Where to Start

Web Services can be used to crush the barriers to business integration. Business integration is a good idea at any time, but your recovery will accelerate if you use Web Services to work more closely with your suppliers and customers. Think of Web Services as XML links to customers, partners , and operating groups. Without them, you ll write one-to-one interfaces. You would write the interface for one vendor. Let s just say it takes you ten weeks to write the interface that would link your procurement system to your supplier s inventory system. Each additional vendor interface would take ten weeks, as well. Prior to Web Services, you had to have the same integration vendor on each side, too. A lot of resources (time, money, etc.) would need to be invested upfront on a proprietary technology and virtual area network (VAN) connection. Because Web Services use an open standard, you can use any vendor, can add a thin layer of technology over your existing systems, and, in many cases, send data encrypted over the public Internet. Instead of taking ten weeks to integrate the first vendor, it will take two to three weeks with Web Services. For subsequent vendors in the old world, it took another ten weeks. With Web Services, it will take you about one week. That s ten times faster!

You can use Web Services to link to your suppliers, connect to customers, or simplify your internal interfaces ”all using a fraction of the resources needed to develop, test, and implement using traditional (i.e., non-Web Services development) methods . The low-hanging fruit for Web Services is where the pain is greatest: linking to customers and suppliers. Maybe you want to open your production schedules to partners and suppliers or tie your order management system to your customer s purchasing software. There is also a great opportunity to simplify your internal systems. You could retool your pricing engine with Web Services interfaces to offer it as an internal service. Web Services also are the right technology for simplifying internal systems. Instead of building the same core functionality over and over again in each business unit or for each customer channel, build it once and reuse it everywhere. As an example, a very large bank has seven mortgage rate calculators ”one for each channel and each kind of customer. That causes all kinds of problems: the rates can be different over the phone than from the web site, and the calculators are seven times the effort to build and maintain. What s the solution? One mortgage rate calculator with Web Services interfaces that is used in every channel and application. What does this mean? The Web Services solution provides a more consistent customer experience, more control over a business driver, and lower total cost of ownership.

Now that you know where to get started, the next question is how to get started. First, you must bring IT, business, and marketing together. Next , you ll need to prioritize the services you should build to the business.



Oracle Application Server 10g Web Development
Oracle Application Server 10g Web Development (Oracle Press)
ISBN: 0072255110
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 192

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