E-Business and IS Solutions: An Architectural Approach to...

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 256 pages
• Published by: Addison-Wesley Professional
• Edition: 1st Edition September 22, 2000
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0201708477
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0201708479
• Book Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.6 inches
• Weighs: 14.4 ounces

Book Info
(Pearson Education) An overview of the essentials of e-business, covering the effects of e-business on IS solution building, defining architecture models and supporting IT infrastructure, critical success factors for large-scale and narrow-scale projects, and much more. DLC: Electronic commerce--Management.

From the Inside Flap
Objectives This book is about building information systems (IS) solutions. It emphasizes e-business solutions. It's not detailed enough--or thick enough--to be a hands-on how-to guide. Rather, it gives you the essential principles and practices that lead to success.

The principles presented, while mostly not new, have been inconsistently applied in real-world IS developments. And perhaps not coincidentally, real-world IS developments have suffered embarrassingly high failure rates, in excess of 50 percent by most assessments. With the arrival of the e-business era, and its forcing of the pace of business innovation, we now have less discretion than ever before to be ineffective or inefficient in our deployment of empowering information systems. In today's world, we have to apply information technology (IT) to our businesses, we have to do it quickly, and we have to do it right.

"Doing things right" has traditionally been addressed by applying "architecture" to information systems building. Perhaps the most overworked word in the IT buzzword glossary, the word "architecture" is invoked in support of a wide range of causes, with the only common thread being that anything touched by "architecture" is implicitly regarded as Good, while any endeavor pursued without it is automatically regarded as Bad.

Rather than discard such an admired--albeit imprecise--buzzword, I have embraced it, as you can see from the title of this book. Indeed, to discard the term would have implied, with supreme irony, a violation of the architectural principle of reuse. Rather, this book refines the more helpful senses of "architecture" into a set of finer-grain principles, which form the core of "the architectural way."

Therefore, the supporting objectives of this book are to define what constitutes "architecture" in the context of information systems. provide a high-level introduction to, and understanding of, the architectural approach to building IT solutions. explain the benefits of the architectural approach.

E-business presents some particular challenges of its own. This book explores these challenges and discusses how building e-business solutions differs from traditional IS solution building. Nonobjectives This book is explicitly not a detailed how-to guide, a claim supported by its modest size. Although the architectural solution-building process is presented as a series of interrelated stages, much skill is required in the execution of any of the stages, and substantial detail requirements to be added in order to guide and support a live solution-building effort. This high-level overview of the solution-building process provides an overall appreciation of the activities involved and how they fit together, serves as a foundation for further study, and provides a framework for development of detailed methodologies. Intended audience This book is intended for the following audience. (1) Business managers involved in the e-business and IS solution-building process, or whose business areas are involved in changes resulting from the introduction of IT initiatives. For this audience, the book will help them interact more knowledgeably and effectively with IS professionals. provide decision makers with the information necessary to evaluate the scope of effort and resources required to conduct an architectural solution-building process.

(2) IS professionals with limited experience, who are undergoing education and mentoring in the solution-building process. For this audience, the book will provide a foundation and a reference framework on which to base further study. provide references to additional resources for further study and research.

(3) Experienced IS professionals, for which the book will serve as a reference set of high-level principles and guidelines--which are already familiar to some degree--to help in building IS solutions, independent of the details of the particular methodology they apply. provide a foundation that will be helpful as a framework for constructing or adapting detailed methodologies.

A note on terminology Terminology is a problematic area. Some terms are used in different contexts and have different connotations in each. Particularly troublesome is the choice of words to distinguish "what it does" from "how it works." When describing businesses, the term process has come to mean "what it does." "How it works" is the stuff of activities, which are performed by business functions. This terminology clashes with that used in describing information systems, where the functional definition describes "what it does," and the implementation describes "how it works." For consistency with most of the books I cite in the Bibliography and References, I have tried to use the same terms in the same ways. The glossary that follows summarizes these points of usage.

enterprise
An enterprise in the abstract refers to a commercial corporation, government agency, educational establishment, or any other unit that regards itself as self-contained with respect to its business interactions with the world at large. In the specific context of IS solution building, we may focus on a part of the enterprise rather than on its entirety. We therefore have to draw artificial boundaries to delineate our areas of focus. In describing the solution-building process, we may for convenience refer to the focus area as the enterprise.

IS
IS stands literally for "information systems." It may denote information systems in general, in a broad sense, but ordinarily IS carries connotations of application-level functionality.

IT
IT stands literally for "information technology." IT may describe the full spectrum of information technology, but it usually carries connotations of lower-level supporting infrastructure rather than application-level functionality.

process
I use the term process in the sense that has emerged in the business process reengineering literature. A business process is "what the enterprise does," in terms of the behavior visible to a customer or other external actor.

activity
An activity is something the enterprise does in performing a process. The sum of an enterprise's activities amounts to "how the enterprise works." An activity can be thought of as a process step--which is a term used by some authors. I have tried to avoid using this term in favor of activity.

function
The function of an information system is "what it does," in terms of its behavior visible to a user. A business function is an organizational unit--such as financial analysis, engineering, or manufacturing--that performs a related set of tasks within a business. I have tried to avoid using the term function in this latter sense. Outline Part I: Setting the Scene for Architectural Solution Building

In Part I, we look at what "architecture" is all about and how object-oriented techniques support architectural discipline. We look at the traits that distinguish e-business from information systems of the past, and we consider the effect of varying project scope on the solution-building process.

Chapter 1. Characteristics of E-Business. E-business differs from the information systems of the past by virtue of its interenterprise nature and because of the pressing need to "do it now and do it fast." In Chapter 1, we place e-business in its evolutionary context and look at some of the environmental drivers behind it.

Chapter 2. The Essence of "Architecture". Chapter 2 traces the historical evolution of information systems, and proposes a set of requirements for an IS solution-building discipline in today's world. We analyze the various senses of the term "architecture" in the context of IS solution building, and we derive a set of architectural principles. We then relate our original requirements for a solution-building discipline back to our derived architectural principles and verify that the requirements are satisfied.

Chapter 3. Object-Oriented Methods and Architectural Solution Building. The purpose of Chapter 3 is to explain how object-oriented modeling supports the architectural solution-building process and how an object-oriented approach implicitly embraces so many tenets of "the essence of architecture."

Chapter 4. Project Scope Considerations. In Chapter 4, we discuss considerations of project scope, particularly the extraordinary logistical and management difficulties of tackling projects of very wide organizational scope. We look at some approaches to narrowing the focus of the IS solution so as to raise confidence in its political and logistical feasibility. Part II: The Seven-Stage Solution-Building Process Part II describes a seven-stage process for building an IS solution, beginning with business modeling and ending with a complete review of a deployed solution. This is a high-level and conceptual treatment, above the level of detail needed to serve as a how-to guide. Each stage identifies roles of participants needed to staff the project team. The individual chapters of Part II correspond to the stages of the solution-building process.

Chapter 5. Introduction. Chapter 5 reintroduces the seven stages of

Reader Reviews
This slim, 288-page book addresses architecture as a set of principles and a seven-step approach. It's filled with common sense, and will provide you with the big picture and high-level steps that will place architecture into a coherent context. First, the principles and approach really are aligned to e-business although they can also be applied to any system or enterprise application. Second, the book may appear to be basic, but the author manages to get you think out of the box every step of the way. An example is the scope-trade off discussion in chapter 4 where you are shown an illustration of a road improvement project that depicts an ideal (and not so feasible) solution and some alternatives. In a single, simple illustration and a few paragraphs the whole concept of scope trade-off crystallizes and comes into sharp focus. Another example is a text box on page 37 that describes how the author and his wife, both IS professionals, attempted to devise a check book system for personal use. The story drives home the fact that even professionals and prime stakeholders can get requirements wrong. Among the things I like most are: the seven-stage process itself and associated principles, which make you step back and look at architecture as its most basic level; the discussion of architecture and its relationship to object-orientation is one of the best compare and contrast pieces on the topic I've read; and the discussion on component-based software engineering is concise and completely aligned to that approach to both e-business in general and architecture in particular. This book reminds me of those written by Gerald Weinberg on that it focuses on deeper aspects of a subject than mere technology. True, the technical aspects of this book are lightweight, but the underlying principles and approach are anything but. If you're seeking low-level technical information on architecture pass this by. If you want to read a book that will inspire you to think out of the box, organize the important elements of architecture and infuse massive doses of common sense, this book is a treasure and has my highest recommendation.