Quality-aware model-driven service engineering

Service engineering and service-oriented architecture as an integration and platform technology is a recent approach to software systems integration. Quality aspects ranging from interoperability to maintainability to performance are of central importance for the integration of heterogeneous, distributed service-based systems. Architecture models can substantially influence quality attributes of the implemented software systems. Besides the benefits of explicit architectures on maintainability and reuse, architectural constraints such as styles, reference architectures and architectural patterns can influence observable software properties such as performance. Empirical performance evaluation is a process of measuring and evaluating the performance of implemented software. We present an approach for addressing the quality of services and service-based systems at the model-level in the context of model-driven service engineering. The focus on architecture-level models is a consequence of the black-box character of services

Integrating Enterprise System’s 3rd Wave Into IS Curriculum

This paper covers our observations that while enterprise systems are in their 4th Wave, current enterprise systems courses mainly cover the skills requirement up to the 2nd Wave. In this paper, we present our experience in developing an elective course (to address the 3rd Wave enterprise systems skills and knowledge) within the BSc Information Systems Management curriculum. This include the learning objectives and competencies, curriculum context, course structure, lab content, assessments, student evaluation and industry feedback

ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks: a literature review

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a complex and vibrant process, one that involves a combination of technological and organizational interactions. Often an ERP implementation project is the single largest IT project that an organization has ever launched and requires a mutual fit of system and organization. Also the concept of an ERP implementation supporting business processes across many different departments is not a generic, rigid and uniform concept and depends on variety of factors. As a result, the issues addressing the ERP implementation process have been one of the major concerns in industry. Therefore ERP implementation receives attention from practitioners and scholars and both, business as well as academic literature is abundant and not always very conclusive or coherent. However, research on ERP systems so far has been mainly focused on diffusion, use and impact issues. Less attention has been given to the methods used during the configuration and the implementation of ERP systems, even though they are commonly used in practice, they still remain largely unexplored and undocumented in Information Systems research. So, the academic relevance of this research is the contribution to the existing body of scientific knowledge. An annotated brief literature review is done in order to evaluate the current state of the existing academic literature. The purpose is to present a systematic overview of relevant ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks as a desire for achieving a better taxonomy of ERP implementation methodologies. This paper is useful to researchers who are interested in ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Results will serve as an input for a classification of the existing ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Also, this paper aims also at the professional ERP community involved in the process of ERP implementation by promoting a better understanding of ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks, its variety and history

Technical factors for implementing SOA-Based business intelligence architecture : an exploratory study

Business intelligence (BI) architecture based on service-oriented architecture (SOA) concept enables enterprises to deploy agile and reliable BI applications. However, the key factors for implementing a SOA-based BI architecture from technical perspectives have not yet been systematically investigated. Most of the prior studies focus on organisational and managerial perspectives rather than technical factors. Therefore, this study explores the key technical factors that are most likely to have an impact on the implementation of a SOA-based BI architecture. This paper presents a conceptual model of BI architecture built on SOA concept. Drawing on academic and practitioner literature related to SOA and software architectural design, we propose fourteen key factors that may influence the implementation of a SOA-based BI architecture. This study bridges the gap between academic and practitioners.<br /

A compositional method for reliability analysis of workflows affected by multiple failure modes

We focus on reliability analysis for systems designed as workflow based compositions of components. Components are characterized by their failure profiles, which take into account possible multiple failure modes. A compositional calculus is provided to evaluate the failure profile of a composite system, given failure profiles of the components. The calculus is described as a syntax-driven procedure that synthesizes a workflows failure profile. The method is viewed as a design-time aid that can help software engineers reason about systems reliability in the early stage of development. A simple case study is presented to illustrate the proposed approach

A service oriented architecture to provide data mining services for non-expert data miners

In today's competitive market, companies need to use discovery knowledge techniques to make better, more informed decisions. But these techniques are out of the reach of most users as the knowledge discovery process requires an incredible amount of expertise. Additionally, business intelligence vendors are moving their systems to the cloud in order to provide services which offer companies cost-savings, better performance and faster access to new applications. This work joins both facets. It describes a data mining service addressed to non-expert data miners which can be delivered as Software-as-a-Service. Its main advantage is that by simply indicating where the data file is, the service itself is able to perform all the process. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved