NBA 600: Session 25IT and the General Manager

New Technologies: Web Services22 April 2003

Daniel Huttenlocher

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IT and Your Business

What should a general manager today know about information technology?– IT investment has potential strategic as well as

operational value– The best IT investments improve products or

services not just reduce costs• Possible because of rapid IT improvements• Applies to both internal projects and purchases

– Proposed costs and benefits need to make business sense• Takes effort both by IT and business experts

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What To Do

An IT-aware general manager should– Not necessarily be a technology expert

• If an expert, be sure to trust other experts and to make business not IT motivated decisions

– Actively look for areas where IT could improve products/services while lowering costs• Also respond to and evaluate proposals from

others that meet these criteria

– Develop good working relationships with trusted technology experts• Partners not support roles• Mutual education

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Emerging Technologies

Investigate some new technologies– In context of making effective general

management decisions

Web services receiving a lot of attention over the past couple years– Many companies racing to deploy– Lots of acronyms: XML, SOAP, … – Software platforms such as J2EE and .net– Pre-existing Web services– Business risks and benefits– Deployment costs

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What Web Services Are

Definition of a Web service– Paraphrased from W3C (w3.org)

• A software system, accessible via the Web, with interfaces described using XML, accessed by other software systems using XML-based messages conveyed by internet protocols

IP Network

Request

XML responseServiceProvider

ServiceRequestor

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Web Site vs. Web Service

API (Application Programming Interface)– To be used by other software not a person– Separates the display/layout from content

• No need to change processing because layout changes!

HTML for expressing display of content whereas XML for content only

Network

HTTP request

HTML response

ServerClient

(Browser)

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Business Case for Web Services

Makes your business information accessible for others to use on their sites– E.g., Fedex or UPS tracking information on e-

commerce Web site– Can be governed by terms of use and require

authentication/authorization• E.g., amazon.com only access their shipping info

Enable your customers to place orders from their systems– E.g., large (corporate) customers– Supply chain integration

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Risks of Web Services

Making information accessible to those outside the firm– Careful consideration of what access to provide

and to/from whom– Appropriate authentication and authorization

policies and implementations

Maturity of underlying technology– Risks of failure or errors in what become

critical systems

Not acting and having your competitors provide better services

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Some Web Services Offerings

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Ebay Web Services

Automation of– Listing items– Monitoring auctions– Searching– Feedback

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Not a Specific Technology

Web services simply refers to an architecture in which– Software systems communicate directly– Communication uses XML-based messages

over internet protocols• Can use regular HTTP (Web) server such as

Apache

Does not require– Use of higher level standards such as SOAP

and WSDL– Use of particular implementations such as J2EE

or .net

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XML

Simple, extensible text format for exchange of data– Intended to enable good description of data– More of a framework than actual format

• Needs to have “tags” defined by a schema

Extremely valuable for replacing many non-standard data exchange formats– Standard “parsers” convert text to computer-

accessible format– A simple idea that can make data interchange

work better – but not rocket science

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Basic XML Example

A simple personnel record, with name, address, employee number, salary– “Fields” must be defined in a schema

<employee><name><first>Jane</first><last>Doe</last></name><address><number>14</number><street>Main Street</street><city>Ithaca</city><state>NY</state><zip>14850</zip></address><id_number>142996</id_number><salary>72,000</salary></employee>

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What XML Gets You

Great; both systems use XML format– Analogy: knowing the same language

(grammar, etc.) – saves a lot!

Still need to know how the systems communicate– E.g., using HTTP, SOAP over IIOP, etc.– Analogy: on the phone, internet, in person, etc.

Still need to know the vocabulary– Provided by Schema, but need to know how to

use the resulting data– Analogy: meaning of special-purpose terms

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Full Web Services Architecture

IP Network

DiscoveryAgency

ServiceProvider

ServiceRequestor Interaction

(Using SOAP)

Publish(UDDI/WSDL)

Find(UDDI/WSDL)

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Full Web Services Stack

Layers involved in full Web services architecture– Note the “business issues” from a general IT

architectural perspective

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SOAP

An XML-based means of describing communication between systems– Works with various network protocols

• E.g., HTTP, SMTP, FTP, RMI/IIOP or proprietary messaging protocols such as MQSeries

– SOAP intended to standardize description of what is in a message sent between systems• Can simply use network protocols directly but

not “self describing”

– Hype often ahead of value with SOAP• More variation in data than in message format

so more important to use XML for data itself

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WSDL/UDDI

XML-based means of describing and discovering Web services

Part of the Web services architecture is that there should be service directories– Services and descriptions can be looked up

• E.g., find me a package delivery service

– Description involves how to access service and what messages can be sent

Powerful vision, but still actively evolving– Today known which systems will interact with

one another – not highly dynamic

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Web Services Software

Two application development frameworks make easier to deploy Web services– J2EE from Sun, based on Java

• Also supported by IBM, Oracle and BEA• Proprietary extensions from each vendor

– .net from Microsoft, based on CLR• CLR: common language runtime

Language independent but primarily new language C# and Visual Basic

• Wide adoption in Microsoft developer community

In practice, many are using both

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Recent Study

Gartner survey from September ’02– 44 consulting and systems integration firms– Reported in Information Week, 2/5/03

Top 3 platforms targeting for Web services– 58% .net– 40% IBM WebSphere (J2EE)– 31% Oracle (J2EE)– Sun fourth place

Survey of 140 companies similar results– Smaller companies more likely to use .net– Larger more likely to use J2EE or both

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What’s Meant by Web Services

Most companies still using Web services within the enterprise– Some starting to offer services to outsiders

• Beyond technology leaders like FedEx, Google, Amazon, Ebay

Generally using XML for inter-system communication over HTTP

Usage of SOAP and WSDL still low– In Feb. 2002 was “miniscule”– Currently around 20% report using at least one

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Full Web Services Architecture

IP Network

DiscoveryAgency

ServiceProvider

ServiceRequestor Interaction

(Using SOAP)

Publish(Using WSDL)

Find(Using WSDL)

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Today’s Web Services Architecture

IP Network

ServiceProvider

ServiceRequestor Interaction

(Using XML over HTTP)

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Management Decisions

Vendors and platforms– Unix/Java or Microsoft shop (often both)

• J2EE or .net (or both)

– Currently using• Other trends driving these choices within firm

What are potential customers using and how much influence over their choices– Or compatibility across vendors

How far up the Web services stack– Is minimum for the business purpose– Is desirable for future compatibility