Bearing Point Fusion

Point of View:

ORACLE SOLUTIONS

MAKING THE TRANSITION TO FUSION ARCHITECTURE:

A ROAD MAP

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) offers organi-

zations unprecedented ability to communicate,

connect and expand business relationships.

BearingPoint believes Oracle Fusion Middleware

will play a key role in capitalizing on these

opportunities.

POINT OF VIEW 1

MAKING THE TRANSITION TO FUSION ARCHITECTURE:A ROAD MAP

IN THIS POINT OF VIEW:

PAGE

INTRODUCTION: ADDRESSING

TODAY’S CHALLENGES 2

UNDERSTANDING THE

IMPORTANCE OF INTEGRATION 2

EXPLORING THE BENEFITS OF SOA 3

EXAMINING THE BENEFITS OF

ORACLE FUSION ARCHITECTURE 4

ACHIEVING SOA WITH ORACLE

FUSION MIDDLEWARE 8

CHARTING A ROAD MAP TO

BUSINESS SERVICES IMPLEMENTATION

AND INTEGRATION 11

ADDRESSING THE RISKS 12

CAPITALIZING ON FUSION 12

SEIZING THE OPPORTUNITY NOW 14

ABOUT THE AUTHORS 15

BearingPoint believes Oracle Fusion Middlewarecan help organizations achieve business objectivesby allowing them to take a systematic, phasedapproach to incorporating SOA into their technol-ogy strategy and infrastructure. In this Point ofView, we discuss benefits of using Oracle FusionMiddleware proactively and key considerations indeploying it. We recommend a step-by-step, phaseddeployment approach that will allow organizationsto make the transition to SOA, while preserv-ing their existing investments in Oracle and othertechnologies.

UNDERSTANDING THEIMPORTANCE OF INTEGRATION

Continually evolving market conditions are driv-ing the need for adaptive business processes andagile technology infrastructure. Major recurringthemes across industries and business functionsinclude:

• Globalization.

• Efficiency through shared services.

• Actionable business insight to improve business processes and corporate performance.

• Knowing your customer.

• The need to provide real-time information to customers.

• Compliance with new regulations in an evolving regulatory environment.

• Restructuring for rapid innovation.

• The need to respond to industry drivers andacquire competitive, specialized capabilities.


2 BEARINGPOINT

INTRODUCTION: ADDRESSINGTODAY’S CHALLENGES

Technology is changing at a dizzying pace.Organizations are tapping into the speed and flexi-bility of the Internet and the World Wide Web toseize market opportunities and create new, integratedbusiness relationships—dynamically and rapidly.

Oracle, the world’s largest enterprise software company, is at the forefront of these technologydevelopments. Oracle’s numerous acquisitions havelaid the foundation for the company to create next-generation service-oriented architecture (SOA)applications. Today, SOA is emerging as a new standard for development of business solutions,replacing previous approaches to application devel-opment and systems integration.

What does all this change mean for your company?In order to gain a sustainable competitive edge, it ismore important than ever that you have a strategyfor the use of emerging technologies, particularlySOA. Organizations are interested in exploiting the potential of SOA. However, they are concernedabout preserving their investment in Oracle solutionsand other technology systems. They are asking, “Howdo we evolve toward an SOA infrastructure leverag-ing our existing investments and aligning with ourkey initiatives and business strategies?”

Oracle Fusion Middleware can provide some com-pelling options. Oracle Fusion Middleware is acomprehensive and integrated family of productsoffering extensive support for development, deploy-ment and management of SOA. It is a portfolio of leading standards-based, customer-deployedsoftware products that spans a range of tools andservices, including developer tools, integration services, business intelligence, collaboration andcontent management.

Oracle Fusion Middleware is an aspect of Oracle’sbroader plan for the delivery of next-generationFusion applications using Fusion Architecture,Oracle’s implementation of SOA that includesdatabase, middleware and application tiers. OracleFusion Middleware is the foundation for unifyingOracle’s E-Business Suite with the technologies of recent, diverse Oracle acquisitions, includingPeopleSoft, JD Edwards, Siebel and Retek, as wellas serving integration needs for non-Oracle systems.

EXPLORING THE BENEFITS OF SOA

SOA supports the creation of business processesand software applications as loosely coupled services.Instead of being hard-coded into systems, theseservices can be invoked on an as-needed basis, creating a truly flexible, adaptable technology infrastructure.

In doing so, SOA promotes faster response to business changes, as well as accelerated systemdevelopment on scalable platforms. Plus, because itcan easily be integrated into existing environments,SOA allows organizations to leverage their currentlegacy investments.

Instead of tearing down an entire architecture andimplementing a new technology, SOA provides thefoundation for a phased evolution. Using SOA, abusiness problem is solved using a set of reusableservices. Services are discrete pieces of businessfunctionality, such as accounts payable, asset management, business intelligence or compliancecapability. Services can be assembled into businessprocesses that are deployed and managed throughcommon administration utilities. Because SOAfacilitates reuse of services, the cost and complexityof projects can be reduced significantly.


POINT OF VIEW 3

One common thread that binds all of these themesis integration—the ability to expand and adaptapplications in response to changing business relationships. However, at best, most organizationstoday have only achieved large-scale, point-to-point integration. They can share data, but theymust find new ways to integrate business processesand applications, both within and between organizations.

To capitalize on the connectivity provided by theWeb to form and expand business relationships,enterprises must continue to transform their tech-nology infrastructures. The transition from legacymainframe environments with standalone applica-tions to client-server systems improved connectivitysomewhat, and the introduction of e-business andWeb-based applications furthered the effort.

Enter SOA. Based on open standards that havebeen universally adopted by large system vendors,SOA is an applications development and deploy-ment strategy that supports effective, predictablebusiness process changes through standards-basedintegration of applications developed as Web serv-ices. SOA offers organizations the opportunity touse the Internet and the Web to achieve greaterinterconnectivity between applications, tradingpartners and customers.

Organizations are interested in exploiting the

potential of SOA. However, they are concerned

about preserving their investment in Oracle

solutions and other technology systems. They

are asking, “How do we evolve toward an SOA

infrastructure leveraging our existing invest-

ments and aligning with our key initiatives and

business strategies?” Oracle Fusion Middleware

can provide some compelling options.


4 BEARINGPOINT

Second, SOA also serves as the basis for selectingand deploying the underlying technology platformfor next-generation applications. This involves notonly the platform, but the organizational transi-tion needed to develop, implement and sustain thesolution. Given the benefits of SOA as a tech-nology solution, there is significant opportunity for IT organizations to establish themselves as keycontributors to the overall business goals of theenterprise.

Achieving the desired business end state requires astructure, approach and plan that will likely takeseveral years to achieve maturity in many organiza-tions. BearingPoint recommends a progressive pathto SOA, such as the one depicted in Figure 1, whichdescribes a plateau-based SOA Maturity Model. Themodel was created cooperatively by BearingPointand other SOA industry leaders to support organi-zations in their quest for business advantagethrough SOA. Each plateau is associated withdefined attributes, goals, practices and businessbenefits, supporting incremental deployment andalignment with the industry-standard SoftwareEngineering Institution (SEI) Capability MaturityModel. Tables 1 and 2 provide further detail of the model plateaus (pages 6 and 7).

EXAMINING THE BENEFITS OF THEORACLE FUSION ARCHITECTURE

Enterprises can realize an array of benefits indeploying SOA with Oracle Fusion Middleware.Among such benefits are leveraging of existing tech-nology investments, deeper business insight, greateradaptability to change, effective user presentationand security management. A major advantage ofOracle Fusion Middleware is that you only installand leverage the pieces you need. If you havealready invested in portal, business intelligence or

SOA inherently provides the flexibility to deploy business services across different parts of an organization—or multiple separate businessenterprises—participating in a business process.SOA also supports increased consistency acrossintegration and development activities and run-time infrastructure. It also supports more effectivesharing of information across external and internalorganizations.

Services are developed and deployed using standards that simplify and accelerate integrationefforts across enterprise boundaries. These stand-ards include Extensible Markup Language (XML),Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), Web ServicesDescription Language (WSDL) and HypertextTransfer Protocol (HTTP), which provide platformindependence between existing infrastructure andbusiness process layers. Now business services canbe requested through standard interfaces that areubiquitous across formerly stovepiped or isolatedapplications.

The application of Web services is useful for inte-gration and orchestration of processes that crossapplications. The applications can be Oracle-supported applications or non-Oracle applications,as long as they adhere to open standards.

Implementing an SOA framework requires consideration of two areas that are key to increas-ing business and technology effectiveness and collaboration.

First, SOA is principally a design and architectureapproach for implementing a business process.Because of this, an organization may need tochange the way it approaches and solves businessproblems.

FIGURE 1. SOA MATURITY MODEL PLATEAUS WITH KEY BUSINESS BENEFITS


POINT OF VIEW 5

MeasuredBusinessServices

BusinessServices

Architected Services

CollaborativeServices

InitialServices

a b

54

32

1

OptimizedBusiness Model BENEFITS Optimization

Transformation

Responsiveness

Cost-Effectiveness

Functionality

other technologies, it is not necessary to replacethem. Oracle Fusion Middleware can work withyour current environment.

OPTIMIZATION

Most enterprises have a mix of technologies andhardware. The management of mixed technologiesand platforms is difficult and costly because there isstrong dependency on many vendors without reli-able integration between them. SOA supports loosecoupling of disparate data processes and, throughWeb services, the ability to orchestrate servicesacross platforms and applications.

An SOA-based platform leveraging Oracle capabil-ities, such as the Enterprise Grid—developed bythe Enterprise Grid Alliance—and BusinessProcess Execution Language (BPEL), allow for regulation of complex infrastructures by poolingdiverse IT resources, directing workload andorchestrating services across a variety of platforms.This provides the immediate benefit of reducingcosts while also resolving the inefficiency of suchdiverse platforms.

PRESENTATION—PORTALS AND INTELLIGENCE

The presentation layer of Oracle Fusion Middle-ware supports the development, deployment andmanagement of enterprise portals for data presen-tation and analysis across a broad spectrum of transactional and business intelligence needs.

The enterprise portal provides secure informationaccess and supports collaboration and processautomation. Business intelligence functionalityprovides the ability to control information as it ispushed and pulled across the enterprise, using suchtools as:

• Dashboards

• Alerts

• Event notifications

• Real-time predictive intelligence for information push

• Query and analytic tools for on-demand information pull

Figure 1 is based on the New SOA Maturity Model ©2006 by Sonic Software Corporation, which is based on the New SOA Maturity Model©2005 by Sonic Software Corporation, AmberPoint, Inc., BearingPoint, Inc., Systinet Corporation. All rights reserved.


6 BEARINGPOINT

TABLE 1.SOA MATURITY MODEL

Plateau

Initial Services


Business Services

Collaborative Services

Measured Business Services

Optimized Business Services

Prime Business Benefits

New functionality

IT cost reduction and control

Business responsiveness—change businessprocesses quickly

Business responsiveness—collaboration with business and trading partners

Business transfor-mation from reactive to real-time, meet business performance metrics

Business optimization— react and respondautomatically

Scope

Research and development, experimentation, pilot projects, Web site, portal, customintegrations, smallnumber of services

Multiple integratedapplications

Business processesacross business unit or enterprise

Services available to external partners,cross-enterprise

Business unit or enterprise, cross-enterprise

Business unit or enterprise, cross-enterprise

Critical TechnologySuccess Factors

Standards, legacy integration

Support for heterogeneity and distributed systems, reliable messaging,mediation, ease ofdeployment, data-base integration, versioning,internal security,performance management

Reuse, ease of modification, availability, busi-ness process rules, event-driven processes, composite applications

External servicesenablement,cross-enterprise security, translation of cross-enterprise protocols, long-running transactions

Business activity monitoring, eventstream processing,complex event processing, event-driven dashboards and alerts

Event-driven automa-tion for optimization

Critical People and OrganizationalSuccess Factors

Developers learningservice developmentskills, developer sponsorship

Architecture group providing leadership,SOA competency center, CIO sponsorship

IT partnership withbusiness, partnershipacross organizations,SOA life cycle govern-ance, executive commitment, event-driven design skills,business unit manager sponsorship

IT partnership withbusiness, partnershipacross organizationsSOA life cycle govern-ance, executive commitment, event-driven design skills,business unit manager sponsorship

Ongoing businessprocess evaluation and response, CFOsponsorship

Continuous improve-ment culture, CEOsponsorship

Selected Relevant Standards

XML, XSLT, WSDL, SOAP, J2EE, .NET

UDDI,WS-Reliable Messaging,WS-Policy,WS-Addressing,XQuery,WS-Security,SAML

WS-BPEL

RosettaNet,ebXML,WS-Trust

3a

3b

2

1

4

5


POINT OF VIEW 7

TABLE 2.SOA MATURITY MODEL WITH GOALS AND KEY PRACTICES

Plateau

Initial Services


Business Services

Collaborative Services

Measured Business Services

Optimized Business Services

Key Goals

1. Learn SOA technology in research anddevelopment and pilot projects.

2. Apply SOA technology to immediate organizational needs.

3. Define initial return on investment measurements for SOA projects and apply to initial projects.

1. Institutionalize use of SOA.2. Put in place architecture leadership

for SOA.3. Prove returns from use of standards-

based technology.4. Anticipate use of SOA information

for business optimization.

1. Create ongoing partnership between business and technology organizations for SOA governance.

2. Support full business processes via SOA.3. Prove returns from reuse of services

and responsiveness to change.

1. Create ongoing partnership between business and technology organizations for SOA governance.

2. Extend SOA business processes to external organizations.

3. Prove returns from use of services for collaboration.

1. Institute transformation from reactive to real-time business processes.

2. Define and meet business-oriented performance metrics.

1. Provide enterprisewide leadership for business and SOA governance.

2. Prove returns from SOA-supported continuous improvement.

KeyPractices

1. Create services definitions.2. Integrate SOA into project development

methodology.3. Quantify costs, time and business benefits

of pilot projects.

1. Specify technology standards for SOA.2. Integrate SOA into organizationwide

development process.3. Provide organizationwide SOA training

and competency center.4. Use incremental integration.

1. Specify policies for use of SOA in creationor modification of business processes.

2. Take advantage of event-oriented and mediation functionality of SOA technologies, especially with regard toenhancing/extending business processes.

1. Specify policies for use of SOA in collaboration with business and trading partners.

2. Implement cross-enterprise security.

1. Collect and analyze business process-oriented, real-time performance metrics.

2. Implement ongoing business process evaluation and re-engineering.

1. Implement self-correcting business processes.

3a

3b

2

1

4

5


8 BEARINGPOINT

The Oracle portal and business intelligence toolstogether provide a highly functional, user-friendlypresentation layer.

INSIGHT

Insight into key performance indicators, coupledwith the ability to collect and analyze events—evenfrom legacy systems—provides the operationalanalytics needed to make informed decisions,respond to system events in a timely manner andevaluate overall business performance. Insight intoevents at any system level or within any busi-ness process can provide advanced notification ofpotential regulatory noncompliance or violation ofbusiness processes. Typically, businesses do not havefingertip access to reliable data, especially datastored in silos across multiple sources.

Oracle Fusion Middleware’s Business ActivityMonitoring (BAM) tools, operational dashboardsand embedded analytics help track events and keyperformance indicators to provide better decision-making capability. Dashboards present a view ofdata events as they happen—providing ready accessto reliable data in a timely manner. Embedded analytics provide critical information at any stage ofthe business process, from planning through systemtransactions to reporting.

ADAPTABILITY

Adaptability is the ability to transform in responseto a change—regardless of what area the changerelates to. Enterprises need to be responsive to busi-ness changes and able to automate and adapt exist-ing processes as business needs change or grow.

Adaptability extends to integration between legacyand third-party systems and provides the ability to improve existing infrastructure in response toconstant permutations of the business. Configur-able business flows, configurable business logic foraudit controls, and configurable data and userinterfaces provide the groundwork for adaptationand transformation of businesses and business processing.

Oracle Fusion Middleware, specifically OracleBPEL and the Oracle Business Rules Engine, allowsorganizations to continue to evolve their businessthrough tools that execute business requirements in real time. In addition, the toolset supportsorchestration and deployment of complex integratedbusiness processes, as well as monitoring and management of business activities.

INTEGRATED SECURITY MANAGEMENT

Effective security management—authorization,authentication and access control—must underpinthe deployment of any business process. OracleFusion Middleware provides integrated securitymanagement that includes managing single sign-on capabilities, provisioning and directorymanagement.

ACHIEVING SOA WITH ORACLEFUSION MIDDLEWARE

One of the strengths of SOA is that it allows enter-prises to leverage the best elements of their existinginfrastructure. BearingPoint believes organizationscan take a step-by-step approach to deploying SOA with Oracle Fusion Middleware that does not require ripping out and replacing current infrastructure, whether Oracle’s or another ven-dor’s. Enterprises can select pieces of the Fusiontechnology stack that meet their needs and inte-grate them with systems already in place (Figure 2).

For additional information and perspectives on

Oracle Fusion, please visit www.bearingpoint.com/

oraclefusion.


POINT OF VIEW 9

For example, to make it easier for PeopleSoftEnterprise customers to take advantage of OracleFusion Middleware, key components of OracleFusion Middleware are certified with the latest versions (8.46 and 8.47) of PeopleTools. All of the Oracle Fusion Middleware components certi-fied for use with PeopleTools can be deployed forvirtually all PeopleSoft Enterprise 8.4, 8.8 and 8.9applications without requiring an application version upgrade.

In addition, PeopleSoft applications running onOracle Containers for Java can be extended through a Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition(J2EE) framework, allowing for orchestration ofextended services. Exposed business processes canbe orchestrated through Oracle BPEL, and businessevents and activities can be monitored.

Once they are certified for Oracle FusionMiddleware, Siebel applications will offer similarcapabilities.

Enterprises also can protect their current invest-ments in BEA Systems, IBM WebSphere andMicrosoft .NET Web servers, as well as in EMCLegato storage software and other solutions.

To leverage these opportunities, BearingPoint recommends undertaking an inaugural projectbased on a specific business or technology priority.Examples of such inaugural projects include:

• An identity management initiative.

• Enhanced business intelligence, reporting orauditing capabilities, possibly coupling legacydata extraction routines with a Fusion-basedpresentation layer such as XML Publisher.

• A refresh of compliance provisioning inresponse to new regulations.

• Master data management initiatives, possiblythrough use of Oracle’s Customer or ProductData Hubs.

• Updates, extensions or retirements of entirelycustom applications built within thePeopleSoft, Siebel or Oracle toolsets or custom integrations of these product sets.

FIGURE 2. ORACLE FUSION ARCHITECTURE

Unified Portal

BusinessIntelligence

ActivityMonitoring

Business Process Orchestration

Process Models BPEL Engine

Enterprise Service Bus

Multi-Protocol RoutingMessage Transformation

Services and Event Mediation

Enterprise Service Registry

Application Integration ServicesProcess Integration ServicesData and Metadata Services

Oracle Apps Custom Apps ISV Apps

Grid Computing

ClusteringProvisioningData ManagementIdentity Management

SecurityConfigurationDirectoriesWeb Cache


10 BEARINGPOINT

• Enhanced process integration across existing systems.

• System capacity expansions or improvementsmaking use of virtualized storage or servers or Oracle’s grid computing infrastructure.

• Migration to the Oracle database from another database platform.

• Exposing legacy functionality as modularservices or using tools such as JDeveloper andOracle’s Application Development Frameworkto create new modular services.

• Accessing standards-based services offered by third-party providers.

• Marketing internal services to external usersto enhance revenue.

The enterprise can then start building a new architecture on a step-by-step basis based on identi-fied key initiatives, while leveraging and extendingcurrent investments. This also allows flexibility intaking advantage of next-generation applicationsspanning varying release cycles.

An inaugural Fusion project can serve as a practicalway to focus on key short-term considerations:

• Evaluating and confirming current supportoptions and taking advantage of new options.

• Aligning SOA and Oracle Fusion Middlewarecapabilities with business objectives.

• Undertaking interim upgrades when there is aclear benefit. Organizations with older exist-ing installations may consider moving to thelatest releases to take advantage of OracleFusion Middleware capabilities and positionthemselves for a direct upgrade to Fusionapplication suites.

• Establishing a new capability that adds business value and can be implemented in an isolated, low-risk manner. Such a capabilitycan make use of new tools or technologiesthat align with SOA and have the potential to be reused more broadly across the organiza-tion. The capability could extend an existingimplementation of Oracle, PeopleSoft orSiebel, for example, or be undertaken as anew standalone implementation outside existing application domains.

• Exposing internal staff to new areas of learning, providing an opportunity to increasejob satisfaction and lower the long-term organizational learning curve.

• Finding ways to reduce customization.

• Finding ways to reduce overall complexityand diversity in the IT environment.

Organizations are in different phases of maturitywith their applications.

Organizations that are implementing Oracle for the first time have a more immediate opportunityto leverage Web services compared with organiza-tions who are already live on Oracle and haveinvested in point-to-point integration. An organiza-tion implementing Oracle for the first time has an opportunity to lay the SOA foundation and integrate using Web services.

An organization already live may not wish to rewirea working interface as a Web service. Such anorganization should lay the SOA framework, useWeb services for future integration efforts and planon gradually replacing point-to-point interfaces asthe opportunity and need arise.


POINT OF VIEW 11

To support organizations in taking the first steps,Oracle has provided a complete Fusion Middle-ware suite, including new reporting tools, and adeveloper toolset (JDeveloper 10g) for buildingnew applications.

After extensive analysis and customer input, Oraclehas also provided early guidance indicating thedirection planned for key heritage application functionality. As of the second quarter of 2006,Oracle reports that development of next-generationapplications using the toolsets above within anSOA framework is about to commence.

Oracle’s E-Business Suite will be used as the basedata model. However, many core tables across theacquired product sets were found to be quite similar.

The E-Business Suite will also serve as the basis forFusion business logic. Functional requirements fornext-generation applications consist of a compositeof E-Business Suite plus the acquired product sets.Oracle plans a dedicated focus on retaining andacquiring significant industry-vertical functionalityacross all major application pillars.

CHARTING A ROAD MAP TOBUSINESS SERVICES IMPLEMENTATIONAND INTEGRATION

BearingPoint recommends a road map tied to amaturity progression model, such as the onedescribed earlier in Figure 1, with critical tasks ateach maturity plateau to provide a structuredapproach to achieving the end state (Table 3). The road map should be updated periodically—perhaps quarterly—as more information onProject Fusion’s next-generation applicationsbecomes available. The road map will be unique for each organization and should align with thecadences in Oracle’s Project Fusion life cycle.

An organization already live may not wish to

rewire a working interface as a Web service. Such

an organization should lay the SOA framework,

use Web services for future integration efforts

and plan on gradually replacing point-to-point

interfaces as the opportunity and need arise.

TABLE 3.SOA IMPLEMENTATION AND TECHNOLOGY ENABLERS

Plateau

• Level 5: Optimized Business Services

• Level 4: Measured Business Services

• Level 3b: Collaborative Services

• Level 3a: Business Services

• Level 2: Architected Services

• Level 1: Initial Services

BearingPoint Enablers

• Corporate performance management

• Industry benchmarking• Business activity monitoring• Business process transformation

• Tools and plateau selection• Productivity layer

• Leading practices for operational excellence

• Business composite applications

• Architecture and governance• Delivery and implementation

services• Road to Fusion—

Assessment and Pilot

Oracle Enablers

• Business intelligence suite• Business activity monitoring

• Portal• Collaboration suite

• BPEL process manager• Business rules engine

Foundational SOA elements available through Oracle Application Server and Oracle SOA Suite• Service registry• Web services manager• Enterprise service bus• Identity management• JDeveloper 10g• Application Development Framework• TopLink


12 BEARINGPOINT

ADDRESSING THE RISKS

Recent acquisitions by Oracle, and the prospect of future additional acquisitions, create new inte-gration requirements and a continually movingbaseline.

Because the Oracle E-Business Suite is being used asthe baseline for the Fusion enterprise data modeland business logic, upgrades from a preexistingOracle platform may be relatively straightforward.However, migrations from heritage PeopleSoft, JDEdwards and Siebel environments may involvegreater complexity, cost and risk. Prior to beingacquired by Oracle, these companies themselvesgrew through acquisitions. These “once-removed”acquisitions, and the resulting diversity underlyingthe technology platforms, may add complexity andchallenge to Fusion development. In such cases,upgrade and migration activities may be more akinto re-implementations.

Currently there are many unknowns regard-ing Fusion application functionality and otherspecifics, which make it difficult to accuratelybudget or calculate return on investment.

Underestimating the effort required to upgrade ormigrate could contribute to business disruptions.Overestimating may make it more difficult tosecure project funding, impeding the organiza-tion’s ability to take advantage of next-generationcapabilities in a timely manner.

Project Fusion is a long-term evolution thatrequires organizations to be diligent about periodi-cally adjusting their implementation road maps. Inaddition, adequately building and retaining inter-nal skills will be a challenge over the long timeline.

While using an integrated technology stack such asFusion Architecture has advantages, there also issome risk associated with vendor lock-in anddependency on that vendor for key tools. Whilethis risk is always present, it may be mitigated bythe fact that Oracle is implementing Fusion prod-ucts according to standards that will allow competi-tor products to be plugged in, replacing Oraclestack components. Each organization should weighthe advantages and disadvantages of operating in asingle-vendor technology stack. Multi-vendor SOAsolutions are alternatives to the unified Oraclestack.

Finally, SOA implies a distributed computing envi-ronment, which potentially can require different or more complex governance structures involvingmore parties. It may also require business and ITareas to become more collaborative than in the past.

CAPITALIZING ON FUSION

Oracle Fusion Architecture is a powerful platformthat supports both today’s business environmentsand the applications of the future. It can helporganizations capitalize on the opportunities pro-vided by SOA to expand into new markets andforge deeper relationships with trading partners and customers. By taking a step-by-step, phasedapproach to deploying Oracle Fusion Middleware,

Because the Oracle E-Business Suite is being used

as the baseline for the Fusion enterprise data

model and business logic, upgrades from a

preexisting Oracle platform may be relatively

straightforward. However, migrations from

heritage PeopleSoft, JD Edwards and Siebel envi-

ronments may involve greater complexity, cost

and risk.


POINT OF VIEW 13

organizations can make the transition to SOA whilecontinuing to realize the value of their existinginvestments in Oracle and other technologies.

For example, the new Federal Reference Model(FRM) solution for the U.S. government, based onleading Oracle applications, provides a standardizedbusiness process approach across federal financialsystems and governance controls. The solution,built jointly by BearingPoint and Compusearch,Inc., supports proof of concept sessions and train-ing and serves as an accelerator for productionimplementations.

The FRM solution, which uses industry-standardbusiness processes and an SOA approach to systemsintegration, has the capability to interoperate witha variety of legacy systems and emerging tech-nologies. This supports streamlined businessprocesses and data flows across operational systems,without the expense of additional hardware or customizations.

Other examples of leveraging an SOA frameworkinclude:

Service-Oriented Architecture Center of Excellence

BearingPoint integrated a major science organiza-

tion’s core financial application with a remotely

hosted application for travel booking using SOA.

BearingPoint also designed and delivered an

SOA and Web services framework for future SOA

integrations, including the long-term vision of

cross-servicing among different organizations. The

science organization has seen a significant reduction

in turnaround time of travel bookings and trans-

actions largely due to automated integration of

the financial and travel systems.

Public Services Broker (PSB) ProjectA major European government agency engagedBearingPoint to design, build and deploy a publicservices broker (PSB), an integrated set of XML-enabled processes, systems and procedures designedto provide a standard mechanism for access to public services. The key mechanism for deliveringthese services is the SOA messaging infrastructure,which allows agencies to share information easilyand provide it to a portal. Thus, the PSB is theenabling technology for an e-government initiative,facilitating organizational change across all publicservices.

Consolidated Call Center DesktopBearingPoint developed a consolidated call centerdesktop for a major bank using SOA. The desktopintegrates information from multiple back-end systems, including a customer information system,a credit card servicing application, a mortgage servicing application and a mortgage originationapplication. Leveraging the BearingPoint SOAsolution framework, the first two phases of the project delivered more than 70 business servicesahead of schedule and under budget.

Shared Document Management ServicesBearingPoint designed, developed and deployedenterprisewide document management services fora global financial services firm. The solution has22,000 users and is being leveraged by multipleapplications across the enterprise. The firm now hassecure document storage and management servicesoffering document management, work-flow, singlesign-on and reporting services on an enterprise-wide basis.


14 BEARINGPOINT

BearingPoint’s global Oracle practice also is sup-porting application of Oracle Fusion Middlewareand SOA in a range of industries and across thespectrum of enterprise functions and solutions(Figure 3).

Figure 3 outlines some of the leading solutionsBearingPoint has developed jointly with Oracle and our clients. BearingPoint has a long-standingrelationship with Oracle and extensive experiencewith its technology stack and the legacy applica-tions of PeopleSoft, JD Edwards and Siebel. Thediagram highlights horizontal, functional solutionssuch as financials and human capital management;tailored solutions such as spend management and

business intelligence; and industry-specific solu-tions such as customer relationship managementcase management for health and human servicesand compliance for Basel II for financial services.

SEIZING THE OPPORTUNITY NOW

SOA provides the foundation for enterprises to take business integration to the next level. Regard-less of when an organization plans to incorporateSOA and next-generation applications into its operations, now is the time to start addressing the implementation, integration and prioritizationconsiderations for successful deployment.

FIGURE 3. BEARINGPOINT’S SOLUTIONS CAPABILITIES AND SUPPORT FOR ORACLE FUSION MIDDLEWARE DEPLOYMENT

BearingPoint Tailored Industry Solutions

Financial ServicesCorporate Performance

ManagementBasel II

Lease Management

ManufacturingEnterprise AssetManagement Field ServicesiProcurement

Public SectorGrants

Case ManagementFederal Reference Model

BankingSolutions

HealthcareSolutions

High TechSolutions

Professional Services Solutions

Retail Solutions

TelecomSolutions

BearingPoint Tailored Solutions

Corporate Performance Management

Business Intelligence Data Hubs

EnterpriseAsset

Management

Fusion Application Assessments

Information Management iProcurement Risk &

Compliance

Oracle Applications

CoreFinancials

Customer RelationshipManagement

Human CapitalManagement

Supply Chain Management

Oracle Application Products

Oracle E-Business Suite

PeopleSoftEnterprise Siebel JD Edwards

Oracle Fusion Architecture

Oracle Fusion Collaboration Suite 10g

Oracle Fusion Middleware 10g

Oracle Database 10g

Oracle Grid Computing


POINT OF VIEW 15

Proactive use of available Oracle Fusion Middle-ware allows organizations to leverage their currentinvestments in Oracle or other technologies, whilesensibly positioning for next-generation Fusionapplications in a controlled, incremental manner.As with other technology initiatives, a key to deriving value from Fusion deployment will bealigning the effort with true business drivers andorganizational direction.

BearingPoint’s SOA road map supports organiza-tions in establishing more agile IT architectures. We have made significant investments in developingholistic business and technology solutions poweredby Oracle to help clients improve, adapt and evolve their current capabilities. In addition, ourlong-standing alliances with Oracle, PeopleSoft and Siebel strongly position us to assist Oracle customers in defining a road map to a next-generation environment supported by Oracle FusionMiddleware.

By taking action now, you can get a head start in capitalizing on emerging technologies.BearingPoint has developed a methodology, a roadmap, accelerators and assessment tools that can help you leverage your investments for strategicadvantage.

For more information on how BearingPoint’s lead-ing practitioners can assist your organization withaccelerated assessment, planning and deploymentof a low-risk, high-value Fusion pilot, Let’s Talk.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Raj Ramaswamy is a BearingPoint managing director focused on the Oracle AdvancedTechnology Group, Oracle Fusion Middleware and SOA. He can be reached at [email protected].

Greg Lomow, Ph.D., is a senior manager in thePublic Services practice of BearingPoint. He specializes in solution architecture, system designand implementation of large, complex IT systemsfor federal, state, local and international govern-ments. Greg has more than 10 years of experienceimplementing systems using SOA in the financialservices, telecommunications and public servicesindustries. He has published three books, includ-ing “Understanding SOA with Web Services”(Addison-Wesley, 2005) and “C++ FrequentlyAsked Questions” (Addison-Wesley, 1999). He canbe reached at [email protected].

Larry Manno is a BearingPoint senior managerfocused on the Oracle Advanced TechnologyGroup, Oracle Fusion Middleware and SOA. Larry can be reached at [email protected].

Brian Bridges is a BearingPoint senior managerfocused on the Oracle Advanced TechnologyGroup, Oracle Fusion Middleware and SOA. Hecan be reached at [email protected].

By taking action now, you can get a head start

in capitalizing on emerging technologies.

BearingPoint has developed a methodology, a

road map, accelerators and assessment tools

that can help you leverage your investments

for strategic advantage.


16 BEARINGPOINT

MANAGEMENT AND TECHNOLOGYCONSULTING FOR TODAY’SBUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

BearingPoint is a leading management and tech-nology consulting company that serves the Global2000 and many of the world’s largest public servicesorganizations. Our experienced professionals helporganizations around the world set direction toreach their goals and create enterprise value. Byaligning their business processes and informationsystems, we help our clients gain competitive leadership advantage—delivering results in anaccelerated time frame. To learn more, contact us at 1.866.BRNGPNT (+1.703.747.6748 from outside the United States and Canada) or visit ourWeb site at www.bearingpoint.com.

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Bearing Point Fusion

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