Digital Transformation Integration & API Management Framework

Digital transformation is revolutionizing the way organizations reuse legacy systems and connect them with the ever-increasing number of enterprise applications. These applications are usually hosted in the cloud with the legacy and other systems in the companies’ own data centers. This means that hybrid integration architectures are becoming a crucial part of the day-to-day processes inside organizations. The problem with different platforms is that it produces challenges. The same data is spread across different data structures, with different names and formats. This dissertation, devised with Deloitte, aims to design and implement a hybrid integration framework that connects and reuses the legacy systems with the cloud enterprise applications seamlessly to utilize the same data across all systems. Firstly, the existing integration platforms and integration software that could support the development of the API framework will be presented and described. A set of architectural patterns will be presented and described with their respective advantages and disadvantages and the way they fit in the API framework that will be created. The solution will then be evaluated with the Quantitative Evaluation Framework as well as by using system testing to see if the developed solution has quality.A transformação digital está a revolucionar a maneira como as organizações reutilizam sistemas legacy pré-existentes, e os ligam com aplicações enterprise, que sofreram um aumento significativo nos últimos anos. Estas aplicações estão regularmente hospedadas em plataformas cloud com outros sistemas e os sistemas legacy hospedados em datacenters próprios da empresa. Isto significa que, atualmente, as arquiteturas de integração assumem um papel crucial nos processos de dia-a-dia das organizações. O problema com a utilização de várias plataformas diferentes é que criam desafios ao cliente como a diferença de mapeamentos e de formatos de dados que usam, criando dificuldades em perceber como a mesma informação é armazenada e apresentada nas diferentes plataformas. Esta dissertação, elaborada em contexto empresarial com a Deloitte, tem como objetivo o design e implementação de uma camada de integração híbrida que ligue e reutilize os sistemas legacy nos datacenters do cliente com as aplicações enterprise que o cliente usa de maneira ininterrupta. Primeiramente, as plataformas de integração existentes e software de integração que podem suportar o desenvolvimento da framework de APIs, serão apresentados e descritos. Padrões arquiteturais que possam ser utilizados na framework de integração híbrida serão apresentados e descritos bem como as suas respetivas vantagens e desvantagens. A solução será depois avaliada com a Quantitative Evaluation Framework e com a testagem do sistema para avaliar se o sistema satisfaz os requisitos

Ubiquitous Integration and Temporal Synchronisation (UbilTS) framework : a solution for building complex multimodal data capture and interactive systems

Contemporary Data Capture and Interactive Systems (DCIS) systems are tied in with various technical complexities such as multimodal data types, diverse hardware and software components, time synchronisation issues and distributed deployment configurations. Building these systems is inherently difficult and requires addressing of these complexities before the intended and purposeful functionalities can be attained. The technical issues are often common and similar among diverse applications. This thesis presents the Ubiquitous Integration and Temporal Synchronisation (UbiITS) framework, a generic solution to address the technical complexities in building DCISs. The proposed solution is an abstract software framework that can be extended and customised to any application requirements. UbiITS includes all fundamental software components, techniques, system level layer abstractions and reference architecture as a collection to enable the systematic construction of complex DCISs. This work details four case studies to showcase the versatility and extensibility of UbiITS framework’s functionalities and demonstrate how it was employed to successfully solve a range of technical requirements. In each case UbiITS operated as the core element of each application. Additionally, these case studies are novel systems by themselves in each of their domains. Longstanding technical issues such as flexibly integrating and interoperating multimodal tools, precise time synchronisation, etc., were resolved in each application by employing UbiITS. The framework enabled establishing a functional system infrastructure in these cases, essentially opening up new lines of research in each discipline where these research approaches would not have been possible without the infrastructure provided by the framework. The thesis further presents a sample implementation of the framework on a device firmware exhibiting its capability to be directly implemented on a hardware platform. Summary metrics are also produced to establish the complexity, reusability, extendibility, implementation and maintainability characteristics of the framework.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) grants - EP/F02553X/1, 114433 and 11394

A generic architecture for interactive intelligent tutoring systems

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University, 07/06/2001.This research is focused on developing a generic intelligent architecture for an interactive tutoring system. A review of the literature in the areas of instructional theories, cognitive and social views of learning, intelligent tutoring systems development methodologies, and knowledge representation methods was conducted. As a result, a generic ITS development architecture (GeNisa) has been proposed, which combines the features of knowledge base systems (KBS) with object-oriented methodology. The GeNisa architecture consists of the following components: a tutorial events communication module, which encapsulates the interactive processes and other independent computations between different components; a software design toolkit; and an autonomous knowledge acquisition from a probabilistic knowledge base. A graphical application development environment includes tools to support application development, and learning environments and which use a case scenario as a basis for instruction. The generic architecture is designed to support client-side execution in a Web browser environment, and further testing will show that it can disseminate applications over the World Wide Web. Such an architecture can be adapted to different teaching styles and domains, and reusing instructional materials automatically can reduce the effort of the courseware developer (hence cost and time) in authoring new materials. GeNisa was implemented using Java scripts, and subsequently evaluated at various commercial and academic organisations. Parameters chosen for the evaluation include quality of courseware, relevancy of case scenarios, portability to other platforms, ease of use, content, user-friendliness, screen display, clarity, topic interest, and overall satisfaction with GeNisa. In general, the evaluation focused on the novel characteristics and performances of the GeNisa architecture in comparison with other ITS and the results obtained are discussed and analysed. On the basis of the experience gained during the literature research and GeNisa development and evaluation. a generic methodology for ITS development is proposed as well as the requirements for the further development of ITS tools. Finally, conclusions are drawn and areas for further research are identified

Modeling and analysis of performance of the steering angle sensor development project

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2000.Also available online at the MIT Theses Online homepage .Includes bibliographical references (leaf 83).In the highly competitive automotive industry, OEM and tier-I suppliers face the problem of determining costs and creating accurate and rapid schedules for current and future product developments. Successful companies in this industry are those that are able to forecast and meet important deadlines, satisfy performance requirements and reduce costs to keep development within budget. But frequently one or two factors are achieved at the expense of the others. Sometimes, for example, suppliers are able to cut costs, but only at the expense of quality. Or they can increase quality at expense of costs. Both scenarios are of concern, especially when competitors are attempting to capture market share. Engineers and program managers require powerful techniques to have better estimates of completion time versus expenditures. Unfortunately, though, there are not yet such tools available that are capable of incorporating both dimensions of product quality and cost. Moreover, it would be desirable to incorporate product performance with those two dimensions in order to obtain a broad perspective of the entire design. The main goal of this thesis is the investigation, evaluation and application of the research reported in the Ph.D. thesis "Modeling and Analyzing Cost, Schedule, and Performance in Complex System Product Development" (Browning 1998) in two product platforms of Valeo, Electronics. The two product platforms selected for this purpose were the steering angle sensor (SAS) and the ultrasonic park assist sensor (UPAS). The research for this project was conducted at Valeo, Electronics, located in Bietigheim-Bissingen, Germany. First, data were collected concerning development costs, timing and performance of the steering angle sensor. Second, the software was modified and applied to obtain a joint probability distribution of cost and schedule for this platform. Third, the model was tracked and validated. The tracking of the model was performed within the same platform by running the software at various times. The validation of the model consisted of applying the same methodology for the UPAS and other areas of the SAS. Monte Carlo simulation, optimization, design structure matrices, feedback among activities, and concurrency in product development systems, along with three software tools (Visual Basic, Excel and MATLAB) were used extensively in this work. Finally, the model and the results were presented to the company, with recommendations for future applications.by Miguel A. Hurtado.S.M