Effort Estimation for Service-Oriented Computing Environments

The concept of service in Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) makes possible to introduce other ideas like service composition, governance and virtualization. Each of these ideas, when exercised to an enterprise level, provides benefits in terms of cost and performance. These ideas bring many new opportunities for the project managers in making the estimates of effort required to produce SOA systems. This is because the SOA systems are different from traditional software projects and there is a lack of efficient metrics and models for providing a high level of confidence in effort estimation. Thus, in this paper, an efficient estimation methodology has been presented based on analyzing the development phases of past SOA based software systems. The objective of this paper is twofold: first, to study and analyze the development phases of some past SOA based systems; second, to propose estimation metrics based on these analyzed parameters. The proposed methodology is facilitated from the use of four regression(s) based estimation models. The validation of the proposed methodology is cross checked by comparing the predictive accuracy, using some commonly used performance measurement indicators and box-plots evaluation. The evaluation results of the study (using industrial data collected from 10 SOA based software systems) show that the effort estimates obtained using the multiple linear regression model are more accurate and indicate an improvement in performance than the other used regression models

A Multi-case Analysis of the Development of Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP) Business Practices

The potential of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems to integrate the business functions of any organization has led to its proliferation since the 1990s. Arguably, ERP systems potentially enable an organization to become competitive, and their impact has since been extensively researched and debated. This thesis seeks to understand how ERP vendors have innovated and developed their business practices to ensure their own competitive advantage. The thesis consists of an overview wrapper and five articles. This work is based on a research methodology using case studies to understand the development of business practices in the ERP industry since the 1950s. As such, the thesis explores the journey of different ERP vendors that (1) were influenced by their environment, (2) participate in different structuring processes to develop their business practice; (3) adapt their business practices to produce product/service offerings potentially matching or exceeding the actions of their rivals; and (4) encounter challenges as they shift their business models. The thesis reveals that in order to continue to outlast the competition in a hypercompetitive environment, ERP vendors (1) refine their business practices, over time, through incremental and evolutionary changes impacting the ERP industry; (2) obtain a competitive advantage through the exploitation of core resources; (3) co-create with a partner network to maximize their resources and increase their ability to compete; and (4) realize the value proposition in terms of the business model

Supporting the grow-and-prune model for evolving software product lines

207 p.Software Product Lines (SPLs) aim at supporting the development of a whole family of software products through a systematic reuse of shared assets. To this end, SPL development is separated into two interrelated processes: (1) domain engineering (DE), where the scope and variability of the system is defined and reusable core-assets are developed; and (2) application engineering (AE), where products are derived by selecting core assets and resolving variability. Evolution in SPLs is considered to be more challenging than in traditional systems, as both core-assets and products need to co-evolve. The so-called grow-and-prune model has proven great flexibility to incrementally evolve an SPL by letting the products grow, and later prune the product functionalities deemed useful by refactoring and merging them back to the reusable SPL core-asset base. This Thesis aims at supporting the grow-and-prune model as for initiating and enacting the pruning. Initiating the pruning requires SPL engineers to conduct customization analysis, i.e. analyzing how products have changed the core-assets. Customization analysis aims at identifying interesting product customizations to be ported to the core-asset base. However, existing tools do not fulfill engineers needs to conduct this practice. To address this issue, this Thesis elaborates on the SPL engineers' needs when conducting customization analysis, and proposes a data-warehouse approach to help SPL engineers on the analysis. Once the interesting customizations have been identified, the pruning needs to be enacted. This means that product code needs to be ported to the core-asset realm, while products are upgraded with newer functionalities and bug-fixes available in newer core-asset releases. Herein, synchronizing both parties through sync paths is required. However, the state of-the-art tools are not tailored to SPL sync paths, and this hinders synchronizing core-assets and products. To address this issue, this Thesis proposes to leverage existing Version Control Systems (i.e. git/Github) to provide sync operations as first-class construct

AN ADAPTABILITY-DRIVEN ECONOMIC MODEL FOR SERVICE PROFITABILITY

Ph.DDOCTOR OF PHILOSOPH

Customer requirements based ERP customization using AHP technique

Purpose– Customization is a difficult task for many organizations implementing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. The purpose of this paper is to develop a new framework based on customers’ requirements to examine the ERP customization choices for the enterprise. The analytical hierarchy process (AHP) technique has been applied complementarily with this framework to prioritize ERP customization choices. \ud \ud Design/methodology/approach– Based on empirical literature, the paper proposed an ERP customization framework anchored on the customer's requirements. A case study research method was used to evaluate the applicability of the framework in a real-life setting. In a case study with 15 practitioners working on the vendor's and the client's sides in an ERP implementation, the paper applied the framework jointly with the AHP technique to prioritize the feasible customization choices for ERP implementation. \ud \ud Findings– The paper demonstrates the applicability of the framework in identifying the various feasible choices for the client organization to consider when they decide to customize their selected ERP product. \ud \ud Research limitations/implications– Further case studies need to be carried out in various contexts to acquire knowledge about the generalizability of the observations. This will also contribute to refining the proposed ERP customization framework. \ud \ud Practical implications– Very few literature sources suggest methods for exploring and evaluating customization options in ERP projects from requirements engineering perspective. The proposed framework helps practitioners and consultants anchor the customization decisions on the customer's requirements and use a well-established prioritization technique, AHP, to identify the feasible customization choices for the implementing enterprise. \ud \ud Originality/value– No previously published research studies provide an approach to prioritize customization choices for ERP anchored on the customer's requirements

Transformation Potential of Cloud Computing - Understanding Strategic Value Creation from Customer and Vendor Perspectives.

While Cloud Computing is evolving as a major information technology phenomenon by redefining how IT capabilities are generated and consumed, the business value of this emerging model of IT capabilities delivery is anecdotal. Limited empirical research exists to my knowledge on what and how business value is created from these technologies. My dissertation devises three empirical studies to systematically investigate the business value of cloud computing technologies from the customer and vendor perspectives. In particular, I examine the transformation potential of these technologies in delivering strategic benefits that transcend beyond mere cost advantages often cited in practitioner literature. From the customer perspective, I investigate the strategic benefits these technologies create towards organizational and individual role effectiveness. In one study, I examine at the organizational level if adopting these technologies can be associated with the IT-enabled business innovation of the firms. At the individual role level investigated in another study, I examine the association between cloud computing adoption and the involvement of Chief Information Officers in strategic opportunities related to innovation and new product development. From the vendor perspective, I examine in my third study, the implications of cloud computing architectures for the vendor organizations. I attempt to understand what changes in the technical and organizational functions are needed in the vendor organizations to reorient themselves to create the expected business value and succeed in the cloud computing market. Through these three empirical studies, my dissertation is a systematic attempt to shed light on the strategic business benefits of cloud computing and the enablers of value creation in the cloud-based technology model.PhDBusiness AdministrationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/110393/1/sureshms_1.pd

From Vendors to Customers

Enterprise Systems (ES) are generally considered the price of entry for running a business. With the increased scope of ESs to encompass nearly every function or business process of a modern organization, an increasing number of different users are adopting and using the systems. These users occupy a number of different organizational roles which include a wide variety of different tasks in organizations and have very different requirements for ESs. To ensure a better fit between users and ESs, a number of ES vendors have begun to focus on reflecting the concept of organizational roles of users in their systems. Limited research has, however, addressed these “role-oriented” ESs; this dissertation attempts to provide a better understanding of them by studying their design, implementation, and use. The research design for this dissertation is based on Case Studies and the Grounded Theory Method with qualitative empirical data collected across three types of actors in an ES ecosystem: Vendors; partner companies; and customers. The findings are primarily presented in six appended research papers that are aimed at both researchers and practitioners. The main contribution of the dissertation is an improved understanding of: Representation of organizational roles in the deep and surface structures of ESs; the mapping, configuration, and tailoring of predefined systems roles to fit actual roles of users in organizations; and the potential benefits and role-related misfits of role-oriented ESs. Through discussion of the findings, the dissertation also illustrates how the design of role-oriented ESs is influenced by the different actors in an ecosystem. The dissertation also illustrates how systems, organizations, processes, and roles can be aligned during implementation by shifting basis and conceptual focus in the requirements analysis. Finally, the dissertation explains the impact of roleoriented technology on organizational performance and how this technology may influence the existing perception of the role taking process in organizations

Analysis of on-premise to cloud computing migration strategies for enterprises

Thesis (S.M. in Engineering and Management)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, System Design and Management Program, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 72-73).In recent years offering and maturity in Cloud Computing space has gained significant momentum. CIOs are looking at Cloud seriously because of bottom line savings and scalability advantages. According to Gartner's survey in early 2010 of 1600 CIOs around the world, Cloud computing and virtualization were on top of their list. This interest has also resulted in slew of products and services from existing IT players as well as new comers which promise to offer many solutions to pave the path towards Cloud computing adoption by enterprises. As organizations get on to the Cloud computing bandwagon they are looking at their current IT setup and looking at the best way they can take advantage of what Cloud has to offer. For a given enterprises, getting on to Cloud might be a complete new start from scratch, a limited deployment of new applications or migration of part of existing applications integrating backwards with on-premise applications. To take advantage of the Cloud, enterprise will need to define their short and long term Cloud strategy. They will need to consider factors specific to their businesses and determine their requirements, risks and benefits. Proper investigation by the enterprise will give them insight in to the benefits and specific strategy they need to follow to gain the said benefits from Cloud. This Thesis analyzes specific strategies which enterprises can adopt, both from business and technology perspective to make sure the migration and integration between on-premise and Cloud happens with minimal disruption to business and results in maximum sustainable cost benefit. It presents the current state of On-Premise IT and Cloud Computing space and then compares them to come up with enterprise specific variables based on which one can make Cloud migration decisions. Finally, Thesis presents the broad frameworks for "migration to Cloud" and confirms the same by interviewing enterprise managers involved in Cloud migration. There are various ways to slice and approach the Cloud migration - but all should take in to consideration the business processes, architecture of existing systems, architecture of available Cloud services, interoperability between on-premise and Cloud applications, maturity of Cloud and standards, short and long term cost savings, sustainability, data/security/regulation, user adoption, available Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and business criticality.by Ashok Dhiman.S.M.in Engineering and Managemen

Large Software Implementation Project: A study of software development and project management literature

This study focuses on large scale software delivery, where development is done on top of an existing system or parallel to it. This thesis aims to answer to the question: How to implement a large scale custom solution? Large scale projects take longer than smaller projects to implement and usually they are done in more than in one release. The application’s life-cycle is also planned to last up to decades. Large projects also need special project management skills, executive support, internal investments, strategical vision as well as alignment between IT and business. Large projects are usually complex and have several dependencies. This study also explains what issues projects usually have and what are the constrains of legacy systems and data migration. Different eras of IT systems are also presented as well as reasons why companies should invest to IT solutions. Waterfall model and Agile methodology fundamentals and background are presented shortly. From Agile methodology Scrum and SAFe frameworks are presented as examples. Keywords: Legacy system, Data Migration, Software implementation, project management, COTS, Agile development, Waterfal