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

Integration of decision support systems to improve decision support performance

Decision support system (DSS) is a well-established research and development area. Traditional isolated, stand-alone DSS has been recently facing new challenges. In order to improve the performance of DSS to meet the challenges, research has been actively carried out to develop integrated decision support systems (IDSS). This paper reviews the current research efforts with regard to the development of IDSS. The focus of the paper is on the integration aspect for IDSS through multiple perspectives, and the technologies that support this integration. More than 100 papers and software systems are discussed. Current research efforts and the development status of IDSS are explained, compared and classified. In addition, future trends and challenges in integration are outlined. The paper concludes that by addressing integration, better support will be provided to decision makers, with the expectation of both better decisions and improved decision making processes

An ES process framework for understanding the strategic decision making process of ES implementations

Enterprise systems (ES) implementations are regarded costly, time and resource consuming and have a great impact on the organization in terms of the risks they involve and the opportunities they provide. The steering committee (SC) represents the group of individuals who is responsible for making strategic decisions throughout the ES implementation lifecycle. It is evident from recent studies that there is a relationship between the decision making process and ES implementation success. One of the key elements that contribute to the success of ES implementations is a quick decision making process (Brown and Vessey, 1999; Gupta, 2000; Parr, et al., 1999). This study addresses the strategic decision-making process by SC through its focus on four research questions (1) How can the strategic decision-making process in the implementation of ES be better understood, during each phase of the ES implementation lifecycle? (2) What is the process by which the SC makes strategic decisions? (3) How are fast decisions made? and (4) How does decision speed link to the success of ES implementation? Process models of ES implementation will provide a framework to investigate the strategic decision making process during each phases of the ES implementation lifecycle. Patterns in the decision making process will be explored using strategic choice models. This study develops a research model that focuses on the decision making process by steering committee to explore research questions. It concludes with identifying contributions to both IS research and business practitioners

Enterprise application reuse: Semantic discovery of business grid services

Web services have emerged as a prominent paradigm for the development of distributed software systems as they provide the potential for software to be modularized in a way that functionality can be described, discovered and deployed in a platform independent manner over a network (e.g., intranets, extranets and the Internet). This paper examines an extension of this paradigm to encompass ‘Grid Services’, which enables software capabilities to be recast with an operational focus and support a heterogeneous mix of business software and data, termed a Business Grid - "the grid of semantic services". The current industrial representation of services is predominantly syntactic however, lacking the fundamental semantic underpinnings required to fulfill the goals of any semantically-oriented Grid. Consequently, the use of semantic technology in support of business software heterogeneity is investigated as a likely tool to support a diverse and distributed software inventory and user. Service discovery architecture is therefore developed that is (a) distributed in form, (2) supports distributed service knowledge and (3) automatically extends service knowledge (as greater descriptive precision is inferred from the operating application system). This discovery engine is used to execute several real-word scenarios in order to develop and test a framework for engineering such grid service knowledge. The examples presented comprise software components taken from a group of Investment Banking systems. Resulting from the research is a framework for engineering servic

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

Evaluation of the main achievements of cohesion policy programmes and projects over the longer term in 15 selected regions (from 1989-1993 programme period to the present)

Against a background of inconclusive evidence of the results of EU Cohesion policy since 1989, the aim of this study has been to evaluate the main achievements of EU Cohesion policy programmes and projects and their effectiveness and utility over the longer term in 15 selected regions of the EU15. Specifically, the main objectives of the study were twofold: (i) to examine the achievements of all programmes co-financed by the ERDF and, where applicable, the Cohesion Fund, which have been implemented in the 15 selected regions from 1989 to 2012 (regional programmes and national programmes implemented in the regions); and (ii) to assess the relevance of programmes and the effectiveness and utility of programme achievement

Evaluation of policy measures for agri-food networks in Italian rural development programmes

The agri-food sector is characterized by very heterogeneous agreements and formal and informal contracts aimed to create stable relationships among firms. In this scenario, the actors are linked by common interest in creating and distributing added value. In the network, the risk and the responsibilities are shared by the participants and the transaction costs are reduced by the presence of dynamic flows of information and knowledge. Consequently, the creation and development of agri-food networks is a main objective of regional administration in their Rural Development Plans. The article item is the presentation and the discussion of the methodology used for the evaluation of Integrated Measures Project (Progetti Integrati di Filiera, PIF) presented by firm networks and agri-food chains in Veneto. The result are demonstrated extremely interesting about the understanding of PIF. Moreover, the comparative study serve to understand the result in terms of competitive advantage and income for the farmers.agri-food networking, food-chain policy, Rural Development Programme, Agricultural and Food Policy, Q18,