BPM-EAI: Composite Application Platform on Cloud

Today Cloud has moved on from just another though leadership discussion to a possible strategy for delivering business value. However the trick out here is to think beyond infrastructure and focus on PaaS (Platform as a service). Composite Application Platform (CAP) on cloud is an option which is gaining ground at a tremendous pace and more and more organizations are considering it as a sandbox for innovation. And this is where we will see cloud changing from a cost lever to a value differentiating lever.

However before diving into details let us look at some of the difficulties today's IT are facing which is Impeding Innovation and agility

Heavy upfront setup cost impacting project ROI - Today organization goes through an entire lifecycle of product selection and up front license cost, making it difficult for a single project justify its ROI. The issue being the business value delivered by the project cannot offset the heavy upfront license cost or cost of hardware
Implement ERP / Enterprise Application and then look at surround capability - Today organizations are either going through process standardization through ERP implementation or going through the stabilization phase after ERP rollout. Now the issues organizations are facing are

How much to customize the ERP to take care of specific surround processes which are not core to ERP
Or How to automate certain manual process that exists around ERP such as Master Data setup which are impacting value delivered by ERP implementation

Hardware, Software Procurement impacting Time to market - This is somewhat similar to the first point, with the difference that IT has the approved budget, but cannot react fast enough
80% of our budget is for Keeping the Lights on - And lastly with lion share of IT budget being spent on managing what is there, how can IT quickly turnaround and provide a platform with minimal cost for business to try out innovative ideas for launching or improving product and service offering

I believe a Composite Application Platform delivered on Cloud can address most of these issues and help IT to collaborate with business to innovate. Here are some of the scenarios

A FMCG organization has gone through an ERP implementation for its supply chaing and has MDM implemented as part of it. However there is a manual process involved in setting up product in Master Data and surrounding application cutting across departments before it can launch a new product. Here instead of going through a complete product selection and implementation a process automation solution on premise, organization can utilize an CAP on cloud to deliver the solution, which can be extended internally and externally to have both internal and external stakeholders involved
A TELCO customer have technician working on the field with varied capability and interacting directly with customer, where there was a need to implement a work force management solution which would provide optimized utilization of workforce, fast and efficient customer servicing, increase productivity of work force and escalation management. Here is a perfect example where work force management solution delivered over CAP on cloud could have far reaching impact for its internal and external stake holders

There are more such examples where these solutions can be delivered quickly and effectively. Leaving aside the value it can deliver by automating low value business processes with minimal cost which otherwise have a nuisance value in the organization.

However today the biggest concern on cloud remains around security, availability and features to support such innovation. But the offering coming from some of the vendors is really making it possible with features like

Process definition and runtime capability on cloud
Strong UI capability to build stand alone business application
Strong focus on data
Secured infrastructure supporting SAS70 compliance, physical security, data security at rest and at flight
Network perimeter security
Robust scalability and availability support
Lastly interoperability between on-premise and off-premise deployment

With these offering becoming a reality, I feel CAP on cloud has become a reality and it is ready for adoption.

Comments

With majority of BPM solutions adopting SOA as the platform to implement it on, I think the main focus should be on securing the applications on a cloud computing environment. Security is not one of the best features of SOA.

Posted by: Anirvan Hazra | August 23, 2010 8:30 AM

Thanks for your comment

I completely agree, that the main focus should be on securing application on cloud. And that is what a CAP platform should support inherently i.e. securing data at rest, securing data at flight and securing application. I guess focus on SOA for Cloud application may not be an immediate requirement, however SOA's relevance will increase once the cloud application is made secured.

Posted by: Manas Kumar Sarkar | August 23, 2010 12:57 PM