|
| |
We
are in the midst of a fundamental change in both technology and its
application. Organizations today expect to get more value from their investments
in technology. In the "postscarcity era of computing",
1: the availability of processing power is not a
constraint. Cost of platform technology has become a minor factor in selecting
among alternatives to build the business solution. The constraining factors are
the organizational impact of reengineering the business process and the costs
and time required for system development. In addition, the need to re-educate
personnel to the required level of expertise can be an extremely expensive
proposition.
Open systems enable organizations to buy off-the-shelf solutions to business
problems. Open systems standards define the format in which data is exchanged,
remote systems are accessed, and services are invoked. The acceptance of open
systems standards supports the creation of system architectures that can be
built from technology components. These standards enable us, for example, to
 |
Build reusable class libraries to use in object-oriented
design and development environments.
|
|
Build niche products that interact with the same data
(objects).
|
|
Customize a letter at a personal desktop workstation to
include data, addressing and graphics input from a word processor, a
personal spreadsheet, a workgroup database, and an existing enterprise host
application to be sent by electronic mail to anywhere in the world.
|
Contrary to the claims of groups ranging from the Open
Software Foundation (OSF) to the user/vendor consortium Open User Recommended
Solutions (OURS), open systems are not exclusively systems that conform to OSF
or OURS committee recommendations, or necessarily to UNIX specifications.
The client/server model makes the enterprise available at the desk. It provides
access to data that the previous architectures did not. Standards have been
defined for client/server computing. If these standards are understood and used,
organizations can reasonably expect to buy solutions today that can grow with
their business needs without the constant need to revise the solutions.
Architectures based on open systems standards can be implemented throughout the
world, as global systems become the norm for large organizations.
2: While a supportable common platform on a global
scale is far from standardized, it certainly is becoming much easier to
accomplish. From the desktop, enterprise-wide applications are indistinguishable
from workgroup and personal applications.
Powerful enabling technologies with built-in conformance to open systems
standards are evolving rapidly.
Examples include object-oriented development, relational and object-oriented
databases, multimedia, imaging, expert systems, geographic information systems
(GIS), voice recognition and voice response, and text management. These
technologies provide the opportunity to integrate their generic
capabilities—with the particular requirements of an organization—to create a
cost-effective and customized business solution. The client/server model
provides the ideal platform with which to integrate these enabling technologies.
Well-defined interface standards enable integration of products from several
vendors to provide the right application solution.
Enterprise systems are those that create and provide a shared information
resource for the entire corporation. They do not imply centralized development
and control, but they do treat information and technology as corporate
resources. Enterprise network management requires all devices and applications
in the enterprise computing environment to be visible and managed. This remains
a major challenge as organizations move to distributed processing. Standards are
defined and are being implemented within the client/server model. Client/server
applications give greater viability to worker empowerment in a distributed
organization than do today's host-centered environments.
|
