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To demonstrate the use of the Patterns for e-business presented in this redbook, we came up with the business scenarios outlined in this chapter for our imaginary customer, ABC Electronics. Of course, simple business scenarios like these don't exist in reality, but they help us to explain how the Patterns for e-business approach can be applied.
This section provides some background information on our imaginary client, ABC Electronics, including:
Business profile and goals
Existing environment
Non-functional requirements, or Quality of Service requirements
ABC Electronics is a retail electronics store that specializes in both consumer and business goods. Founded 30 years ago, the company has grown from a small local storefront to a large regional department store featuring televisions, computer equipment, stereo equipment, and household electronics. The company has a large wholesale business as well, supplying computer equipment, fax machines, copiers, and other business electronics to merchants throughout the region.
By integrating their retail ordering and wholesale inventory processes, ABC Electronics plans to:
Reduce costs by reducing the staff workload associated with placing stock replenishment orders with the wholesale department. This should be achieved by integrating the ordering system with the wholesale inventory system.
Increase customer satisfaction by reducing latency between the retail ordering process and the wholesale inventory process, thereby decreasing the likelihood of an item being out-of-stock.
After the internal processes have been integrated, ABC Electronics plans to enable their external resellers to place stock replenishment orders with the wholesale department.
This section describes the existing environment at ABC Electronics.
From the business perspective, the existing environment includes:
The wholesale ordering process shown in Figure 6-1. This process uses the wholesale department's inventory business process, which is accessed through manual channels in the form of paper-based forms and manual processes.
Figure 6-1: ABC Electronics wholesale ordering process flow
The internal retail department and a number of external reseller business partners, who use the wholesale department to place their stock replenishment orders.
The existing IT environment, shown in Figure 6-2, includes:
An existing wholesale inventory system. This important legacy system implements the core business processes of the wholesale department.
An existing retail ordering system. This system is used by retail staff and has recently been upgraded to a Self-Service browser-based J2EE application.
External reseller's with their own, heterogeneous IT infrastructures.
Limited existing application integration infrastructure.
Figure 6-2: ABC Electronics current IT infrastructure
ABC Electronics requires that all solutions provide a standard Quality of Service (QoS) set. The following specific criteria must be met:
Autonomic
Solutions provide suitable system management tools, procedures, and logs.
Availability
Solutions meet both the defined unplanned and planned downtime requirements.
Meaningful messages are provided to system users during downtime.
Federation
The responsibilities of the stakeholders are clearly defined and agreed to by all parties.
Performance
Solutions meet the defined throughput and response times.
Solutions scale to provide for future growth.
Security
Sensitive systems and data is protected from unauthorized access.
Non-repudiation of the end user for all commercial transactions is provided.
Standards compliance
Appropriate standards are identified and applied.
Compatibility with existing internal systems and partners is considered.
It is beyond the scope of this redbook to define such requirements in real, measurable terms for our sample scenarios. Of course you would do so in a real-world implementation to ensure that the delivered solution meets the demands of the organization.
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