its application in practical work.
1.7
Limitations
Although many studies and investigation have been done in case of Service Orientation, there is still no methodology that is aimed to develop Service Oriented Information Systems within an enterprise. Therefore, the proposed methodology is based on literature, studying and analyzing some articles, books, case studies about SOA, web services, business and organizational issues and their related technical challenges and human factors. This study is intended to deploy the proposed methodology in a case study to determine its effectiveness and presenting the results. A professional team of experts is required to practically apply this methodology in an organization. Nonetheless, the case study in this work is only based on the author assumptions and observations.
1.8
Research Approach and Methodology
This research is conducted based on literature about service orientation paradigm and different sources such as journal’s articles, conferences papers, online documents and case studies were studied to recognize the challenges in applying SOA in organizational IS to create SOIS. Then a methodology consists of eight steps with respective techniques and
5
tools is proposed and applied in a case study to determine its feasibility. Finally the results of case study are developed as a prototype using Web Site Development Method (WSDM).
1.9
Publications
A conference paper of this dissertation has been already accepted for 6th International Conference on Information Technology in Asia 2009.
Nikayin, F.A., Mokhtar, S., Shareghi, A. (2009). A methodology for developing ServiceOriented Information System based on Service-Oriented Architecture. CITA09
1.10 Definition of Terms
Table1-1 shows a short definition of the terms and abbreviations which are used in this dissertation.
Table 1-1 Definition of terms No.
Term
Definition
1
SOA
A collection of services which communicate with each other through simple data passing or involving two or more services coordinating some activity.
2
SOIS
A set of services which are built based on the existing information systems or legacy systems within an organization
3
IS
Information System refers to a system of data records and activities that process the data and information in an organization a
5
Web Services
A standardized way of integrating Web-based applications using the XML, SOAP, WSDL and UDDI open standards over an Internet protocol backbone b
6
Methodology
A set of procedures, tools, methods and techniques which is used to develop a Service-Oriented Information System
a
, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_System
b
, http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/W/Web_services.html
6
1.11 Organization of the Dissertation
This dissertation consists of eight chapters dealing with different aspects relevant to the topic of the research.
Chapter 1: Introduction
In this chapter a brief introduction to the research, aims and scope, problem statement, limitations of the work, research approach and methodology of the work are expressed.
Chapter2: Literature Review
The first step in this research is to review and study the related topics in literature in order to define SOIS and propose a methodology for developing it. The general concept of SOIS is applying SOA in Information Systems, therefore in literature review all related concepts to SOA and information systems are reviewed to help the researcher to define SOIS and propose a suitable methodology with appropriate tools and techniques.
Chapter3: Research Methodology
All the research methods and steps of the research are described in this chapter. The research methodology of this dissertation consists of four phases which are explained briefly and are showed as flowchart in chapter three. Moreover, data and information and development methodology are clarified.
7
Chapter 4: Eight Steps SOIS Methodology
In this chapter SOIS is defined and an eight steps methodology is proposed to apply SOIS in organization. The proposed methodology analyzes the environmental situation and the required information of the target organization considering different aspects of economic, politics, technology and social to identify and develop the required services using SOA and web services technologies.
Chapter 5: Application of Eight Steps SOIS Methodology in Case Study
In this chapter the proposed SOIS methodology is applied in a case study to determine its feasibility. Ministry of higher education of Iran (IMSRT) is selected as the target of case study in this research. Some of the data and information used in this case study are from the portal of IMSRT and some of them are based on the experiences of the author.
Chapter 6: Prototype Development
In this chapter the results of the applied methodology in IMSRT are developed as a prototype of SOIS using Web Site Development Method (WSDM) and the details of the development is described.
Chapter 7: Discussion of Results
In this chapter the results of proposed methodology and developed prototype are discussed and all the findings based on the objectives are reviewed. Finally, some recommendation for improving the methodology and developed system are provided.
8
Chapter 8: Research Conclusion
A summary of all the findings of the research based on the objectives are presented in this chapter to determine whether the objectives have been achieved. It also provides some recommendations for improving and enhancing the methodology in future.
9
CHAPTER 2 : LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1
Introduction
In first chapter, SOIS and its relationship with SOA and information systems were expressed. The aim of this chapter is to review the literature of service, service oriented architecture, web services and their relation to SOA and other topics related to SOIS to provide a wide view for researcher to define SOIS and propose a methodology for it.
2.2
The Concept of Service
In Webster’s dictionary “Service” is defined as “the work performed by one that serves”. Huang et al. (2005) define service “as a particular business or IT function that is accessible by independent users and systems through a standardized interface” and it is believed that “the results of using a business or IT service can be non-deterministic”.
Before emerging the concept of service, software assets were divided into components which were attainable for processes and applications, but after that the software is not still considered as a set of components. In fact it consists of some services which are defined based on components to provide functionality for users and are accessible through their interfaces (Blevec et al., 2007). The relationship between components and the flow of processes are getting more composite and dynamic (Tidal Software, 2006 and Zimmermann et al., 2004).
10
Gulledge (2007) points that services are small applications that can communicate with each other through data, not their interfaces, thus it has been revealed that data is an important characteristic of service orientation operability. A schematic of services based on this definition is illustrated in Figure 2-1.
Figure 2-1 A schematic service (Gulledge, 2007)
Therefore, based on the given definitions it is seen that services are some independent business functions that communicate through data and are achievable through standardized interface.
MacKenzie et al. (2006) believe that in service oriented architecture “services are the mechanism by which needs and capabilities are brought them together” and consider following properties for them: The capability to perform work for another The specification of the work offered for another The offer to perform work for another Box (2004) also mentions that services are agreed to four principles as below:
11
1. Boundaries are Explicit 2. Services are Autonomous 3. Services share Schema and Contrast, not Class 4. Service Compatibility is determined based on Policy These principles are believed to deliver different benefits to business such as improving technology reuse, cost saving, modeling business capabilities, formalizing interorganizational relationships, facilitating through outsourcing and focusing on core competencies etc. (Minhas and Vogt, 2008).
Enterprise services are categorized into two types (Huang et al., 2005): 1. Business Services 2. IT Support Services Business services execute specific business function such as credit check that are essential for day-to-day operations of an enterprise and IT support services, supplies normal IT infrastructure functions such as security or message translation to support needs of business services. Figure 2-2 shows some examples for each type of services.
Figure 2-2 Enterprise Services (Huang et al., 2005) 12
Another classification of services categorized them into four types (Komoda, 2006): 1. Re-use of existing systems (e.g. a package, DBMS or an application program on the legacy systems) which is intended in this dissertation. 2. Universal services 3. Compound services (Including Business Processes) 4. Newly developed services All of these services are managed and controlled by a service coordination platform which is sometimes called as “service bus” or “Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)”. The execution flow of services is called “business process” and its notation described by Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) and modeled through Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) or Business Process Modeling Language (BPML).
In an enterprise, a high level business process function is composed of different services; e.g., check customer address, verify customer order, lookup customer discount, determine product availability, and calculate shipping charges are combined to form processing customer order. Each of these services supported and processed by different systems and databases; E.g. “check customer order” is processed in a marketing system, where “verify customer credit” is processed in a sales system. In fact a business process is a combination of different services based on suitable process logic (Gulledge 2007).
2.3
Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)
The service orientation is not refer to a specific technology or product, in fact it is a paradigm or standard for creating systems through using services and the created system is a set of deployed services which cooperate with each other to perform a particular task and can be changed or adapted to new services after deployment (Minhas and Vogt, 2008). 13
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) refers to SOA as ‘‘a set of components which can be invoked, and whose interface descriptions can be published and discovered’’ SOA is also defined as “A paradigm for organizing and utilizing distributed capabilities that may be under the control of different ownership domains” (MacKenzie et al., 2006). Therefore SOA is not a solution to a problem, but it is an organizing standard that makes it possible to take advantage of our capabilities and others, in fact it is a complete paradigm for delivering distributed capabilities, cost-effective enterprise performance management to make enterprise agile in response to business needs (Raz, 2006, Arsanjani 2004 and Hall, 2006).
The organizations that provide these facilities are considered as service providers and the ones who use of these services are service consumers. Service providers and service consumers jointly called service participants (MacKenzie et al. 2006). Barry (2003) and Channabasavaiah et al. (2003) consider SOA as an architectural concept in which a description language is used to define all of the functions or services. These services or functions use invoke-able and platform-independent interfaces to execute business processes.
Another definition of SOA is “a collection of services on a network that communicate with one another” and the role of SOA is to ensure the reusability of these services without any duplication to guarantee interoperability (Gulledge 2007). These services are reusable loosely coupled services which are designed to perform a specific function and have welldefined and platform-independent interfaces. Thus SOA undependability on platform, standards or technology enables enterprises to integrate different application systems which will makes business more flexible and faster in response to the changes. It is believed that
14
service-oriented architecture is a capable way to implement IT needs in order to support the required flexibility in the business processes (Ricken, 2007). However, providing agility for business would not be enough; SOA should also need to be reliable, consistent and predictable in an open service-oriented system, the same as in a coupled closed system.
2.4
Implementing Service-Oriented Architecture
The implementation of SOA are usually done through web services, however it can also be implemented without using them. Process integrity is a critical component which should be considered in implementation of SOA and it is defined as “the ability to synchronize between services, human tasks, information, domains and users in secure, scalable SOA environment” (IBM Global Technology Services 2008).
Arntzen (2007) suggests considering some requirements such as leveraging existing assets, reducing the costs, continuous business improvement and scalability in developing SOA. It is also believed that the SOA architecture model should provide support for interoperability, flexibility, scalability, security and openness. Iocola (2007) proposes the following rules and regulations in deployment of SOA in an enterprise: Services Integration which should be implemented based on some standards and tools such as Shared Security Services, Enterprise Service Bus, etc. Service Infrastructure to ensure that the design of the technical architecture is based on fault tolerance and high availability. Service Governance to support standards and solve conflicts by defining roles and responsibilities.
15
Service Agility to integrate existing core applications which can be improved in three integration patterns: A. File Transfer service Integration B. Asynchronous Integration C. Synchronous Integration Many researchers started to deploy SOA in different areas of business. Minhas and Vogt (2008) defined a paradigm for B2B-oriented web services interaction and proposed a set of principle for improving cross enterprise business processes through web services and SOA. Their approach consists of some steps and sub-steps. The intermediate steps (sub-steps) are to ensure the correctness and validity and reduce the probable mistakes and errors at early stages. This will result in saving time and decreasing costs of testing and maintaining system. 1. Business/Cooperation processes modeling A. Requirements Capturing B. Graphical Modeling 2. Models Validation 3. Business processes to web services mapping A. Cooperation parameters identification B. Web services protocols selection 4. Web Services Protocols Validation 5. Protocol Implementation 6. System Validation However, implementing SOA is not summarized in some steps and tools. In fact it involves some issues and difficulties which should be determined. Lee et al. (2006) address six main
16
challenges in development of SOA applications especially when some of the services are provided outside of organization’s boundary:
1. Capturing the user requirements would be a troublesome task due to having multiple geographically distributed stakeholders. 2. Different services are implemented using different technologies and hosting on different platforms, so collating and gathering them would have some difficulties. 3. Different services have different interfaces and using different message exchanging standards that will create problem in communication of services. 4. Different kinds of interactions such as synchronous and asynchronous interactions are supported by various services which cause some trouble in service consumption. 5. Different degrees of coupling are offered by services. 6. Directing SOA application test needs well-arranged attempts from all service providers to assure the availability of services.
It is believed that these challenges can be addressed by analyzing the characteristics of web services and studying the best approaches in developing web service, in order to enhance the existing web service development methodologies for implementing SOA applications. However, there are also some problems in using web services along with SOA. The first issue is related to the response time in web services which should be tried to keep at desired rate and the second one is due to the design of services which is rather a difficult and complicated task. Therefore, it is recommended to apply component based approach for designing good and proper services to overcome these challenges (Komoda, 2006).
17
2.5
Advantages of Service-Oriented Architecture
Due to the large varieties of hardware, protocols, middleware, languages, data storages, interfaces, etc which are not designed to interoperate with each other, the enterprises oblige to integrate and unite their infrastructure to be able of using existing legacy systems and provide flexibility and agility for business in response to the changing environment. On the other side, different enterprises have different hardware platforms, operating system, development tools, applications and management systems that have been developed through years and serve the enterprise’s day to day operations. Thus it is impossible to put them all away and start building an infrastructure from the scratch. These infrastructures are also separated from each other and managed in isolation which can led to grow demand for human resources, lack of ability to recognize the root problems and spending a lot of budget on maintaining them.
The role of SOA is to eliminate these issues by enabling existing infrastructure to be used and making enterprises spend more of investments in developing new functionalities. This will make enterprise able to response to business environment faster and more costeffective and help them to achieve their goals and enhance their performance (Auer et al. 2008).
Minhas and Vogt (2008) believe that service orientation makes us to think about designing future’s system by minimizing hard interdependencies, improving the independencies and smoothing the delivery of composite business applications. Each business service is designed to perform a specific function and SOA ensures the reusability of these services without any duplication to guarantee interoperability. SOA will also improves the management of large-scale organizations, enhances supplying of internet 18
and services, reduces cost, decreases the response time, increases business agility (which is defined as the ability of enterprise to support changing needs of business by combining the current services), provide simple scalable paradigm for managing large network and make it easier to integrate functionality across different enterprises (MacKenzie et al., 2006). Iocola (2007) points that the time-to-marker of new products; cost reduction, providing more value for customers by evolution of web services and business agility are the major benefits of a service-oriented architecture.
SOA has also attracted lots of attentions during recent years because of its ability to address software infrastructure efficiently, providing easier connectivity and abstraction of services and data (Chen et al., 2003), however it is not a standardized process and consists of several issues and challenges that need to be conquered for a prosperous implementation. (Refer to 2.4. for challenges of implementation of SOA) Abecker et al. describe the vision of service orientation in: Automating business to business commerce Providing electronic trading marketplaces Outsourcing business process Integration on the web Sharing resource Distributed computation It is also believed that SOA can enable both flexibility and business efficiency without increasing the costs. This is because of its innovativeness in using the existing assets and current systems while ensuring the efficiency for business processes (Minhas & Vogt 2008).
19
Searching on the internet about the benefits and advantages of SOA will result in lots of articles and web-sites which describe the beneficial roles of SOA. It is accepted that SOA can provide significant business capability; if it has been implemented properly. Moreover it is used to solve business issues and it is possible to integrate it to satisfy business processes. However, it is more about providing agility and ability to change and it is not possible to reuse them out of their primary context elsewhere.
Potts (2006) states “One of the major benefits of the set of architectural principles that define an SOA drives organizations towards a greater level of reuse and consistency. The amounts of achievable reuse increases over time once newer services are designed using existing services in an organization”.
Komoda (2006) summarized the benefits of SOA in five areas: 1. Easy modification of system by replacement of services 2. Rapid and low-cost development of system by combination of realized systems 3. Enhancement of total system quality by using valid services 4. Easy fault isolation 5. Cost reduction of operation and maintenance through inferring the ease-tounderstand system architecture
2.6
Web Services
Many different standards and techniques are being applied for implementing SOA. However, web services are the most common standards which are used as communication standards between the services and service coordination platform. These leveraging internet-enabled technologies enable SOA to provide real-time (or near real-time) 20
interaction between customers, suppliers and manufacturers (An & Jeng, 2007). SOAP RPC (Simple Object Access Protocol Remote Procedure Call) and WSDL (Web Service Description Language) are two known protocols which are used in web services for services calling and services call interface (Komoda, 2006).
A public misunderstanding about SOA is that applying web-services technology creates whatever you are getting from SOA. The main reason is the naming option for the http techniques as web-services. However, it should be fully understood that web-services methods may be used in SOA implementation as enablers to present services on the internet, so they are not same as SOA or part of it. SOA may even be implemented without using of them if the services are not supposed to be available through the Internet.
Amongst
different
emerging technology such as grid services, web services and
autonomic computing, the web services have shown a strong
potential
to
enable
the flexibility and implementation of the SOA in a more effective way (Deependra and Jai, 2005). The reason is that web services are platform independent, reachable through internet and founded on generally used and well-established protocols and standards (Alonso, 2004).
Minhas and Vogt (2008) considered web service as a “self-contained, self-describing piece of application functionality that can be found and accessed by other applications using open standards.” Therefore, they have been considered to provide some specific architectural characteristics which can be beneficial to business through their platform independency, loose coupling, self description and discovery.
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Gulledge (2007) believed that web services provide a flexible path to connect applications of different organizations in order to communicate data without having the knowledge about each others’ platforms. It uses open standard technology such as XML, SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI to make it easier for enterprise to coordinate business activities and lowering their operating costs. However it is believed that the technology, from management point of view, is not important and the only thing that managers want is that technologies execute end-to-end business processes efficiently and effectively. Therefore, in implementing enterprise service-oriented architecture, the focus should be on the end-toend business process not just on technical part of the process.
Linthicum (2004) also noted that “Simply jumping to
web
services
without
understanding the business requirements could be disastrous or, worse, could cause the organization to miss strategic opportunities”. Moving from one organization to another, many requirements would be changed, that’s why every organization needs some special strategies and methods to identify the requirements before taking any action. Blevec et al. (2007) proposed a four-stage approach to present web-based service oriented system to business partners: 1. Recognize the essential business functionalities 2. Implement the equivalent services 3. Reveal these services to external partners 4. Design a web application Each of these stages consists of sub-stages which will lastly result in bringing business systems to web.
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2.7
Service Orientation in Enterprise
Enterprises require concentrating more on their core business capabilities to make them different from other competitors. Thus, the enterprise should analyze the business to reveal the capabilities which can be done inside and also the ones that can be done outside by other partners. This will enable organization to collaborate with other organizations within a business “ecosystem” and thus the business activities will be deconstructed into a collection of smaller components that interact with other similar components in a business ecosystem (Cherbakov et al. 2005). However, creating a Service-Oriented Enterprise (SOE) is a challenging work, in which most of the difficulties are related to transforming the business into smaller components rather than technological aspects (Cherbakov et al. 2005).
Huang et al. (2005) introduced two different views in defining SOE. From system and IT view, SOE is defined as “a model for architecting software and IT infrastructure” which works in agreement with existing platform architecture and “enables business processdriven to be realized”. Though, from a business view, SOE is defined as de-composition of business function into services and then re-compositing them using business processes to provide different business functions.
In this research, the business view of SOE is not desired because of its differences with SOA. In fact, SOA is not presented from a business perspective and can only address the technical issues of SOE, not the business ones.
One aspect of IT view of SOE is the “composite service” (Cherbakov et al., 2005) which is defined as a service which is comprised of other services to support business integration using SOA and standard web services business process language (Huang et al., 2005). 23
For example, the process of customer order requires a composition of five typical services: check customer address, verify customer credit, lookup customer discount, determine product availability and calculate shipping charges. These five services can be performed either internally by specific departments inside the company, or externally by contracted service providers. Each service can be potentially provided by many rival services providers. For example, verification of customer credit can be done by a service provider, such as a bank or by integration of different existing systems inside the company. It is clear that bank would be well-qualified to provide this service because it is a part of its main business activities, and is able to access to more data resources to confirm the customer’s credit record. The service providers can provide services to many requesters at the same time which decreases the average cost for each individual requesting party. However, the company that uses this service must rebuild its ordering system to provide access to the information service from an internal system without likely security issues.
Providing network infrastructure, protocols and network management tools to increase the performance and decrease the cost of enterprises are some other issues of SOE which should be addressed carefully through a proper using of SOA and web services (Auer et al., 2008). Another challenge of SOE is related to the conversion of business needs to code for supporting IT development in the lack of a proper model. This would be a quite tough and impractical work, so using an accurate model or approach which supports communication between business and IT sides of SOE is essential. Lytle and Timmerman (2006) recommended the following implications for organizational managers to provide an appropriate foundation for supporting the communication between IT and business aspects of SOE:
24
1. Manager should understand that building and maintaining service-oriented systems within in an organizational unit is equal to nancial and operational success 2. Manager can benefit from perceiving, measuring and examining different aspect of an organizational service-orientation to supervise and observe the performance of organization in each of those areas 3. Understanding the effects of SOE in guiding and raising high levels of commitment and group spirits among employees 4. Understanding the importance of long life employees for having a successful service oriented organization
2.8
Integration of Information Systems
The concept of information system introduced by Borje Langefors at the third international conference on information processing and computer science in New York in 1965 (AIS website). Information System (IS) usually refers to a business computer application which is consisting of the database, application programs and manual and machine procedures. It also surrounds the computer systems that perform the processing operations (PC Magazine).
Organizations always invest huge assets and expenses in developing Information Systems for the operations that carried out in different units of enterprise. The major task of these isolated Information systems is to perform a specific task in a particular department or unit (Wang et al., 2005). However, the increasing usage of network and shared databases makes it essential that these isolated ISs communicate with each other in order to execute more complex processes in the organization.
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Traditionally Information systems have been investigated in term of their effects on different aspects of organization such as operational support, decision support, impact on end users and organization as a whole (Ives and Learmonth 1984). The outlook of most of the enterprise information systems is a complex set of applications which develop gradually over time and its ever growing worsens its alignment with IT innovations and changing business requirements (Schelp and Winter, 2007). Since 1980s, the topic of Information system integration has been attracted researchers and business managers (Bhatt, 2000). Information systems integration which has always been a major topic in merging organizations and developing industry has a major role on Business Process Improvement (BPI) and sharing the data and information among different organizations in industry.
Information system integration is defined as sharing data and applications through different communication networks and makes them accessible for organizational usage (Wyse and Higgins 1993). This merging can be carried among different units in organization or it can be applied among various organizations. Integrating several IS, not only helps businesses to automate their activities, but also it enhances and improves the business processes (Venkatraman, 1991). The major aim of integrating information systems is to provide information support throughout the organization in order to be responsive to dynamic challenges in the market environment (Bhatt, 2000). However, it is believed that IS integration should also provide business flexibility in meeting the future business requirements (Mudie and Schafer, 1985).
Weber and Pliskin (1999) studied the effects of information systems integration and organizational culture on firm’s performance, acquisition and effectiveness. They came to a conclusion that IS integration would offer efficiency and productivity to firms only if the IT
26
intensity and organizational culture differences be under the control and supervision of joining firms’ managers. Bhatt (2000) also studied the impact of IS integration on BPI by gathering data from 500 US firms and the final results support the hypothesis that the data integration and network communication can affect BPI.
These mentioned advantages of IS integration, have been attracted many organizations and enterprises to improve their operations and processes by merging their existing information systems with other providers. Moreover, in the current situation in which data required in many applications, is distributed over heterogonous information systems and value chains has been extended beyond the organizations, suppliers and customers’ systems have become part of each other’s architecture (Hasselbring, 2000).
Since, existing information systems have been developed in different languages and working on diverse platforms and communicating through various standards, the task of integration would be rather complicated especially through traditional methods of integration. Service-oriented approach is the most recommended method for a better and easier integration. “The main idea of this method is to change the supply mode of integration interface to switch the role in management to introduce the third role, namely, service management role” (Wang et al., 2005).
SOA encapsulates the functionalities of information systems as loosely coupled components. New types of requirements can be responded by creating new functionalities through re-composition of these components with no changing in their implementations (Schelp and Winter, 2007).
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2.9
SOA in Information Systems Integration
In the business environment with specifications such as rapid changing, short lifecycle of products and business, increasing progress of IT and internet every enterprise needs to realize and support changes in a flexible way. In order to achieve this, the information systems of enterprise are supposed to provide the features which are illustrated in Figure 2-3 (Komoda, 2006).
Figure 2-3 Change of business environment (Komoda, 2006)
Before introducing service-oriented architecture, process- oriented approach was firstly appeared and then it was followed by data-oriented approach. Later in 90s, object-oriented method was introduced and became popular as an approach for integrating IS. However the mentioned approaches were designed by just considering the architecture of computer and networks, not the business environment, so they were not adequate for providing the business environmental requirements.
In the 21st century, when SOA introduced, it 28
attracted attentions of many business managers and developers in realizing the mentioned characteristics of the business surroundings (Komoda, 2006). SOA not only works on modular component development but on asset creation for business (An and Jeng, 2007), so many researchers started integrating IS which were scattered across the enterprise using SOA.
Klink et al. (2006) investigated the existing IS in the field of higher education and found out that most of the Information Systems that have grown up over the years based on some information, services or E-learning environments are split and spread in different locations. Therefore an approach was proposed to integrate these IS to supports different type of processes, based on SOA and Web Services. The system was supposed to provide a shared workspace for exchanging data and information, providing easier communication and coordination between students and present some value-added and reusable web-based services. It is believed that the result integrated system may help students to: Finish their study in a shorter period of time Improve their communication and coordination skills with other specialist and experts Do collaborative problem solving Do collaborative quality assurance Integrate digital libraries, context-dependent services, recommender systems for publications After Klink et al. (2006), Kamogawa and Okada (2008) started investigating the changing environment of Japan market and found out that the biggest challenge facing firms and companies is the “adaption” to any environment for increasing business values and flexibility. They proposed that applying web service and SOA for enterprise’s information 29
systems would be a solution for this facing issue. They also noted that in this adoption, it is essential to an Enterprise Architecture (EA) viewpoint to depict the business architecture and technology architecture that rule and control business. Although several models have been proposed to model EA, there are few reports that show and support how to assess to EA using these models (Schekkerman 2004).
Another attempt in deploying SOA in IS integration was done by Wurst et al. (2008) who developed a mediator based model focusing on process support, to integrate the data of clinical information systems and research environment systems which was accomplished in a service oriented area using web services. This integrated system enables collaborative efforts between institutions. During their approach in development the system, firstly they analyzed the existing clinical information systems and research departments, then the requirements of user and system recognized from both clinicians’ and researchers’ view. The implementation was run in some short iteration cycles to let developing innovative solutions based on the complexity of area and through close interaction with users.
Komoda (2006) believes that SOA is mostly applying to business information systems through using web services standards and technologies and it is becoming a widely accepted as an architectural style for enterprises’ IT systems. However, in the systems with low layer of management and control, it is not possible to apply web services standards because of some special necessities.
An and Jeng (2007) mention that “The SOA approach enables both robust component development and asset creation for the enterprises”, however the actual business challenge is about SOA governance in which the business and technical services are developing in a logical and systematic mode. They propose a generic top-down business-driven analysis 30
model for developing business services in the context of SOA. This approach provides a goal-driven service impact analysis methodology to recognize the data processing logic identified in various IT Services.
The model starts with understanding the business requirements in order to identify the required business services. Then the recognized business services are composed into a business process, focusing on dynamic service composition. Here system dynamic method is used to model business and stimulate the services’ behaviors (both functional and nonfunctional). It is important to remark that chosen services and their implementation will influence the performance of final solution.
It is believed that adaption of applications in response to changing business requirements are always fall behind and the complexity of the existing enterprise information systems make them inappropriate for design of enterprise services (Schelp and Winter 2007). Therefore, the focus should be on the enterprise services and describing enterprise architecture, service orientation and agility as conceptual foundations for design of enterprise services. Schelp & Winter (2007) showed the importance of understanding different services on different enterprise architecture layers and discuss the goals and conflicted goals in SOA and aimed to propose a methodology for designing enterprise services. Most recently they have gathered and proposed a guideline for service design (top-down) and service composition (bottom-up) practices which aim to contribute to business engineering framework.
Facing the truth that IS and IT standards of large enterprises are similar to “a treasure at the end of the rainbow” (Hanseth and Braa 2001) so it is obvious that organization should push
31
towards managing the infrastructure in a way that integration and disintegration becomes a normal thing (Henningsson et al., 2007).
2.10 Conclusions
In this chapter of dissertation, the literature of services, service oriented architecture, information systems, service oriented enterprise and other concepts which are related to SOIS were reviewed. Although there are a lot of articles and reports in term of service orientation, none of them targeted a general methodology for deploying SOA in information systems. This chapter helped the researcher to understand the different aspects of IS, SOA, web services and other related issues in order to define the SOIS and propose a methodology for developing it in organization.
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CHAPTER 3 : RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1
Introduction
This chapter describes the steps of the work, the research methods and the information used in fulfillment of the dissertation. In the field of software engineering, methodology is “a framework that is used to structure, plan and control the process of an information system” (Wikipedia).
3.2
Research Stages
This research consists of four stages, as shown in Figure 3-1. In the first part of the work, different journal’s articles, conferences papers, online documents, case studies and etc. which are relevant to the topic were reviewed. Regarding the fact that the aim of this research is to propose a methodology for developing Service Oriented Information System (SOIS), the basis of the work was done based on reviewing the literatures about the concepts which are required for defining SOIS and proposing a methodology for it. Therefore, other methods such as survey, interview, and questionnaires were not appropriate for this study and reviewing the literature and articles was the only method used widely in this dissertation.
In the next stage, the literature will be analyzed and studied in detail to define the concept of SOIS and propose a methodology for developing it in organization.
33
Start
Review of literature in related topics
Stage1
Define SOIS
Propose a methodology for developing SOIS based on Literature
Stage2
No
Satisfied Yes Apply proposed methodology in a case study
Stage3 No Successful Yes Implementation and Testing Stage4
No Successful Yes End
Figure 3-1 Research Stages
Then, in the third stage, the proposed methodology will be put into action to determine the results of a practical works. This part consists of analyzing an organization (Ministry of 34
higher education of Iran) through the steps of the proposed methodology to develop and implement Service Oriented Information System (SOIS) within it. If there is any problem in this phase, the proposed methodology should be reviewed and corrected. In the final stage of work, the system implementation, system testing will be done and if any problem occurs in implementation or testing, it should be solved until the final system work perfectly. Then the results of the work will be discussed.
3.3
Data and Information Used
In this study, journals and conference articles, whitepapers, books and internet websites related to service orientation, SOA, Web-based Information System methodology (WISDM) were used in proposing the eight steps SOIS methodology.
The data and information used in the case study were mostly collected from portal of ministry of higher education of Iran (IMSRT) which is the target of this case study. However some information used is based on the observation of author.
3.4
System Development Methodology
The eight steps SOIS methodology is applied in a case study (chapter 5) to analyze different aspects of Ministry of higher education of Iran (IMSRT) and identify the required services for developing SOIS.
It is required to mention that the proposed methodology covers all parts of identification, development and implementation of a real service oriented information system. Since the target of this dissertation is to develop a prototype of identified SOIS, Web Site Development Method (WSDM) which is a user driven method and provides a systematic 35
method for developing web sites is used in development of the prototype. Web Site Development Method consists of five stages which are shown in Figure 3-2.
Figure 3-2 Phases of WSDM (Troyer and Casteleyn, 2001b)
Following is a summary of each stage of WSDM (Troyer and Casteleyn, 2001b): 1.
Mission Statement Specification
In this step, the purpose, subject and aimed users of the system will be described in a natural language. The mission statement is useful to ensure that the intended websites has achieved the targets. 2.
Audience Modeling 36
Regarding the audience-drive specification of WSDM, the first concern after mission statement is to determine the target users of the systems. Different requirements are requested from different users, so the classification of users and characterization of them should be done to specify which users use specific services. Therefore, this stage has two sub-stages: Audience Classification The different types of users are identified. When the set of requirements of a specific user class is a subset of the set of requirements of another user class, the first user class is a user subclass of the second user class. Audience Characterization As different users need different information or functionalities, the related characterization for each class of users should be indicated in this step. 3.
Conceptual Design
This phase consists of two sub-phases: Task and information modeling The detail of different tasks that different user class require to perform, and data and functionality for doing those tasks should be modeled .The required tasks for each specific class of users are based on the requirements of each class which is identified during audience classification. Navigation Design In this sub-phase, the conceptual structure of system and the user navigation through different web pages is defined. If there are different classes of users, then different navigation track should be created for each class. 4.
Implementation Design
37
Site Structure Design Decision about grouping the components (information and functionality) from navigational model into pages Presentation Design Appearance, layout, template and design of the pages in the website are determined in this step. Logical Data Design The logical schema and design of the data and information in the web sites is specified. 5.
Implementation
The actual implementation design is converted into a set of code depending on the chosen implementation environment.
3.5.
Justification of the System Development Methodology
In chapter five, eight steps SOIS methodology is deployed to be practically tested. After conducting the eight steps SOIS methodology, the situation of the organization and the required services for developing SOIS is realized. Then Web Site Development method (WSDM) is used to develop the prototype. The following advantages of WSDM make it a good choice for applying in development of a web-based prototype in this dissertation (adapted from Vrije University Brussels’ website):
Provide a complete method for designing the schematic of a web site Support functionality of the web sites
38
Support many additional design issues such as localization, accessibility, semantic annotation, adaptivity etc.
3.6.
Conclusion
This chapter described the research methodology as well as the development methodology which are used in this dissertation. The research methodology using in this research is consist of four phases that showed in figure 3-1. For development part, the proposed SOIS methodology will be applied to case study to analyze different aspects of the case. After realizing the required services in organization, the Web Site Development Method (WSDM) will be used to develop the prototype. In real project, eight steps SOIS methodology is perfect enough to be used in all steps of development, but here the aim is to develop a prototype of realized system not a real system, so, researcher chose WSDM to implement a prototype of realized system.
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CHAPTER 4 : THE EIGHT STEPS SOIS METHODOLOGY
4.1
Introduction
According to the reports in literature, service orientation has been an important field of research in recent years and attracted many interests due to several advantages such as its openness and agility which can bring great opportunities to business. Most of the articles and papers that have been reviewed in literature were mostly focused on technical aspects of implementing service oriented architecture and web services such as protocols and standards, messaging or deployment of SOA in technical frameworks like J2EE, XML. However, a methodology which targets using service orientation in information systems is still missing. Therefore, it is essential to model a methodology which can handle both the technical challenges and the business issues of an enterprise during development of Service Oriented Information System.
4.2
Conception of Service-Oriented Information System (SOIS)
Service oriented information system can be specified as service-based systems which are built based on the existing information systems or legacy systems within an organization to provide business with streamlined and convenient services and information systems. These systems are developed using SOA standards and web services technologies with no changes in infrastructure of existing information systems which is the most important advantage of SOIS and reduces overall costs of an organization. In other words, new information systems are created based on the existing ones using SOA and web services standards.
40
For example, Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) in a country is going to build an information system to enable postgraduate students and researchers to find required information about the supervisors and researchers who works on a specific field of science and technology. It is obvious that each university has a related information system about its human resources which stores different information such as name, address, degree, position, activity, etc. SOA and web services standards enable MOHE to build such information system based on the existing information systems of universities instead of building a totally new information system. However the different infrastructures of each of these information systems make it difficult to integrate them and develop new services and systems. Here, the role of SOA is integrating these systems without any changes in their infrastructure to provide the required Service-Oriented Information System (SOIS) which helps organization in reducing the cost of building new information systems or changing the existing ones.
4.3
Steps to Propose SOIS Methodology
Based on a theory by Vidgen (2002a), a successful methodology is the one in which the requirements and the way of their achievement, the role of information technology (IT) and the role of people are defined. In order to achieve a suitable methodology, not only the technical and technological challenges should be considered but also it is necessary to draw much more attention to the human factors of information systems. Information systems methodology should be a socio-technical theory in order to assist us for explanation of material agency (Pickering, 1995). Therefore, the next step in this dissertation is focusing on the enterprise related challenges and issues in developing service oriented information systems to propose a methodology that can be applied in enterprises to overcome the
41
business, inter-organizational challenges and the technical issues of implementing SOIS. It is noteworthy to point out that methodology is not a series of accidental activities. In fact, they depend upon situational practices and are created and re-created through day-to-day actions (Truex et al., 2000).
Avison and Fitzgerald (2006) indicated several methodologies for developing information systems which should are based on the situation and environment of different organizations. Information systems methodologies are categorized into six domains:
1.
Process-Oriented Methodologies
2.
Object-Oriented Methodologies
3.
Organizational-Oriented Methodologies
4.
People-Oriented Methodologies
5.
Rapid Application Development Methodologies
6.
Blended Methodologies
Although it is almost a wide range of methodologies that cover different conditions and situations, there is still no methodology for development of SOIS. In this study, an information system methodology in conjunction with SOA technology and web services is used to propose a methodology to develop SOIS. Web-based Information System Development Methodology (WISDM) (Vidgen, 2002b) and Web Site Development Method (WSDM) (De Troyer and Leune, 1998) are two possible methodologies to achieve this purpose selected. Since SOA is a data driven standard, audience driven specification of WSDM makes it unsuitable to be used, moreover WSDM is mainly used in web development not IS development. Therefore, WISDM was selected because of following advantages: it is a web-based methodology so it doesn’t have any conflict with web 42
services technologies and it is used in rapid development of web-based information systems in organizations, so it considers different organizational, technical and human factors of organization. Different phases and aspects of WISDM are shown in figure 4-1.
Figure 4-1 Web-based Information System Development Methodology (WISDM)
After studying the different steps of WISDM methodology and analyzing SOA techniques and methods, an eight steps methodology is proposed for development of SOIS. In fact, the researcher takes some ideas from WISDM methodology, SOA methods and web services standard to propose a new methodology for service oriented information system.
A framework proposed by Avison and Fitzgerald’s (2003) that helps developer to choose appropriate methods, techniques and tools for the problem situation. In this research we are going to use this framework, which is consisted of seven stages, to expand a methodology for developing SOIS. As we move forward in different steps of this framework, the objectives and scope of work is clarified, so different aspects of subject matter are analyzed and then a new methodology is proposed.
43
4.3.1. Philosophy
Philosophy is considered as a set of principles and standards that support the fundamental basis of a methodology. Avison and Fitzgerald (2003) consider four characteristic factors as follow:
1.
Paradigm
Avison and Fitzgerald (2003) defined paradigm as a specific way of thinking about problem situation which can be science or systems paradigm. In systems paradigm we think in a holistic manner and understand the “whole” and the “parts” of a system and the relationship among them that make the parts become “whole”. However, science paradigm tries to understand the “parts” and it focuses on theory of opposition and reputation. The aim of designing SOIS methodology is to study the organization as a “whole” and investigate different parts and aspects of it to conclude the best way for an organization to develop SOIS. Therefore, as the focus is on the “whole”, “parts” and their relationships in making “whole”, system paradigm would benefit this methodology the most.
In the proposed methodology, firstly the organization environment is studied as a whole system in order to identify the objectives, domain of work, policy etc. and then different aspects related to developing a methodology for SOIS is investigated.
2.
Objectives
Service-orientation solution helps organizations to transform their business processes and/or systems to services much easier and faster in order to obtain high performance. It is performed through simplifying the underlying legacy information systems and uses their 44
modules and functionalities to provide services which offer many advantages to organizations in achieving the following objectives: 1.
Automation of business operations
By reviewing the current applications and the usage of a shared protocol it would be possible to provide the opportunity to recognize both application processes and automating business processes. 2.
Reducing the integration costs
The essential objective of SOIS is to design infrastructures with a common protocol which allows different services to communicate and exchange data based on existing information systems to reduce the future integration costs. 3.
Increasing asset reuse
The current information systems of organizations are analyzed to find and use useful modules to create services for users. Consequently organizations are being able to use the existing information systems and legacy applications efficiently. 4.
Increasing business agility
Business leaders can be more innovative in response to market and customers’ demands which can be resulted in business agility. 5.
Decreasing business risk
The approach will make it possible for the organization to move from large, tightly integrated, end-to-end processes to a world in which business processes are separated from the underlying data and applications as far as possible. Thus, it enables organization to break projects into smaller and more manageable parts which can be delivered incrementally. This can, in turn, reduce business risk and allows IT to respond to business-led change in a more flexible way.
45
In order to achieve the mentioned objectives inside an organization, the requirements, strategies, techniques and tools needs to be identified and used in a correct methodology.
3.
Domain
The domain of proposed methodology covers different aspects of developing SOIS. Service-orientation is a big picture of all the information systems of a company. Many systems, software and technologies supporting IT in organization are not integrated and their differences in locations caused different ware houses, data bases and etc. SOIS expands the idea of connecting organizations by integrating their information systems with minimum costs and creating new services and information systems for users. Two technology enablers of SOIS are web services technology and service-oriented architecture. Technology and users play crucial roles in developing SOIS and thus require appropriate methods and strategies in order to bring social, technological, business and economic aspects together.
Technology and Engineering
Social Science
SOA
Business and Management
Economic and Demands
Figure 4-2 Different aspects of SOIS (adapted from IBM) 46
The domain of our methodology is wide organization-level methodology which covers socio-techno-economics aspects (Figure 4-2). A set of techniques, tools and methods to cover the socio-economic aspect in different phases of our approach is investigated using web services and SOA for technological part.
4.
Targets
“Targets” is defined as applicability of methodology (Avison and Fitzgerald, 2003). The eight steps SOIS methodology in this work is a general purpose methodology and it is intended to suggest some steps for any organization to develop service oriented information system. For each phase and sub-phases, there are some suggested techniques and tools that can be selected based on the organizational situation. The ability of the methodology to be implemented can be tested through real implementation inside an organization by the help of professional team of experts, which is not planned in this dissertation. However, the proposed methodology is applied in a case study at the end of this dissertation to determine its suitability.
4.3.2. The Eight Steps SOIS Methodology Model
In traditional development of information systems, the analyzers identify existing and required processes within an enterprise and then developers implemented information systems based on the requirements. However, for Service-oriented Information System (SOIS) the analyzers should firstly study the current situation of organization, information systems and services and then identify the required services and information systems which can be built based on the existing information systems. In fact, the aim of SOIS is using existing information systems and creating new services and information systems based on 47
them to integrate existing information systems in order to provide agile response to future changes in business environment. This specification of SOIS enables organizations to make a better use of their assets. In the eight steps SOIS methodology (figure 4-3) firstly the organization’s strategies, complexities, existing and required services inside and outside of an enterprise are recognized. Moreover, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are identified (Phase 1). In the next stage, the information requirements of users and organization are identified using some techniques (Phase 2). Then, the required services and their specifications are recognized based on the results of previous stages (phase 3). After that, the identified services will be analyzed based on the technical requirements of them to see whether they can be implemented and what type of infrastructure and technologies are required for their implementation (Phase 4). Subsequently, the technical design which is consisted of logical and physical design will be done (Phase 5). Afterward, the realized services will be developed and implemented based on the collected requirements (Phase 6) and then final system testing will be carried out (Phase 7). The last step of methodology is managing and maintaining of the developed system (Phase 8). All phases represent a set of tasks and associated tools and artifacts that focused on creating SOIS. It is important to note that
the
orders
of
the
phases
are
important.
Figure 4-3 Eight Steps SOIS Methodology 48
4.3.3. Techniques and Tools
In next section (Scope), the required techniques, tools and technology used in each phases of methodology is described in more details. However, a summary of required tools and techniques is shown in the Table 4-1. It is important to note that the techniques and tools which are using in different stages depend on the problem situation, the philosophy and strategy of methodology. Since the methodology can be applied in different organizations, more than one useful technique and tool is suggested in each step, so it is possible to choose the proper ones based on the specific situation of organization.
Table 4-1 Techniques and tools Phases Organizational Analysis
Techniques and Tools SWOT analysis, PEST analysis
Information Requirements Analysis
Techniques: Contextual Enquiry, Information Mapping Project Analysis, Structured Information Analysis Tools: Formatting solution Pro, E-knowledge manager, Mapping Objective Modeling, Formatting solution XML.
Service Analysis
Goal-driven Service Modeling, SOA Monitor Model
Technical Analysis
IBM Web Sphere, IBM Rational
Technical Design
Platform: J2EE, .Net, JAXB, JAXR, XML-RPC Core: UDDI, SOAP, WSDL
System Development and implementation
.Net programming language, Database technology such as MS SQL server, MYSQL, Oracle, Graphical tools for UI: Macro Media Dream Weaver, Fireworks, Flash, Photoshop and XP as development method.
System Testing
WS-I Basic Profile
Management and Maintenance
AmberPoints SOA Management System, BMC software’s AppSight, CA’s Wily SOA Solution, HP’s SOA Manager
4.3.4. Scope
In this section, each phase of proposed methodology is described in details and the appropriate tools and techniques for each stage are offered.
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1.
Organizational Analysis
Organizational analysis refers to investigation of the organizational situation to realize the factors which can affect the organizational performance and also to determine operational complexities, technological systems, strategies and goals of organization towards business and service orientation.
This stage is a continuous stage that should go beyond the organizational boundary to investigate the current services in the market to provide a logical view of existing services, then recognizing the requirements and defining new services based on the requirements considering business and legal aspects of each identified service. Firstly the structure of the organization is studied to determine the value of creating services in organizations. There are many different methods and tools that can be used, however, regardless of type of using approach, the following questions should be answered at the end of this phase: Business strategy: What kind of business is involved in the organization? What are the products and services? How can the organization perform better using advantages of SOIS? What are the resources of organization? (Skills, assets, human, finance, relationships, technical competence, facilities) Which kind of external and environmental factors affect the business ability to compete? What kind of information systems or legacy systems is existed in organization? What are the expectations and values of stakeholders?
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Products and services: What are the sources of profits? What are the profits to business? Who are the customers? Who are the competitors? What type of services can be provided for customer? What kinds of required services are not offered in the market? One of the techniques that can be used in this step is PEST (also called STEP, STEEP, PESTLE) analysis. It is a simple, useful, and widely-used tool that helps enterprises to understand the "big picture" of Political, Economic, Socio-Cultural and Technological environment (Technological factors include Ecological and Environmental aspects - the second E in STEEP and PESTLE, whilst the L in PESTLE represents Legal or Legislative). It is commonly used in many organizations and enterprises around the world to create insight of the future.
Each aspect of PEST analysis is described according to Marketing Teacher website as below:
Political In case of service orientation, political aspect is usually more significant in public sector rather than private sector and it includes some aspects such as tax policy, employment laws, environmental regulations, trade restrictions and rates and political stability (Wikipedia). Following are some direction to start with political analysis but some other factors may be added in different situations: Stability of political environment
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Rules and law Government policy towards economy Employment and social laws Price controls and tax system Environmental and consumer-protection legislation Possible changes in the political condition Economic Service orientation concept emerges during the time of economic downturn to provide a simpler, faster, and more agile way to build dominant systems. Although service orientation has the potential to lower the costs over the time, it doesn’t have a clear return on investment especially in short time. Therefore, considering the economic situation and environment is inevitable. Economic outlooks of PEST Analysis are economic growth, interest rates, exchange rates and inflation rate (Wikipedia). There are some suggested areas to be considered for economic aspects of SOIS: Stage of business cycle Economic growth, inflation and interest rates Unemployment and labor supply Employee costs Levels of disposable income and income distribution Impact of globalization Possible effect of technological Probable changes in the economic situation
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Socio-Cultural Social-Cultural issues often deal with cultural aspects and consist of health consciousness, population growth rate, age distribution, career attitudes and emphasis on safety (Wikipedia). Service oriented paradigm changes the role of IT from technology provider to business enabler which can also impact on socio-cultural aspect of business. Socio-cultural study should be carried out to analyze the acceptance of services-orientation and to consider possible changes to reduce and handle resistance. Some samples of socio-cultural investigation are: Growth rate of population and age profile Population health, education and social mobility Job market freedom, employment patterns and attitudes towards work Lifestyle Role of men and women in society Socio-Cultural changes Technological Environment Technological environment is investigation of the current situation of technology and the attempt of people. It comprises of ecological and environmental aspects and is able to find barriers to entry, minimum efficient production level and influence outsourcing decisions (Wikipedia). The following are some points that should be considered in analyzing technological environment: Impact of new and potentially disruptive technology Effect of internet, web services, decrease in communications costs and increased remote working Research and development movement 53
Influence of transferring technology The PEST Analysis has several advantages including: 1.
It is an effective technique to ensure that the organization strategy is aligned with the environmental forces which may affect the market or/and organization’s performance.
2.
The PESTA analysis is able to protect organization from threats of unpredictable environmental factors such as economic downturn.
3.
It can be a suitable technique which can be used in new fields such as SOIS to help organization to respond to new environment conditions. (Mind tools website)
Another technique in organizational analysis is SWOT which consists of internal strengths and weaknesses as well as the external opportunities and threats. SWOT is a conventional technique which is used initially in the business planning process to identify the situation. Furthermore, it is an efficient technique in decision–making situation, in which the attainability of the objectives (required services) is determined. In the case that objectives are not achievable, different objectives are selected and the decision-making process should be repeated (Wikipedia). Based on the enterprise and its environment, either SWOT or PEST analysis can be chosen. However, the final report is similar and gives information about mostly external and internal environment. “The PEST factors merged with external micro-environmental factors can be classified as opportunities and threats in a SWOT analysis” (Wikipedia). Armstrong (2006) believes that PEST along with SWOT can be used as a basis for the analysis of business environmental factors.
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The output of this phase should be a broad view of the organization about different aspects of politics, technology, economic and culture. Moreover the objectives of the organization and the effects on SOIS in achieving those objectives should be specified.
2.
Information Requirements Analysis
Information analysis is the first activity before starting design and development processes. This stage includes identification, specification and examination of all the information requirements to recognize services and overall solution. It ensures that right techniques and tools are used to develop effective format of required data and information for target organization. Three common techniques that are proposed here to be used for information requirement analysis are:
Contextual Enquiry Contextual Enquiry (CE) technique is used to understand and examine users, their tasks, concerns and priorities to understand their needs and requirements. It may take time but it reveals some valuable data and information. This technique is conducted through visiting users in workplace and observing them during doing task, and also studying and analyzing documents and reports to understand users and provide services based on their requirements.
Information Mapping Project Analysis Information Mapping TM technique is used to manage and organize information effectively to provide easy access and remind of information. It is consisted of seven principles (Namahn website): 1.
Chunking: Group contents of documents into small controllable unit of 55
Information 2.
Relevance: Arrange relevant information together
3.
Labeling: Define a label for each chunk
4.
Consistency: Using same labels for same subjects
5.
Integrated graphics: Using figures, table, etc
6.
Accessible details: Using details with real examples
7.
Hierarchy of chunking and labeling: Used a hierarchal structure to group chucks together to see the bigger picture of information as well as accessing to details.
These principles are used to organize the data and information inside documents or reports into seven types including: process, structure, concept, principle, fact and classification. This technique is an effective method to handle a bunch of documents and reports which consist of different kind of relevant or irrelevant information. Many tools such as formatting solutions pro 1.3, E-knowledge manager, mapping object model and formatting solutions XML used in this method.
Structured Information analysis This method is suggested to help Human Resources Analysts (HRA) to collect and structure information based on the tasks and contexts and it includes three parts: (Jung et al., 2001) Scenario analysis Goal-means analysis Cognitive function analysis It is believed that this three-part information analysis enabled more meaningful and more certainty information (Jung et al., 2001). 56
The methods provide information about work flow and tasks, work opportunities and problems currently encountered, tool opportunities and problems, design ideas and validations, audience’s work context ideas, and future needs (Murphy, 1995). The information requirements is collected from related information systems, documents and reports or/and through interview with experts or senior stuffs in order to provide a report of information requirements for service analysts to help them identify required services in organization.
3.
Service Analysis
After specifying the current situation of organization and its objectives, goals and policies toward SOIS (Phase 1) and understanding the information requirements of either users and/or organization (Phase 2) it is necessary to look for required services and systems based on the provided report from previous phases. Service analysis stage is divided into Service Identification and Service Specification. Service Identification Service identification has much effect on the final developed system. In fact, the benefits of service orientation are mostly related to granularity and classification of services. Granularity is a vital element in reaching flexibility and reuse of services (Haan, 2007). The SOA Monitor website (2006) proposed some cornerstones for identification of services in an enterprise: Business drivers, goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) – Firstly, A complete understanding of required business capabilities should be achieved to support key business imperative and associated metrics. This step ensures that services will drive both IT benefits and measurable business value. KPI represents the
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requirements that should be honored and is formally defined in a dynamic system model. It also used to measure the progress towards business targets and goals (An and Jeng 2007). All of this required information was identified in previous stage and the provided report of them is used here. Business process decomposition – A service is a software component that performs a distinct business function. Therefore, service identification focuses on decomposing the business processes to separate business and technical functions that are service candidates. Thus, in this step, the identified information system in phase 1 is isolated to detailed technical functions. Business user involvement – A service is considered as a business service only when the business understands it. The identified services are analyzed from viewpoint of users to provide the best advantages to business. This stage was carried out during the information requirements phase. Continuous iteration – the identified candidate services should start to iterate early to make sure that the final list is refined and constraints, reliance and barriers are fully analyzed. In order to provide services aligned with business goals, a goal-service modeling is also suggested to manage this step. Goal-driven service modeling has been described as identifying the software services for a business. The goals for the business to meet its objectives are detected, and then sub-goals are identified recursively until services are recognized for fulfilling each of the sub-goals (Arsanjani, 2004). After taking these steps the required services are represented as a list. Service Specification The finalized list of the services is analyzed in this step to determine their details. In service specification, the necessary information for users about services and their usage are 58
explained. Moreover, all of the information that a service provider should know to successfully put the service into operation must be indicated. Thus, “a service specification is a mediator or a contract between what consumers need and what providers provide” (Amsden, 2007a). It is advised to provide all of this information in one place to avoid looking for them in different documents. The following data should be included in Service Specification (Amsden, 2007b): The name of the service, suggesting its purpose. The provided and required interfaces.
Note: This is not about how the service is implemented, but rather the interaction between the consumers and providers for this service.
Any protocol that specifies rules for the order and the way of using the functional capabilities. Qualities that service consumers should expect and that providers are expected to provide, such as cost, availability, performance, footprint, suitability to the task, competitive information, and so forth. Policies for using the service, such as security and transaction scopes for maintaining security and integrity or for recovering from the inability to successfully perform the service
4.
Technical Analysis
In this phase the technical requirements of identified services and the availability of them within the enterprises as well as the organizational policies is analyzed to determine their feasibility. Then in the next phase (technical design) the proper infrastructure and 59
technology for developing the realized services is selected appropriately. After defining the required services, they should be realized into IT-specific models (An and Jeng, 2007). Therefore, we need to select or custom built software that realizes a given service which includes integration, transformation, and subscription and outsourcing the functionality using web services. It is important to decide which modules of information systems or legacy systems should be used to realize services. Security, monitoring and management of services are some important parts that are essential to be clarified in this step (Arsanjani, 2004). He also recommends to conduct a “Top-down domain decomposition (process modeling and decomposition, variation-oriented analysis, policy and business rules analysis, and domain specific behavior modeling (using grammars and diagrams) ) in parallel with a bottom-up analysis of existing legacy assets and/or information systems that are candidates for componentization (modularization) and service exposure.”
The services and related indicators which were identified in previous phase are entered in a services portfolio database to create a service solution for the business through services oriented architecture (Hoon Ang et al., 2008).
IBM® Rational® and IBM® WebSphere® are recommended tools for building and linking the solution artifacts to confirm the solution against the requirements and manage changes more effectively (Amsden, 2007). However, a careful customization is necessary to be applied in complex cases.
5.
Technical and Architectural Design
Service providers’ detection and the service capabilities which are provided to create a relationship between users and providers is the initial step in designing SOIS. The concept 60
of SOA makes it quite simple to understand “what service participant will provide or consume what services”. It is expected that service providers supply or/and consume several services with different functional capabilities (Amsden, 2007). Therefore, before implementation or development action, the three basic parts of SOA should be recognized. The following questions should be answered in this phase: 1.
Who are the service providers?
2.
Who is the service broker?
3.
Who are the service consumers?
Afterward, the architectural design and infrastructure of services is identified. The organization needs an SOA infrastructure, which is a part of SOA platform, to run the services and support related standards and run time containers (Figure 4-4). SOAP, WSDL and UDDI are three basis of infrastructure. WSDL is utilized to describe the service; UDDI to register and search for the services and SOAP is the default mechanism for web services used as a transport layer to send messages between service requester and service provider (Kodali, 2005). Service requester can look for a service in the UDDI registry, take the WSDL for the described service and request the service using SOAP.
WS-I Basic Profile provided by the web services interoperability organization, is a prerequisite for service testing and interoperability. Service providers can use the basic profile test tool to test interoperability of a service's across different platforms and technologies.
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Figure 4-4 A typical SOA infrastructure (Kodali, 2005)
A web-service platform which is capable of SOA management and governance is one of the main requirements of SOIS for continuous growth of web-services. As it was mentioned earlier in literature review, SOA is not web service. In fact, SOA is a software design and web services are technologies that are required to be used in developing SOIS to set a platform-neutral approach for accessing services and providing better interoperability. The designed SOA platform should addressed the particular difficulties of supervising web services environment in full-scale firm implementation. J2EE and .NET are two powerful development platforms for SOA; however it is not restricted into these two platforms. Newer platforms such as Java API for XML Binding (JAXB), Java API for XML Registry (JAXR) and Java API for XML-based Remote Procedure Call (XML-RPC) are also using for different purposes. One critical factor that should be considered in choosing platform is the ability of platform in managing three major types of changes in a shared-services environment: (Actual Progress)
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1.
Unanticipated change of a service
2.
Intended change of a service
3.
Planned and concurrent change to several services
The Quality of Service (QoS) which is associated with each service includes security necessities, such as authentication and authorization, trustworthy messaging, and policies about the users who can request for services, needs to be identified.
6.
System Development and Implementation
After identifying the technical requirements and designing the architecture of services, the development process is started. In most cases, we don’t build an entire system from scratch, but there would be some incremental improvement to achieve the requested system. In this phase the architecture design which was prepared in previous stage, is given to the development team. Then the development team is split into some smaller parts and each sub-team works on a part of system. It is recommended to use Extreme Programming (XP) as software development methodology to manage the development cycle. Some specifications such as short iteration, pair programming, testing before coding and focus on customer satisfaction, using CRC cards, spike architecture and short stories make XP a quick and effective approach for developing web-based information systems. (Mittal, 2006) Each development team is responsible to carry out the following activities for each service: (Mittal, 2006) Specifying the required model of application program and database Testing and quality assurance plan for each developed service Defining the message format, protocol, availability level of each service and other technical aspects of the services
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When all the realized services have been developed completely and the unit test for each service was successful, the development team should integrate all of this separated part into a final system.
Some examples of technical tools and technologies used by developer in implementation are: Database technology such as ColdFusion, MS SQL Server, Oracle and Graphics tools for designing the user interface (UI) of services such as Crystal Report for Database interface, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Flash, Photoshop and Platform for SOA such as .Net and J2EE.
7.
System Testing
In this section, different type of testing should be done on the final system to make sure that everything is working correctly. As it was described in system development phase, each development team performs the unit testing on respective service. However, when all the services are united, the final integrated system is tested to ensure that all of the integrated services are working properly as a whole system and it is necessary to test everything that is linked together in a real environment.
The two types of testing required in this step are: performance testing and acceptance testing. In traditional system initially the unit is tested, and then the integrated system is examined and if there is any doubt about the performance, the respective testing runs and finally the acceptance test is performed. Considering the end-to-end specification of SOA systems, a virtual testing environments is required to evaluate system otherwise the testing phase is probably difficult.
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In this phase, a well-arranged attempt from all service providers is required to assure the availability of services (Lee et al., 2006). WS-I Basic Profile is an efficient tool for service testing and interoperability which can be used by service providers to test interoperability of a service's across different platforms and technologies. Moreover, considering web services technology used in SOIS, the response time of services is also tested to ensure that it is at the desired rate.
8.
Management and Maintenance
The final implemented system needs to be managed and supported to provide better performance and security for users. On the other side, the increasing number of changes in business environment and introducing new requirements from users make it essential for organization to be able to response to change by adding some new functional services or omitting some useless ones to/from system. Therefore, the maintenance stage is an important phase that is continued after implementing SOIS. It usually includes activities such as maintaining system; add/remove functionality, fixing bugs and errors, training and people. Some prominent tools recommended for managing a system based on SOA are mentioned below (Dubie, 2007): AmberPoint's SOA Management System is a policy-based run-time governance software suite which provides a run-time repository, service network monitoring, SOA security and service-level monitoring. BMC Software's AppSight executes automated problem resolution to improve and reduce application problems. As soon as BMC catches some data and metrics in production which
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are employed for problem resolution; it decreases the manual attempt for recreating the problem and finding a solution. CA's Wily SOA Solution “monitors the performance and availability of web services, application performance on client machines and other components in the SOA environment. The suite includes three applications that auto discover SOA components, such as enterprise service buses, portals and web services; map SOA transactions and dependencies among the various components in the environment, and alert staff to performance issues”(Dubie, 2007). HP's SOA Manager “manages loosely coupled application components and web services”. It can describe and keep a dynamic model of services such as software assets and virtual servers; and control application and web services execution in SOA model.
There are also other tools for managing and maintaining a SOIS system that each organization requires to choose one of them based on their system specification.
4.3.5. Output
In the proposed methodology, at each phase, some information and facts about different issues related to successful development of SOIS are expressed. The final output of the methodology is a service-oriented information system that integrates different modules and functionalities from different information systems and presents them as services on a portal or websites and enables customers or authorized user to access and use them.
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4.3.6. Practice
The proposed methodology in this research is a theoretical methodology which can be applied in different organizations in order to develop SOIS. The target users of the developed system could be the customers and/or employees of an organization and the number of them depends on the size of projects and organization. When there are a large number of users, for instant in E-governance cases, the design and implementation is vital to be performed effectively in order to avoid inconsistency. Because the level of risk and difficulties in big projects is high, it is necessary to employ professional system analysts, project managers and developers to develop a system efficiently.
4.3.7. Product
The final product of applying this methodology is a system or online website that helps organizations streamline their information systems and makes services available according to business requirements to achieve more integrity and efficiency in business. Moreover, it enables organizations to react fast to customer requirements and competitive business environment and develop some required services using the existing information systems.
4.4
Conclusion
In this chapter, SOIS was defined and a methodology to for its development was proposed. Avision and Fitzgerald’s framework (2003) was used to specify the scope and objectives of work and provide a wide view of subject for researcher in proposing a suitable methodology. The philosophy, model, techniques and tools, scope, outputs, practice and
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products of the methodology were indicated in this framework. Finally the proposed methodology and required tools and techniques for each phase were described. The concepts of organization analysis, Information analysis, understanding the requisites of the users in different stages, technical analysis and design of the system and some of the tools and techniques used in different stages are quite similar to WISDM methodology. The main differences between the proposed methodology and WISDM are in the tools, techniques and technology which have been used in the analysis, design and implementation of the services. WISDM methodology targets implementing web-based information system while eight steps SOIS methodology targets development of a servicebased information system using SOA tools and techniques. Moreover, there is a phase for management and maintenance of the developed services with some additional tools and techniques.
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CHAPTER 5 : APPLICATION OF EIGHT STEPS SOIS METHODOLOGY IN A CASE STUDY
5.1
Introduction
In this chapter the proposed SOIS methodology is applied into a case study to examine its practical application. All the information used in this case study is based on the information provided on the portal of ministry of higher education of Iran (IMSRT) and some experiences of author from studying in Iran. 5.2
Case Study Overview
As the number of international students are increasing in many countries it is important to pay more attention to higher education section in order attract to more international students and promote universities’ ranking in the world by improving the services quality. In this work, ministry of higher education of Iran (IMSRT) is selected as a case study to apply SOIS proposed methodology and finally some services that can improve the current situation of IMSRT will be realized. 5.3
Case Study Objectives
The purpose of conducting SOIS methodology in ministry of higher education of Iran (IMSRT) is to identify some suitable service-oriented information systems that can be developed using existing information systems inside or outside of IMSRT. These services are intended to enhance user satisfaction and improve the performance of IMSRT.
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5.4
Using SOIS Methodology in Ministry of higher education of Iran (IMSRT)
The steps of developing SOIS based on the methodology are described in this section.
5.4.1 Organizational Analysis
In this step, the strategies, goals, objectives, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of IMSRT are investigated. The following questions and answers represent the overall analysis of IMSRT. The given answers are based on the provided information on IMSRT websites. What is the vision of IMSRT? The vision of IMSRT is to promote the knowledge level of citizens and educate well-qualified and competent human resource for different sections of country such as industry, social, medicine, art. What kind of activity is it involved? Training and educating the future generation with wisdom and morality What are the services of IMSRT to clients? Managing and supervising all of the universities and educational institutes Financial support of universities and providing research funds How can ministry perform better using the advantages of SOIS? Service-oriented information system can be really helpful to achieve a more synchronized and integrated system among universities and institutes inside the country What are the assets and resources of ministry?
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Human resources in all different fields including academic skilled staffs, technical personnel, official staffs and etc. Financial resources which are mainly supported by government and some industrial sections Leading-edge technology and scientific facilities in different fields Which kind of external and environmental factors affect the ability of IMSRT to compete? Economic and financial environment are the most important external factors Who are the clients of IMSRT? Local and international students and staffs Who are the competitors? The IMSRT of other countries What kinds of information systems are existed in IMSRT? Human resource information system Information system of completed and ongoing projects Information system of students What kinds of electronic services are provided for users? Complaint service Visa application for international students Research opportunities in abroad Scholarship extension International student intake IELTS registration Other services are also available on the portal of IMSRT. After understanding the current situation of IMSRT and finding the objectives, assets, clients and other aspects, the SWOT analysis is conducted to assess the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of IMSRT. These factors should be identified
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during some formal meeting and brainstorming session among the responsible members of IMSRT and head of universities. In this case study, the identified strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of IMSRT based on the founded information on the portal are as following: Strengths 1. Granting research funds in different fields of science and technology 2. Rightsizing in all units of ministry, universities and research institutes 3. Providing some electronic services on the portal of ministry 4. Continues educational programs for improving and upgrading skills and knowledge level of personnel Weaknesses 1. Lack of supervising in implementation of information systems in different universities and research institutes 2. Lack of a web-base learning centre for managers to learn about upto-date management methods 3. Educational policies are more focus on theoretical rather than practical works 4. Lack of integrated IT infrastructure services to provide up-to-date information about all the universities 5. Bureaucracy in official works 6. Lack of coordination with other ministries and industry sections for employing/training graduate students
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Opportunities 1. Become student destination in Asia particularly from third world countries 2. Attracting more international students and academic staffs for universities Threats 1. Competition with other countries in Asia in attracting more international students and staffs 2. Increasing brain drain phenomena 3. Loosing professional lecturers and staffs The finalized list of SWOTs and a report of organizational situations is provided for service analyzers to recognize the required services for building more strength, overcoming threats and keeping the current strengths in IMSRT. 5.4.2 Information Requirements Analysis
After understanding the current situation of IMSRT and its strategies, objectives and analyzing SWOTs factors, the information requirements of IMSRT should be analyzed. This phase includes identification, specification and examination of all the information requirements for improving existing services and overall solution as well as the information about the requirements of users which can be used by a service analyst. Contextual enquiry method is suggested as a suitable tool to be used in this case study. As mentioned earlier, the predicated users of services provided by IMSRT are students including potential and current students, and staffs. Based on the observation in universities environment and
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communication with other students of higher education, the following information are demanded to be provided by IMSRT: The timetable of student intake for different governmental universities An easy access to the library of all the governmental universities from a same portal. This enables students to search for their required information in all universities in Iran. The coverage can also be limited to the universities of a province (e.g. Tehran Universities’ library for students in studying in Tehran universities) Notifications of future conferences, workshops or seminars in different universities A search engine which provides researchers and post-graduate students to find academic staffs working on specific field of study in different universities Information of scholarship opportunities in different universities From the collected information it can be concluded that the main problem of students is searching for their desired information in different portals and websites which is really a time-consuming work and sometimes they cannot find their desired results. Therefore, IMSRT can act as a connector or service broker that bring all of these information together by the means of some services to provide better supports for students. 5.4.3 Service Analysis
In this phase, the results from two previous phases are submitted to service analysts to identify the required services that can enhance the situation of IMSRT and increase user
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satisfaction. After analyzing the detailed situations of two previous phases, the following services were identified for IMSRT: 1.
Event service
2.
Scholarship service
3.
Post-graduate research service
4.
Library service
The candidate services are in response to students needs which can increase the user satisfaction towards educational systems and reduce brain drain phenomena. These services will enhance the situation of IMSRT and related universities and provide easy access to information for international students that can be resulted in attracting more international students to country. Accordingly the increasing number of international students enhances the financial condition of universities and the universities are able to satisfy their staffs by better salary and avoid losing them. In the next step in this phase, the detailed works of each candidate service, name and required interfaces are specified. I.
Event service This service collects and presents up-to-date information of different universities about the future conferences, seminar or workshop and provides a link to related website for online application forms.
II.
Scholarship opportunities This service provides users to search for scholarship opportunities for a specific degree in local universities. The information of this service is provided by different universities and presented by IMSRT.
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III.
Post-graduate research centre This service enables user to search for supervisors or fellows who are working in a specific research area in different universities of Iran. In fact, it makes by-research students or researcher to find supervisors or fellows who work on a specific research area.
IV.
Library service This service connects all the library databases of different universities and presents them to authorized users (current students of these universities), so they can find and access to their required information in libraries of other universities.
For all the identified services, the required information should be taken from different universities’ information systems and then present as web-based information systems on the IMSRT portal. Therefore, the portal of IMSRT is used as interface to present the services.
Providing the detailed specifications of the services such as security, protocols, quality, constraints and other technical parts are the responsibilities of software engineers and it is not included in the scope of this dissertation.
5.4.4 Technical Analysis
After identifying the required services and related information, these services should be examined to determine the possibility of implementing them. Moreover, the required information systems or legacy systems modules which are used in realizing each service are clarified. Security, monitoring and management of services are some important parts that are analyzed and decided in this phase. The software engineers’ team is responsible for 76
conducting this phase to determine which services can be implemented and what information systems, modules, infrastructure and technology are required. In this case study, it is assumed that the library service cannot be implemented because of the some policies of universities such as restrictions imposed on accessing resources. However, the technical requirements of other services are realized and they can be implemented.
The required information systems or legacy systems for each of the realized services are as following: Conference, workshop and seminar notification service 1. The events information systems of all universities Scholarship opportunities 2. The scholarship information systems of all universities Post-graduate research centre 3. The human resource systems of all the universities
5.4.5 Technical Design
In this phase the three main entities of SOA should be recognized: Service providers which provide a service interface or software modules Service broker that acts as a repository and publish the services which are provided by service providers Service requester that requests for a service and invoke software services Figure 5-1 shows these three entities in this case study:
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Service Broker IMSRT Request/Find
Clients
Publish
Bind
Universities Service Providers
Service Requester
Figure 5-1 Main entities of SOA
Web Services Description Language (WSDL) standard is used for describing the services. Service requesters (students and staffs) communicate with service providers (universities) by messages defined through XML/XSD. IMSRT maintains services as a registry and uses UDDI standards for registering and searching services. Quality of services (QoS) associated with each service are security necessities, such as authentication and authorization, trustworthy messaging, and the policies about service requesters who can request services that should be decided in this phase. 5.4.6 System Development and Implementation
These services should be developed and implemented on the main portal of IMSRT. However, in this case study, a sample website is developed to present a prototype of the services for users.
In this stage, each service is developed by different development team and then the final services are presented on the website. The XP methodology is proposed to use for managing the development process among different development teams.
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The aim of this case study is to show the proposed methodology in action; however, development of real SOIS is a big project that needs many specialists and experts in different fields of work. Therefore, development and implementation of the realized services in this case study is out of the scope of this dissertation and only a prototype of proposed services is implemented. The details of prototype development is discussed in next the chapter.
5.4.7 System Testing
The unit test, integration, runtime, performance and acceptance test are performed on each component of the final system and if there is any problem in any part, all of the connected component should be tested again. It is suggested to use some testing tools for conducting test on the final system to avoid the difficulties in this step.
Organized attempt from all service providers (universities) is required to assure the availability of the services (Lee et al., 2006). WS-I Basic Profile is an efficient tool for service testing and interoperability which can be used by service providers to test interoperability of a service's across different platforms and technologies.
5.4.8 Management and Maintenance
IMSRT is a big organization which includes many universities, institutes, students and staffs. The changing requirements of all of these parts make IMSRT responsible to be able to respond in order to improve performance and keep the clients satisfied. After developing a service oriented information system, the work is not completely done; in fact, IMSRT should also ensure the security and performance of these services. Therefore, a powerful
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tool to manage and support these services is essential. In this case study it is suggested to use AmberPoint's SOA Management System as management tools to monitor and manage security, performance and service network. However in different project different tools can be applied based on the requirements of the system.
5.5
Conclusions
In this chapter, the proposed methodology for developing SOIS was applied in a case study of IMSRT and some services have been identified as results of applying this methodology. It is believed that by applying this methodology in organizations, the required services that can help organizations to achieve their objectives and enhance their performance is recognized and developed.
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CHAPTER 6 : PROTOTYPE DEVELOPMENT
6.1.
Introduction
In this chapter the prototype of final system which was realized in the previous chapter is developed and the required technology and methodology are described. The final system is a website to present the identified services and is developed using Web Site Development Method (WSDM). The steps taken in WSDM are described in this chapter.
6.2.
System Analysis and Design
The analysis of the organization situation, policies, objectives and realizing the required services was studied in chapter five. Nevertheless, a summary of the results is covered in this chapter and then different elements of design will be specified.
“Systems design is the process or art of defining the architecture, components, modules, interfaces, and data for a system to satisfy specified requirements” (Wikipedia). Accordingly, the details of the computer-based solution are specified in this step.
6.2.1 System Overview
The system is supposed to provide three services for users to access different information on the portal of ministry of higher education of Iran (IMSRT). Users should register in system and then the authorized users can access to the services. These services are supposed to be accessible for students and staffs but the access level is different for current
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students and staffs and potential students. The details of the accessibility will be discussed in audience modeling of the development methodology.
6.2.2 System Objectives
It is believed that the realized system can benefit students and staffs by providing necessary information from different sources in one web site. For example, post-graduate students who are searching for a PhD position in a specific field of study can use the research service to search for supervisors or academic staffs in different universities in Iran. Therefore, they do not need to search for this information on different universities’ portals. In fact all of the required information are provided by different universities and is presented on IMSRT portal.
6.2.3 System Scope
This service-oriented information system targets all the students and staffs in different universities of Iran and potential students (local and/or international) who are planning to study in Iran and enable them to have access to a complete source of integrated information on IMSRT portal. The provided services on this portal are:
I.
Event service
Different universities and institutes provide the latest information about the future conferences; seminars or workshop and the portal of IMSRT present this information as Event service to users.
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II.
Scholarship opportunities
This service provides a search engine for users, so that they can find scholarship opportunities in a specific field in local universities. This service is also provided by different universities and presented by IMSRT.
III.
Post-graduate research centre
This service enables user to search for a supervisor for master or PhD position who is working on a specific research area.
6.2.4 Software, Hardware and Technology Consideration
Different technology and software are used to develop the prototype of the system. Open source software is selected because they can be easily downloaded from internet. The database technology, programming language, web development tools and also the graphic design tool that is used in development process will be described in this section.
1.
Database Technology
MYSQL is the database technology which is used for the system development in this project. Some features of MYSQL such as being a free, fast, updated and reliable open source database make it a good choice for keeping the database engine of system fast and reliable.
2.
Programming Languages
I.
PHP Programming Language
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PHP is a general-purpose scripting language used widely in web development where PHP codes embedded into HTML and runs on a web server. It is open source programming language which can be used on most of the web servers (apache, IIS, Iplanet, nsapi, MS, zeus, fhttp), operating system and platforms and is compatible with many databases (mysql, oracle, msql, ODBC, postgresql, Sybase, Informix). These advantages of PHP make it a good programming language to be used in system development for this dissertation.
II.
Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML)
HTML is the superior markup language for web pages that can include embedded scripting language code such as JavaScript or VBScript.
III.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used to characterize the format (e.g. fonts, colors, and layout) of HTML, XHTML or XML web pages.
IV.
JavaScript
JavaScript is an imperative and structured programming language that is used in developing this portal to make website more attractive and interactive. It is a scripting language which used widely in client-side development.
3.
Web Development Tool
Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 is one of the best and powerful web development tools that is easy to use and can support CSS, FTP, XHTML, XML, ASP, PHP, and SQL
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with code libraries and color coding. These properties make it a suitable web development tool for creating this portal.
4.
Graphic Design Tool
Adobe Photoshop is a powerful graphic editing program that is used here for creating or editing some images of website.
6.2.5 Project Selection
IMSRT was selected as the target for case study in this dissertation because the author has been studied and lived in Iran for many years and is completely familiar with the situation and policies of IMSRT. Moreover, the information about this organization such as current situation, existing systems and required systems are accessible through its portal (Iran’s Ministry of Science, Research and Technology).
6.2.6 System Development
As it was mentioned earlier in chapter three, Web Site Development Method was selected for the development of the prototype. Although the eight steps SOIS methodology is proposed for developing SOIS in organizations, in this dissertation the final system is not SOIS, but it is a prototype. As a result, SOIS methodology was only applied in case study to analyze the situation of organization and identify the required services and information systems. Then the prototype which is a web site offering identified services to users are developed using Web Site Development Method (WSDM). The following are the steps of WSDM:
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1.
Specification of Mission Statement
The purpose of developing this web site is to provide some services for students. Each of these services delivers some information about a specific subject which is provided by different universities and research institutes. 2.
Audience Modeling
The users would be the students and staffs of universities and institutes. However it is possible for potential students to register to the system, but they can only access to the research and scholarship services, and the events service is only accessible for current students and staffs of universities. The language of the websites is English and it is supposed that the users of the websites are familiar with English language and they have sufficient experience in using websites. The Figure 6-1 shows the classification of users in this case study:
User
Registered user
Current Students & Staffs
Unregistered user
Potential Students
Figure 6-1 Audience Classification
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The characterization of the functionalities of users based on user class: A. Unregistered users: -
Sign up to the website
-
Visiting some static pages of websites such as home, about and contact
B. Registered users: a visitor who has already signed up to website, which can be either current student and staff of IMSRT or a potential student -
Signing in
-
Password recovery
-
Access to some services based on the registration class
C. Current students and Staffs: -
Signing in
-
Password recovery
-
Access to research Service
-
Access to Event service
-
Access to Scholarship service
D. Potential Students: -
Signing in
-
Password recovery
-
Access to Research service
-
Access to Scholarship service
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3.
Conceptual Design
The aim of conceptual design is to focus on conceptual “what” which is covered in information modeling and conceptual “how” covered in navigation design. It consists of three sub-phases which the order of using them is not important, but each step should be completed before moving to the next step (Troyer and Casteleyn, 2001a). Task Modeling In task modeling, it is intended to model the information and functional requirements of different user classes. First of all, a task is defined for each of the requirements and then it provides additional details as elementary task (Troyer and Casteleyn, 2001a). The CounterTaskTrees (CTT) are used as the notation for describing the user activities (Paterno et al., 1997; Paterno, 2000) because it has an easy graphical notation and it is appropriate for the web design (Troyer and Casteleyn, 2001a). The type of tasks and their graphical presentation are as following: Application Task is performed by an application to provide information for users. Interaction Task is carried out by users in interaction with system, for example entering username and password for login. Abstract Task is consisted of complex activities and needs to be decomposed into some sub tasks. The symbols used to represent the tasks are shown in Figure 6-2.
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Figure 6-2 Type of tasks (Paterno et al., 1997; Paterno, 2000)
The following operators are used to show the relationship among tasks (Troyer and Casteleyn, 2001a).
Order independent (T1 |=| T2): The orders of performed tasks are not important and they can be done in any order. Choice (T1 [] T2): Only one task should be chosen and performed Concurrent (T1 ||| T2): The two tasks can be performed at the same time Concurrent with information exchange (T1 |[]| T2): The two tasks can be performed at the same time , However, they should be synchronized to exchange information. Deactivation (T1 [> T2): when the second task is started, the first task should be deactivated. Enabling (T1 >> T2): when T2 is terminated, T1 is enabled Enabling with information exchange (T1 []>> T2): T1 is terminated and provide information for T2 which is started. Suspend-resume (T1 |> T2): T1 can be interrupted to execute T2 and when T2 is completed, T1 can be reactivated from the previous state Iteration (T*): the task can be done over and over again. Finite iteration (T(n)): if T should be repeated a fixed number of times (number known beforehand). Optional ([T]): Performing T is optional 89
Recursion: the sub tree that models a task encloses the task itself, so executing the task is recursive. Transaction ( -> T >
[] Password recovery
Login
Provide information for
Process registration
[]>> []>> Provide Email and password
Check email and pass and determine user class
Check email & send passwords to verified email
Provide Email
Figure 6-3 Login task modeling
Using services
Select a service
|>
Check login
[]>> Provide login Information
[]> []> > > Provide requiredContact service Information providers
[]> > Find requested information
Verify login information
Show founded records
Figure 6-4 Service task modeling
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Information modeling
This type of modeling should be done for the websites which deal with structured data. The information requirement of each user class is translated to “Information Chunk” which is a small conceptual schema that depicts the information required for performing a single information requirement (Troyer and Casteleyn, 2001b). In this website, service providers (universities) provides some services which are published by a service broker (IMSRT), so when users (Students and staffs) want to use a service, they bind service providers to provide requested services and then they find the required services on service broker. Figure 6-5 illustrates the information modeling of the websites.
n
User
find/ found by
1
Service Broker
1
1
Bind/ Bound by
publish/ published by
n n Service Provider
1
Provides/ Provided by
n service
Figure 6-5 Information modeling of the web site
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Navigation Design The conceptual structure of the web site is depicted in this step and the navigation for each user class is modeled as a navigation track. Then all of these navigation tracks form the navigation model of the websites (Troyer and Casteleyn, 2001b).
In this website, the users are either registered or unregistered. The registered users provide the login information which is checked for validity and determination of user class. If the login information is correct, then the user is navigated to services page and can use services based on the registration class. The registered users can also recover their password by going to password recovery page. Unregistered users require signing up successfully in order to sign in to system and use the provided services. Figure 6-6 shows the navigation design of the websites for users.
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Home
C1: successful registration Sign up
Unregistered user
Registered user C2: Unsuccessful registration
Password recovery
C4: Invalid login
Sign out
Services Page
C3: Valid login
Sign in
Check login *email, *pass
C5: Sing out
Check the validity of email and pass and determine the User Class
Figure 6-6 Navigation design
4.
Implementation Design
Structure of the web site
In the first page of the website (home page), the users will be asked to sign in to use the provided services, however, unregistered users cannot access to services page and can only visit home, about and contact pages. Unregistered users are navigated from home page to registering page to sign up and then they can login to system and use the services.
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About, contact and home are three pages which are accessible from all the pages in website but in order to keep the figure simple, they are not shown. A simple view of website structure is shown in Figure 6-7
Home
About
Contact
Sign in
Pass Recovery
Sign up
All Services Scholarship Service
Research Service
All services
All services Event Service
All services
Figure 6-7 The web site structure
Interface Design
An appropriate interface enables user to find their required information faster and easier. The selected colors, accessibility of information, flexibility and graphic design are the most important factors in designing the user interface. In this system, more attention was paid to the graphic, colors, consistency and simplicity in finding services. The graphic of template should not interfere fast loading of the pages, therefore a simple design must be selected. In the following sections the interface of different pages of the developed website are shown.
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A.
Home page
Home page is the start page of the website and users can be navigated through home page’s links. Home, about, and Contact pages are three pages which are accessible from every page in this website. In Home page, users are asked for the email and password to login to websites. There are two other links in home page, the first one for the members who has forgotten their password and the second one is a link to registration page for new users. Figure 6-8 shows the interface of Home Page.
Figure 6-8 Home Page
B.
Registration page
In this page, new users are asked for some information such as name, last name, email address, password and whether they are studying in Iran to distinguish between current and potential students (Figure 6-9). 96
Figure 6-9 Registration page
Figure 6-10 Services page
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C.
Services page
After login to website, the user is conducted to services page. In services page, three different services are offered to user and user can select one of these services. However, the potential students cannot use the Event services and it is only accessible for current students (Figure 6-10) D.
About Page
This page consists of some information about the website (Figure 6-11) E.
Contact Page
This page present email address, contact number and address of the researchers, so that the ones who are interested in the subject of the project can contact her (Figure 6-12).
Figure 6-11 About page
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Figure 6-12 Contact page Input Design and Control
A.
Registration
It is necessary to fill up all of the required fields which are indicated by red stars otherwise an error will be occurred and ask user to fill up all the required fields (Figure 6-13).
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Figure 6-13 Registration
Figure 6-14 Successful registration After registration is completed, users’ account will be activated by admin and then user can access to the provided services in website (Figure 6-14) 100
B.
Sign in
In order to use services users will be asked for email and password to login into website. After email and passwords are entered to the system verification is performed, the user can navigate to services page to use the desired services. The classification of users is recognized when they enter their email and address. The current students and staffs are able to use all the services but the potential students are only able to use the Scholarship and Research Services (Figure 6-15)
Figure 6-15 Sign in C.
Password Recovery
When users forget their password they can recover the password through the “forgot your password node?” and they are asked to key in their email address. Then the password will be sent to their email address (Figure 6-16).
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Figure 6-16 Password recovery D.
Using Services Research Service
The users will be asked for the field of research and they can also select the desired university and faculty (Figure 6-17). Then, a list of academic staffs who are working on the same field will be shown in a table with their related cities, universities, faculties and emails. Therefore, users can find their required information (Figure 6-18)
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Figure 6-17 Research service
Figure 6-18 Research results
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Events Service Event Service informs users about the last conferences, seminars or workshops in different universities about a specific topic. Event, city and topic are the three fields that are asked users to be filled up (Figure 6-19).
Figure 6-19 Event service For example, a user is looking for conferences, seminar or workshop on information systems in any universities or cities. So the field of event and city are remained on the default setting (All) and user needs only fill up the topic, which is “information systems” in this example. The dates, universities, cities, topic and type of event are shown in a table and the topic field is linked to the main page of event, so that users can navigate to the event websites for more information or fill up application forms (Figure 6-20). If no record found for the search, user will be notified by a message.
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Figure 6-20 Event search results Scholarship Service This service provides the latest information about the universities which offer scholarship for different degree (Figure 6-21). The user is asked for the desired degree, university and faculty, and then results will be shown in a table consisting of university name, faculty, field of study and the semester in which the scholarship will be offered (Figure 6-22). If there were not any records for the search then the user will be informed by a message.
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Figure 6-21 Scholarship service
Figure 6-22 Scholarship service results
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Data base Design This system provides three different services for the users who already registered. The database which holding the required data consist of four table as following: 1.
User: This table stores the information of the registered users such as login details, contact information.
2.
Research: This table contains the collected information about different academic staffs from Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) of all the universities in Iran.
3.
Events: This table collects and updates the last information about the date, place, and subject of the seminars, conferences or workshops in different universities. The information systems of universities provide the required information for this table.
4.
Scholarship: This table collects data about any scholarship which are offered in different universities for different degree and semesters.
It is obvious that the infrastructure of services in real implementation is different from this prototype. Table 6-1 represents the details of the database tables.
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Table 6-1 Database design
PK
PK
Fields Data type ID Int(11) Firstname Varchar(16) Lastname Varchar(16) University Varchar(16) Email Varchar(128) Pass varchar(128) Current student Set (a)User info. Fields Data type ID Int(11) Supervisor Varchar(16) University Set City Varchar(16) Research_area Varchar(128) Email Varchar(128) Faculty set (c)Service2: research
PK
Fields Data type ID Int(11) State Set University Varchar(16) Event Set Date Date Topic Varchar(16) (b)Service1: Event
PK
Fields Id Degree University Faculty Field Semester
Data type Int(11) Set Set Set Varchar(16) year
(d)Service3: scholarship
(a) user info. (b) service 1, event (c) service 2, research (d) service 3, scholarship
The database was designed in MYSQL management database system which is open source software and can easily be downloaded from internet. The implementation part was done in PHPMyAdmin which is a web based interface for interacting with MYSQL based on PHP code.
5.
Implementation
After finalizing the design of structure, database and interface, the implementation process is started to complete the website. In this phase, the actual implementation design is converted into a set of code. PHP and JavaScript programming language together with SQL queries is used to develop the functions required to deliver services. All the required technology and software used in developing this web site were already described in section 6.2.4. 108
The final developed web based SOIS for IMSRT is implemented on a .net platform. The administrator of the website is responsible for activation of user accounts to let them use the provided services on the portal. Management of services, monitoring the security, runtime and service-level monitoring are also other responsibilities of administrator.
6.3.
System Testing
In this section the final system is tested. The functions which need to be tested are shown in Table 6-2. The system testing is divided into unit testing and usability testing.
Table 6-2 System testing functions No.
Functions
Required Test
1
Login
1. 2. 3.
Username or password is empty User name or password incorrect Query Injection attack
2
Registration
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Uncompleted required fields Username already exists Password confirmation and password doesn’t match Query injection attack Email invalid
3
Password recovery
1. 2. 3.
Email is not valid ID is not valid Unsuccessful delivery
4
Supervisor Service
1. 2. 3.
unfilled required fields user has not logged in system Query Injection attack
5
Event Service
1. 2. 3.
unfilled required fields user has not logged in system Query Injection attack
6
Registration Service
1. 2. 3.
unfilled required fields user has not logged in system Query Injection attack
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6.3.1 Unit Testing
In this section each of the functions and units in this system will be tested by different inputs to verify the correctness of these functions. Any probable error should be fixed and tested until there is not any error in the final system. Table 6-3 shows the tested units.
Table 6-3 Unit testing Unit name: Sign in No Test 1 Username or password empty 2 User name or password incorrect 3 Query Injection attack Unit name: Registration No Test 1 Uncompleted required fields 2 Username exists 3 Password confirmation 5 Query injection attack 6 invalid Email address Unit name: Research Service No Test 1 Unfilled required fields 2 User has not logged to system 3 Query injection attack Unit name: Event Service No Test 1 Unfilled required fields 2 User has not logged to system 3 Query injection attack Unit name: Scholarship Service No Test 1 Unfilled required fields 2 User has not logged to system 3 Query injection attack Unit name: Password recovery No Test 1 Email is not valid 2 ID is not valid 3 Unsuccessful delivery
Anticipated Results Error: Invalid ID or password please try again Error: Invalid ID or password please try again Secure
Result ok ok ok
Anticipated Results Error: fill all the required fields Error: the user name has already existed Error: passwords are not matched Secure Error: enter a valid email address
Result ok ok ok ok ok
Anticipated Results Error: fill all the required fields Redirect to login page Secure
Result ok ok ok
Anticipated Results Error: fill all the required fields Redirect to login page Secure
Result ok ok ok
Anticipated Results Error: fill all the required fields Redirect to login page Secure
Result ok ok ok
Anticipated Results Error: enter a valid email address Error: enter correct ID No report
Result ok ok ok
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6.3.2 Usability testing
In the last step of system testing, the user testing is conducted to confirm the final system meets the user requirements. There are different kinds of human-computer interaction (HCI) usability testing techniques in the literature which have been tried and tested for investigation of interface design issues. Although they are mainly applied to Graphic User Interfaces (GUI), they have all been focused more on the in-depth interface design issues and concentrate on the unique difficulties of evaluating Application Programming Interface (API) designs (Beaton et.al, 2008). Unique and different API design concerns of SOA systems, such as service design, service functionality and timing of task completion (speed of service), require different usability testing techniques from the existing ones. Therefore, it is decided to conduct the usability testing using a questionnaire form to investigate the main issues of the developed SOIS. For this purpose, the following questionnaire was designed to assess the idea of users regarding to different aspects of system that should be filled in by the user who already registered to system and used the services. The final users of this system would be Iranian or any international students or researchers who are looking for some information in different universities of Iran. However, in this dissertation the questionnaires were filled in by almost fifty Iranian students who are studying in UM and the feedbacks were analyzed to verify the usability of the final system. Table 6-4 is the questionnaire used in this case study. The user feedbacks show that most of them are satisfied with the websites and offering services and it is a useful website for them to get their required information. The design of user interface, speed of services, and functionalities of all the services are acceptable.
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Table 6-4 Usability testing No. 1
Question How do you evaluate the login process? Very satisfying 1 2 3 4 Very dissatisfying
2
How do you evaluate the information required by each service? Very satisfying 1 2 3 4 Very dissatisfying
3
How do you evaluate finding required services? Very difficult 1 2 3 4 Very easy
4
How do you evaluate the suitability of provided services? Very suitable 1 2 3 4 Very unsuitable
5
How do you evaluate the process of password recovery? Very satisfying 1 2 3 4 Very dissatisfying
6
How do you evaluate the process of registration? Very satisfying 1 2 3 4 Very dissatisfying
7
How do you evaluate the speed of processing information? a. Very fast b. fast d. average e. slow f. very slow
8
How do you evaluate the speed of loading the website? a. Very fast b. fast d. average e. slow f. very slow
9
The usage of user interface is a. hard to use b. Ordinary
d. easy to use
10
The overall design and layout of website is a. very attractive b. Ordinary d. unattractive
11
The services provide relevant and proper information a. Totally disagree b. Disagree c. Agree Totally agree
d.
Each page have the proper amount of information a. Totally disagree b. Disagree c. Agree Totally agree
d.
12
Feedback 1 76 % 2 20 % 3 4% 4 0% 1 32 % 2 54 % 3 10 % 4 4% 1 0% 2 6% 3 12 % 4 82 % 1 22 % 2 66 % 3 8% 4 6% 1 74 % 2 12 % 3 10 % 4 4% 1 48 % 2 30 % 3 18% 4 4% a. 44 % b. 34% c. 12% d. 8 % e. 2 % a. 56% b. 26% c. 14% d. 4 % e. 0 % a. 4% b. 12% c. 84% a. 8% b. 22% c. 70% a. 2% b. 10% c. 36% d. 52 % a 6% b. 14% c. 38% d. 42 %
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6.4.
Conclusion
In this chapter the details of the development, implementation, and testing of prototype as well as the technology and tools used in development were explained. The prototype presents the overview of providing services for users via different information systems. In design and development section, the design of database tables, web site layout, web pages design and developed services were presented. Then the unit testing and usability testing were carried out to assess system and acceptable results were achieved
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CHAPTER 7 : RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
7.1
Introduction
In this chapter the results of the eight steps SOIS methodology, its application in a case study, the key findings related to research questions and literature are discussed. Moreover, the limitation and future of the research is discussed and some recommendation for improving the methodology is provided.
7.2
Results of Research
The main goal of this study was to define and propose a methodology for Service Oriented Information Systems (SOIS). Therefore, the researcher defined SOIS and proposed a methodology based on related literatures. Then, the methodology was applied into a case study to determine its feasibility. The final results achieved from case study were satisfactory and the final systems worked properly.
7.3
Discussion of Results
Based on the literature, most of the researches in the field of service-orientation focused on the technical challenges of using SOA in organizations and only a few studies have been carried out on the organizational issues. Therefore researcher tried to bring all aspects of technical, social and organizational issues together in a methodology to enables organizations to use SOA in information systems in order to develop SOIS.
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In order to analyze the usefulness of the methodology, a comparison between the identified services from case study and available services in the market is provided. Based on the organizational analysis (5.4.1), the following services are currently provided by IMSRT for students: 1. Complaint service 2. Visa application for international students 3. Research opportunities abroad 4. Scholarship extension 5. International student intake 6. IELTS registration The services which were proposed for the IMSRT after adopting SOIS methodology are: Event Services Scholarship Service Research Service By comparing the new and existing services, it is obvious that the scholarship and research services are complementary services for the two existing services (3 & 4). By providing these two services, a researcher can easily search for the research opportunities whether in Iran or abroad and a student can either find scholarship or extend his/hers easily. Event service, which is totally a new service, provides the latest news about the future conferences, workshops and seminars for all the students and academic staffs. It is also important to analyze the usefulness of the identified services with the SWOT analysis of the organization (5.4.1). According to the results from SWOT analysis, one of the weaknesses of IMSRT is the lack of integrated IT infrastructure among all the universities. It is clear that providing these three services enables integration among different universities and IMSRT. Moreover, easy access to the required information with some simple search can attract more students and researchers, which is one of the IMSRT’s
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opportunities, and it will potentially decrease brain drain phenomena and loosing professional academic staffs (Threats). Therefore, it can be concluded that the methodology was successful in the case study for identifying the required services. Required and useful information can be accessed during two first steps of the methodology and help the system analysts, managers and service analysts to decide about the services and after that the technical work will be done step by step in the methodology. Finally the management and maintenance of the developed system will be conducted using proposed tools and techniques. This methodology is useful for organizations to use the benefits of SOA technology in their information systems to react to customer’s requirements fast and effectively. In this dissertation, it was tried to delineate a methodology for the development of SOIS and assess its usefulness in a case study. Considering the big scope of the dissertation, a team of professional system analysts, managers and software experts is required to conduct a better assessment of the usefulness of the methodology in a real world situation.
7.4
Accomplishment of Research Objectives
The following objectives which were the main aims of this research were successfully accomplished. A summary of the results of each objective are described below:
Investigation of the benefits of Service-Oriented Information System (SOIS)
The term of SOIS referred to service-based systems which are built based on the existing information systems or legacy systems within an organization to promote the performance of business and organization by providing streamlined and convenient services. These
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systems offering services are aimed to be developed using SOA standard and web services technology with no changes in the infrastructure of current information systems. The most important advantage of SOIS is developing services using the modules of existing information systems with no changes in their infrastructures. This characteristic of SOIS enables organizations to be agile in response to users’ requirements and future changes. Some other advantages of the SOIS reviewed in literature and mentioned in chapter four are: 1.
Automation of business operations
2.
Reducing the integration costs
3.
Increasing asset reuse
4.
Increasing business agility
5.
Reducing business risks
Studying a Methodology for development of SOIS
The eight steps SOIS methodology which covers both technical and organizational aspects of developing SOIS was proposed in this study and the summary of the phases are as following: 1.
Organizational Analysis
2.
Information Requirements Analysis
3.
Service Analysis
4.
Technical Analysis
5.
Technical Design
6.
System Development and Implementation
7.
System Testing
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8.
Management and Maintenance
Application of SOIS methodology in a case study
Ministry of Higher Education of Iran (IMSRT) was selected as the case study in this work. All the phases of the methodology were applied in the case and finally some services were identified to be developed using different information systems. The realized services enable IMSRT to build some strength and improve its position. The developed prototype of final system offers students some services on a website and makes it easy for them to find their desired information in one portal.
7.5
Limitation of Research
This methodology was proposed based on some theoretical research and it was impossible for the author to practically test the methodology in an organization without the help of professional team of experts. Therefore, it was only applied in a case study with some assumptions based on: The information on the portal of ministry of higher education of Iran (IMSRT website) Observation and experience of author from living and studying in Iran
Moreover, the service-orientation is a very technical concept that needs to be fully analyzed by the help of software engineers. In this research, the author tried to understand the technical part of concept by studying the articles and reports. Therefore, it is suggested to revise the technical parts of the methodology and apply it in an organization with the help
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of a professional team of experts in different fields of software engineering, system analysts and network specialist in order to verify its feasibility.
7.6
Conclusion
In this chapter the results of the research were reviewed and discussed. The defined objectives of the research were achieved. However, it is suggested to conduct more study on the methodology and evaluate its validity in a practical project.
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CHAPTER 8 : CONCLUSION
8.1
Introduction
In this chapter a summary of the study and related findings are described. Then, some recommendations for improving the work are suggested.
8.2
Research Findings
The findings of this research is related to the objectives defined in chapter one which all of them were fully achieved. Firstly, Service Oriented Information System (SOIS) was defined as service-based system which is offering some services and is built based on the existing information systems using SOA and web services technologies. Building these services on existing information systems infrastructure with no changes, is the main advantage of SOIS that enable organization to automate their business operations, reduce the expenses for integration and enhance the ability of the organization to respond to customers faster.
In order to develop SOIS in organizations a suitable methodology which covers different aspects of works was required to avoid any possible problems during development, so the main focus of this work was to design such methodology. The proposed methodology is consisted of eight phases which are listed below: (Figure 4-3 illustrate a diagram of the methodology) 1.
Organizational Analysis
2.
Information Requirements Analysis 120
3.
Service Analysis
4.
Technical Analysis
5.
Technical Design
6.
System Development and Implementation
7.
System Testing
8.
Management and Maintenance
The Ministry of Higher Education of Iran (IMSRT) was selected as case study to apply methodology and consequently required system was identified and a prototype of it was developed. It is believed that the developed SOIS enables IMSRT to build some strength and improve its position. The aim of the final system is to offer students some services that provide different information from different sources on a portal. The system worked properly and the users found it a suitable website.
8.3
Recommendation
The importance of SOIS in improving the performance of business makes it necessary to design a methodology that enables organization to develop SOIS. In this study, eight steps SOIS methodology was proposed based on the reviewing literature and investigation of some related works. However, the methodology is mostly theoretical and based on the knowledge of author and needs to be improved by testing in a real project and by the help of experts. Therefore, it is recommended to revise the methodology in a team of software engineers, system analysts and network specialist to increase its quality and effectiveness.
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8.4
Conclusion
This research was aimed to suggest a methodology for developing service oriented information system. The specification of SOA in enabling organization to offer services to their clients without changing the infrastructure of existing systems make many organizations to start applying SOA to enhance their performance, provide faster response to changing environment and reducing overall costs. However, applying SOA without a methodology to consider different aspects of the work is a big risk for organization. Therefore, the researcher aimed to use this standard in traditional information systems to define the concept of SOIS and propose a methodology for developing it in organizations. In respect to these targets the relevant literature about service, SOA and its benefits, web services and application of SOA in information systems were reviewed. Then, SOIS was defined and eight steps SOIS methodology was proposed and applied in a case study. The result of the case study was a web-base information system which provides services for students to facilitate finding information from different resources and reduce the searching time for users.
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