Simulating enterprise architecture models

Business and ICT strategic alignment remains an ongoing challenge facing organizations as they react to changing requirements by adapting or introducing new technologies to existing infrastructure. Enterprise Architecture (EA) has increasingly become relevant to these demands and as a consequence numerous methods and frameworks for pursuing EA have emerged. However these approaches remain bloated, time-consuming and lacking in precision. This paper proposes a lightweight method for EA (LEAP) and introduces a language for representing EA components that lends itself to modelling as-is and to-be EA with a concrete aim to providing a simulation environment that delivers an unambiguous description of the required changes. The LEAP method and the language are illustrated with a detailed case study of business change currently being addressed by UK higher education institutions

Model similarity evidence and interoperability affinity in cloud-ready Industry 4.0 technologies

Cloud computing is revolutionizing IT environments in most fields of economy. Its service-based approach enables collaboration and data exchange on higher level, with better efficiency and parallel decreasing costs. Also manufacturing environments can benefit from cloud technology and better fulfill fast changes in market demands, by applying diverse cloud deployment models and by virtualizing manufacturing processes and assets into services. As cloud becomes the basis of most innovative manufacturing IT systems, its future role in Cyber-physical Production Systems has to be properly investigated, as their interoperability will play a role of vital importance. In this paper, after a brief introduction to cloud criticality and cloud-based manufacturing, the mutual conceptual similarities in modelling distributed industrial services of two of the major standardization frameworks for industrial Internet architectures are presented: the Industrial Internet Reference Architecture (IIRA) and the Reference Architectural Model Industrie (RAMI 4.0). It is also introduced how their integration feasibility finds a strong affinity in specifications of the Open Connectivity Unified Architecture, a service-oriented architecture candidate to the standardization of Industrial Internet of Things based manufacturing platforms. Finally, the preliminary architecture of a prototype Smart Factory is presented as a case study

Amplifying human potential: education and skills for the fourth industrial revolution

Brings together the views of young people from around the world to the global debate about the importance of skills and education. Introduction The advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is leading us into a period of great transformation. Infosys believes that the technologies that surround us will alter all aspects of life. We believe that through education there is an unassailable opportunity to prepare everyone for such a change. This, coupled with our human instinct to learn and apply creative thought, means we can adapt and overcome any future transition in our everyday lives. Navigating the future often relies on the views, experiences and insights of leaders in business, politics and civil society. These groups are important, but alone do not provide the complete picture. With this report, Infosys brings together the views of young people from around the world to the global debate about the importance of skills and education. This report examines the career and education realties of young people across nine major economies, split between developed nations in Europe and North America, and emerging economic powers in Africa, South America and Asia. This research is focused specifically on the concerns, challenges and opportunities facing younger working professionals – namely the 16 to 25-year-old ‘millennial’ group – as they build their careers and respond to the skills demands of current or prospective employers. The objective is to understand globally, as well as between developed and emerging markets, the employment, skills and education concerns of younger individuals. This report looks at whether young professionals feel the training and education opportunities they had were appropriate for their current work roles and career aspirations. By providing new insights and a perspective from young people, we hope this report contributes toward important debates that political, business and civil society will have in preparing those who will truly master the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Amplifying the voice of young people can only help amplify their potential

Probabilistic Application-Level Connection Scheduling in Web Servers

A Web server running a popular Web site might simultaneously service hundreds or even thousands of requests. Many traditional Web servers let the operating system decide the connection scheduling—that is, the order in which requests are serviced—and, in fact, most simply do so on a first-come, first-served basis. In many cases, however, it can be extremely useful, if not downright necessary, to have application-level control over scheduling policies. Application-level connection scheduling lets server administrators specify the scheduling rules they want to impose, rather than relying on programmers to do it. Two obvious cases where this might be useful are: • When different users have different priorities. To determine request priority for different user groups, you can use business rules to determine processing order. This lets you provide differentiated quality of service levels to different clients. • When Web server traffic is bursty. For example, the average peak-hour traffic is typically several times the average daily traffic. Rather than overprovision the server, you can turn to differentiated QoS as a more judicious approach to resource use under high-load conditions. Application-level connection scheduling also offers another benefit that is rathe