STEP-C
Students Tracking and
Engagement Proof of concept
Rajesh Sinha (CEO, Fulcrum)
Agenda
STEP-C Objective
HE vision
Implementing STEP-C (SOA + ESB)
Future – ESB in Cloud
Enterprise Architecture
Q&A
STEP- C Objective
UK Higher Education has been facing challenges since last few
years. A few amongst them are:
• UK HE organizations have adopted “best of breed” approach
for acquiring information related to student. Each institution
then has to integrate the various application systems and
develop over-arching management reporting systems.
• There was a need for information to be acquired and
integrated across multiple Institutions to satisfy legislative
needs.
• UK legislation (anti-terrorism rules) require all UK Universities
to be able to monitor whether students who have obtained a
visa to attend an educational course are actually attending
and studying.
HE Vision
Students Record
Portal Services
Customers, Partners
& vendors
Cloud Computing
Other App
Enterprise Service Bus
Internet
VLE
Email Exchange
Finance APP
Library System
Data Enrichment
Using
Data Quality
Services
EDW
Traditional Vs. SOA
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
Students Track
• Students Record
• Personal Info
Finance
VLE
• Identity Check
• Process Payment
• VLE plan
• Course Attended
Students
Tracking
• Students Record
• Personal Info
• Monolithic application development
• Point-to-point integration
• Hard-wired
• Resource Intensive
• High bandwidth utilization
• High number of Communication
Channels
Finance
VLE
• Identity Check
• Process Payment
• VLE plan
• Course Attended
• Distributed applications
• Backbone-based integration
• Reusable services
• Decoupling
• Metadata driven – Services, Policy's and Bindings
• Centralized Operation and Management
SOA- ESB
De Montfort University
DMU:
Finance
System
Student
Records
Agresso QLX V3.9
Agresso QLS (V4(1.13))
Using Web Services
ESB - ENTERPRISE SERVICE BUS
DMU:
Blackboard V8.0 (SP5)
Virtual
Learning
Environment
Google Mail
University
Email
[
]
Reporting
System
CREATE A REPOSITORY
OF ACTIVITY /
ENGAGEMENT DATA
SOA-ESB
Southampton Solent University
Library
System
SSU:
Exlibris: Aleph
Student
Records
Campus IT: Quercus Plus
ESB - ENTERPRISE SERVICE BUS
SSU:
Open Source Moodle
Virtual
Learning
Environment
Reporting
System
[
]
SOA-ESB - Comparison
Finance
System
DMU:
Student
Records
Agresso QLX V3.9
Agresso QLS (V4(1.13))
Library
System
SSU:
SSU:
Blackboard V8.0 (SP5)
Virtual
Learning
Environment
Google Mail
University
Email
DMU
Campus IT: Quercus Plus
IBM WEBSPHERE ESB
MICROSOFT BIZTALK
DMU:
Exlibris: Aleph
Student
Records
Reporting
System
Open Source Moodle
Virtual
Learning
Environment
Reporting
System
SSU
STEP-C Reporting
From
Agresso Students
DMU Report
From
Blackboard
From
Gmail
From
Agresso
-Finance
From
Aleph
SSU Report
From
Quercus
From
Moodle
Implementation Benefits
• The solution is deemed to be technology and platform
independent
• The total solution is a loosely coupled architecture that any
systems can be added to the existing frame work without
disturbing the current environment.
• The reusability concepts of the SOA based architectures are
implemented by consuming all the functionalities as services
through the ESB.
• The development time to add new systems is very less as
retesting the existing solution and recompilation of the total
solution for minor changes can be avoided.
• With the concepts of Itineraries the data flow can be defined
by a business analyst without knowing the underlying
implementation of the any tool.
ESB in Cloud
XML
XML
XML
Subscribe
Subscribe
Publish
- Services re-used
across various HEI
- Common services
HEIs
- Interoperability &
Standardization
- Involvement of
Vendors, Suppliers
& System Integrators
HEI 1
HEI 2
Publish
- Common Data
Structures
- Data Security
-Data Management
& Governance
- Reporting & BI
Today’s IT Environment
ClientProfile
Care Support 1
(BBX)
 Inflexible,
expensive to
change
systems
DTS
E/VIM Agent
HRA
(.NET + MS SQL)
Fast EDI
SDS-CS
PMPT
EDW
(Oracle)
Archive Server
Clinet Setup
Portlets
PPS
(MS SQL)
UR Source
SAS
Client Master
Shared Data
Services
HRA Source
Wellness
Loaders
PHA – LMP - BIO
Case Mgt Tool
Case Extract
Case Loader
CS Elig Extract
CSIII
(.Net)
(MS SQL)
NRT
PHA
LMP
BIO
PL/SQL
Loaders
Eligibility Source
CDE
(.Net)
SDSR
(Oracle)
Visit Logic
DX Claims Source
SDS/ENR
Member Resolution Tool
RX Claims Source
ClaritasExt/Ldr
NRT
Suspense Resolution Tool
SDS/IDS
Case Router
 Tightly coupled
systems
Enrollment
(J2EE)
DART
NRT
CW elig xtract
Call Log Loader
ExStream
Portal IDA
Contact
Verification
Service
Claritas/Pacific East
Fulfillment
(Printing)
IDS
(J2EE/Blaze)
Web
Browser
 Not easily
scalable
CareWise Nurse Line
(PowerBuilder)
ClientProfile
Person Viewer
(.NET)
Carewise DW
Living Wise
Chat
 Data with
frequent
inconsistencies
‘To Be’ Enterprise Architecture
ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE GOVERNANCE
SECURITY Services and Procedure
LIFECYCLE Management
Security
policies
Authentication
Security
management
Security
standards
Authorization
Confidentiality
Consumer
Channels
Browser Channel
Service Consumer
Process
Tier
Process modeling
Application
Tier
SOA Apps
CoE
Process
Policies
Compliance
TAC
Standards
SCM
Quality control
DGC
Process monitoring
Process analysis & control
Composite Apps
Business Intelligence
Service administration
& management
BAM
Productivity Apps
Monitoring
Logging
Auditing
Printer/ Telephone
Mail
Mobility
Process automation
Service Management
SSO and SSL enabled
BRMS
Rules engine
Campaign engine
Portal and CMS
Enterprise products
Integration Tier
SERVICE ORCHESTRATION
Data Integration
Service Provider
Shared Services
Reusable Components
Communication Tier
Asynchronous
Data
Tier
Infrastructure
Tier
Framework
Deployment services
Publish/subscribe
Synchronous
APP 2
APP 1
Data quality
ETL
Enterprise Service Bus
Legacy
Services
Notification
& subscription
Metadata
MDM
Queuing
Reliable messaging
Reporting Repository
Others
Firewall
Mail Exchange
Telephony
N/w, SAN
Servers and Desktop
Virtualization
Clustering & Load Bal
Security
Citrix
FTP
Green IT
Grid Computing
Scalability
ENV provisioning
IDS
STEP-C Background
Each of the 167 UK HEIs have application architectures built with
•
Different combinations of ‘Best of Breed’ applications
•
Applications that are linked with point-to-point interfaces
•
Few “standards” for interfaces which are shared across the
entire sector
Hence, each University has a different starting point and also a
different size of IT department
System Architecture
using Microsoft ESB
Value Added


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
Agresso Students
Record system
Agresso Finance SQL
Server 2005
Publish and Subscribe Architecture
Message Transformation
Adapter Framework
Reusable Orchestration (Business
Process Management)
Itinerary Services
Deployment Management
Security
ESB Toolkit
Request Message
BizTalk SQL
adapter
To Web service
Response Message
From Web service
Aggregation of all the
messages into a single
message
BizTalk Server ESB ramp
On Ramp
Off RAMP
BizTalk SQL
adapter
Request &
Response from
Google API
BizTalk SQL
adapter
Google API
Black Board SQL
Server 2005
Reporting Database
SQL Server 2005
System Architecture
using IBM ESB
Value Added








Enterprise Messaging
Request/Response Architecture
Message Transformation
Automated Process Flows
Business Process Services
Service Mediation
Aggregation (FAN-IN; FAN-OUT)
ESB Toolkit
Measuring EA Maturity
MATURITY LEVELS
BY CATEGORY







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

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

Business Architecture
Data Architecture
Governance
Planning
Framework
Architecture Blueprint
Communication
Compliance
Integration
Team Involvement
Performance
IT Implementation
Overall EA Maturity
0 1 2 3 4 5
EA links Business and IT