Nexus and RMASFurther Education

29-10-12

What we do• Nexus

– We build connectors/adaptors either as local ones to connect back end systems or across the ESB where back end systems can be connected to external Education Sector Organisations (for e.g. HESA/HEDD or Agencies (for e.g. Councils, Transport, UKBA).

– This solves the problem of time consuming manual processing for functions such as Student Registration and Enrolment but to mention a few.

• RMAS– Is NOT a single off the shelf system; IT IS:– A procurement framework containing the ‘best-of-breed’ research

systems on the market,– plus a set of free integration tools and methodologies,– being built around a standard communications language, CERIF

Who we work with

NEXUS• SOAS Student Registration and

Admin Portal - complete• Cranfield: DARE, XCRI-CAP• Birmingham: XCRI-CAP• Manchester: Moodle VLE and SRS• St Andrews – DARE• Bloomsbury Group: Library

Management Systems• York: Accommodation bookings• LJMU: Course selector • Ulster and Leeds: Banner to

Campus IT Quercus• Scottish FE Group

RMAS• Educational Establishments in

England and Wales including Colleges

• Scottish Further Education Bodies • Further Education in Northern

Ireland • Central Government

Departments, Executive Agencies and NDPBs

• Welsh Public Bodies National Assembly for Wales, Welsh Assembly Government and Welsh Local Authorities

VLEVLE

SRSR

HESAHESA

UK BAUK BA

HEFCEHEFCE UCASUCAS

L A’sL A’s

SLCSLC

NHSNHS

TfLTfL

RMASRMAS

DAREDARE

FE ESB or AdapterFE ESB or Adapter

HRHR VLEVLE SRSRIDID

UniversityUniversityUniversityUniversityUniversityUniversityFE CollegesFE Colleges

NexusNexus

HEDDHEDD

Data StandardBodies

Data StandardBodies

ESB Community UniversityUniversityUniversityUniversityUniversityUniversity

SuppliersServices and

Products

SuppliersServices and

Products

Data Standards& Adapters

RMASModules

RMASModules

Why SOA & Why SOA in Education

Why SOA• SOA is business driven• SOA is standards based• SOA is reusable• SOA is extensible• SOA allows a plug and play

architecture• SOA does not require an all in one go

migration

Why SOA in Education• An SOA platform can be run in parallel

to existing EAI architecture• Assets can be migrated over time to a

SOA platform• Nexus can provide a cloud hosted

platform and help with the implementation of a locally hosted platform

• Nexus adapters are reusable• Nexus adapters support standards for

Education (e.g. XCRI-CAP, DARE, HEDD)• Nexus simplifies integration with 3rd

party services

Sector Landscape & SOA

• A changing financial regime -> force for change

• Monolithic IT systems based supplier notions of ‘best practice’

– Supplemented by local systems to overcome their shortcomings

• Processes are constrained by what the systems do

• Lots of manual workarounds• More applications, higher complexity &

Information transfer tends to be batch• Data quality is poor• Resulting in:• Business can’t introduce new

offers/products/processes quickly• Student and staff experience is poor• Cost of IT is relatively high

• Where business and IS architecture meet• Process steps are delivered by component

services• Ease of reconfiguration == agility• A process can be thought of as an

orchestrated set of services - a work flow.• Using internet technologies software

components are delivered as web services• SOA can help clean data through master

data management and improved self-service (bring your own data)

Sector Landscape

Service Orientated Architecture

Nexus Connector Pricing• There is a charge to cover implementation costs

– These costs vary depending on the complexity of the work and the number of Connectors and institution needs

• For using the central ESB we charge an annual subscription of– £5k for the first endpoint pair– £1K for subsequent endpoint pairs– Maximum of £20K for more than 20 end point pairs

• We have a special offer– However if an institution asks a to solve a problem for which there is

substantial demand, we may choose to waive to cost of implementation for the first customer.

• Local ESB pricing is separate

Technology Section

Nexus Technology Architecture

WS02 Data Services Server

WS02 Governance

Registry

WS02 Application Server

Nexus ESB Business Services – WS02 ESB

WS02 Enterprise Service Bus

SRS VLE LMS

IdM

Time tablingFinance

• Moodle• Blackboard

• Millenium

Standards:•SAML 2.0•Shibboleth

• Aggresso• Oracle

Financials• Symmetry

• Quercus• SITS• Banner• Peoplesoft

DAM / CMS EDRMS CRM 3rd Party

Services• TfL• Council Tax• DARE, Digitary

Standards:•CMIS

Standards:•CMIS•JSR-170

• Scientia• Serco –

Facility CMIS

HR Payroll

Estates Service desk

WS02 Business Process Server WS02 Business Activity Monitoring

Nexus Security Manager

• Northgate Arinso

• SAP• Oracle

• Northgate Arinso

• SAP• Oracle

• SAP • Hornbill – Support Works

Nexus Adapters &Standards

Nexus ESB Components

Optional Presentation Layer

Nexus Presentation Layer – Google Web Toolkit & Alfresco Content Management System

Nexus Adapters – integrating with FE Systems

• Aggresso• Quercus SRS• Millenium LMS• Scientia Timetabling• Oracle Financials• Symmetry• Banner• Serco – Facility CMS• Northgate Arinso• Hornbill – Support Works

Nexus Adapters

WS02 Data Services Server

Data Views API Client Open Adapters OotB Adapters• Moodle• SITS SRS• Transport For London

• SAP• Oracle Peoplesoft• Salesforce

Identity Management•SAML 2.0•Shibboleth•LibertyContent Management•CMIS

Transports: HTTP, HTTPS, POP, IMAP, SMTP, JMS, AMQP, FIX, TCP, UDP, FTPS, SFTP, CIFS, MLLP, SMSFormats & protocols: JSON, XML, SOAP 1.1, SOAP 1.2, WS-*, HTML, EDI, HL7, OAGIS, Hessian, Text, JPEG, MP4, All binary formats, CORBA/IIOPTransformation: XSLT, XPath, XQuerySecurity: WS-Policy, WS-Security, LDAP, Kerberos, OpenID, SAML, XACML

Adap

ter T

ype

Tech

nolo

gies

Nexus Implementations

WS02 Data Services Server

WS02 Governance

Registry

WS02 Application Server

Nexus ESB Business Services – WS02 ESB

WS02 Enterprise Service Bus

WS02 Business Process Server WS02 Business Activity Monitoring

Nexus Security Manager

Nexus ESB Components

Optional Presentation Layer

Nexus Presentation Layer – Google Web Toolkit & Alfresco Content Management System

Digital Academic Records

Exchange (DARE)

Student Enrolment

Portal

Higher Education Achievement

Report (HEAR)

XCRI-CAPeXchanging Course

Related Information, Course Advertising Profile

Council Tax &

TfL

Nexus Solutions

Nexus ConsumersWorking Demos

Further Nexus Implementations

Nexus ESB

Nexus Presentation Layer

Digital Academic Records Exchange phase 2 (DARE2)

Student Enrolment Portal Extensions

Higher Education Achievement

Report (HEAR)

XCRI-CAPeXchanging Course Related

Information, Course Advertising Profile

Moodle Integration with further Student

Record Systems

Moodle & 3rd Party Marking System /

Service Integration

Council Tax & TfL London

Wide Service

Borders Agency Integration

WS02 Selection

• Nexus ran vendor selection of leading SOA platforms that could support the specific requirements of FE

• WS02 was selected as the leading enterprise open source platform

• WS02 had an initially strong offering and strategic vision for SOA 2.0

• We have found WS02 easy to learn and configure

WS02 Architecture

Nexus Architecture on WS02 Stack

ESB Example: FE Mergers

FE Mergers• FE colleges face specific technical challenges when presented with mergers:

– To greenfield or not & other Enterprise Architecture decisions– Data challenges with data split across multiple systems and need for data

cleansing before migration– Maximising value from existing systems– Avoiding duplication of effort

• An ESB can help with these issues– Providing facades from existing systems– Simplify integration of different systems– Retain value and investment in existing systems by aggregating and routing

according to rules– Simplify merger IT roadmap

FE 1

Service Desk

CRM

Time tabling

Estates

HR

Payroll

IdM

Finance

EDRMS

SRS

LMS

VLE

FE 2

Service Desk

CRM

Time tabling

Estates

HR

Payroll

IdM

Finance

EDRMS

SRS

LMS

VLE

Greenfield example, other models available

Individual Institutions Have Complex IT Estates•Complex parallel system architectures•Different identity management solutions•Different point to point solutions•Different data sources•Huge data aggregation challenge•Difficult to assess system capitalisation•Issues with defining strategic architecture

FE Mergers - Challenges

Greenfield example, other models available

FE Mergers – SOA

FE Merger

Nexus Adapters

Nexus ESB

FE 1

Service Desk

CRM

Time tabling

Estates

HR

Payroll

IdM

Finance

EDRMS

SRS

LMS

VLE

Nexus Adapters

FE 2

Service Desk

CRM

Time tabling

Estates

HR

Payroll

IdM

Finance

EDRMS

SRS

LMS

VLE

Nexus Business Services

The Nexus ESB can help with the integration between multiple FE systems:•Nexus ESB allows institution to buffer need for major system replacement and to roadmap their own IT estate migration•Nexus business services and adapters obfuscate back end systems•Nexus can provide cloud based services for such functions as Master Data Mgmt

Conclusion

In Summary• ESBs standardise and simplify making connections between

systems• The Service Registry and Repository introduces governance

which means:• Services are visible and managed• Services follow a standard delivery process• Service implementation (Code) is deployed centrally• Services themselves are dynamic and re-locatable

• These approaches collectively deliver a solution that is manageable, flexible and has a low configuration overhead for new or changing end points

Nexus FE Solutions

• We need you to help us produce solutions and services for the FE arena

• Remember our special offer:• However if an institution asks a to solve a problem for

which there is substantial demand, we may choose to waive to cost of implementation for the first customer.

Student Enrolment Portal Demo

Test it yourself here:•http://www.hefty.ws/stureg-1.0-SNAPSHOT/•Users 1001 & 1002•Click ‘Load Student Data’ button

View the SOAS success story here:•http://prezi.com/1xwyztrvxb0i/nexus-soas-student-registration-portal/

Student Enrolment Portal – Landing Page

Student Enrolment Portal – All Accordians

Student Enrolment Portal – Course Selection

Thank you for listening

Questions

Contact Us

• Join our linked in group – JISC Advance Nexus

• Nexus www.nexus.ac.uk– sharlene.jobson@jiscadvance.ac.uk– charles.gibbons@jiscadvance.ac.uk

• RMAS www.rmas.ac.uk– simon.foster@jiscadvance.ac.uk