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BUILDING CORPORATE PORTALS USING XML

3 Day Seminar

Speaker:

Peter Aiken, Institute for Data Research

"I am truly motivated to take this XML-Portal idea back to my company"

"Excellent Speaker and presentation information"

"I know the data is there, but I can't get the information I need’ (Anonymous Manager).

How many times have you heard this cry from management? It is a common problem: the data is in "the computer," but cannot be located readily (or at all); or it is not in a format that is suitable for use by management. There are a number of reasons that this is such a commonplace lament: slow and ineffective systems development techniques, complex organisational environments (as a result of merges, acquisitions, or lack of architectural direction. XML-based Portals are a key emerging technology that will help organisational data managers to rapidly implement organisation-wide delivery of key data an order of magnitude more rapidly then has been previously possible.

"Envision the enterprise information portal as a browser-based system providing ubiquitous access to business related information in the same way that Internet content portals are the gateway to the wealth of content on the web" [InfoWorld Electric] Web site

Enterprise Information Portals are applications that enable companies to unlock internally and externally stored information, and provide users a single gateway to personalised information needed to make informed business decisions. Enterprise Information Portals (EIP) are an emerging market opportunity; an amalgamation of software applications that consolidate, manage, analyse and distribute information across and outside of an enterprise (including Business Intelligence, Content Management, Data Ware- house and Mart, and Data Management applications. [Merrill Lynch: November 16, 1998 [SageMaker] Web site]

The Merrill Lynch report and summary highlight the emergence of Enterprise Information Portals as an investment opportunity for their clients and others. InfoWorld presented a summary of the report as a Front Page article of the January 25, 1999 issue. A copy of that article is available from the [InfoWorld Electric] Web site. A financial summary of the potential of the EIP market from the Merrill Lynch report was pro-vided in the InfoWorld article. The summary states: We have conservatively estimated the 1998 total market opportunity of the EIP market at $4.4 billion. We anticipate that revenues could top $14.8 billion by 2002, approximately 36 percent compound annual growth rate for this sector.

Metadata, Extensible Markup Language (XML), and XML-based Portals will be vital elements of the development capabilities of the 21st century enterprise. The technology is becoming so powerful that most organisations in industry, academia, and the public sector will need to develop portal capabilities to remain competitive. This seminar introduces the concepts of the XML-based Corporate Portal development. Corporate Portals, also called Enterprise Portals (EPs) or Enterprise Information Portals (EIPs), are information engineering- based delivery technologies that use XML to integrate both structured and unstructured data throughout an enterprise.

To provide guidance in building Enterprise Portals, we developed a methodology that we will use throughout the book. We call it the Engineering Enterprise Portals (EEP) methodology. EEP is based on concepts that are combined into an organisational approach to large-scale information management, in direct support of management information needs. By applying data warehousing and engineering concepts to the design, development, and deployment of Enterprise Portals, we will see how organisations can achieve a fundamental goal of identifying the information that is needed by management to achieve strategic business plans and corporate goals. This is a fundamental goal of organisations, which is called information alignment. Once identified, this information can be implemented in a variety of ways, as we will shortly discuss. A second fundamental goal is information leveraging. This is defined as accurately and effectively maintaining a relatively large amount of information by automated management of a significantly smaller volume of metadata. Information leverage is typically achieved by maintaining dense and intricate data structures consisting of interconnected or inter- woven data arraignment.

CIOs, CTOs, IT & IRM Managers, Project Managers, Data Architects, Data Administrators, Data Base Administrators, Business Analysts, Systems Analysts, Webmasters, Workflow Engineers, BPR Engineers, Document Specialists

This seminar is intended for systems practitioners and technical staff who are charged with developing corporate portals, and the business managers who will use them. While not required knowledge of data modelling concepts will be helpful.

How XML-based portals can become a key component in the delivery of information to organisational users.

How the data administration group and develop and deliver complete application solutions to organisational clients - solving forever the "what have you done for me lately" problem.

How portal-based solutions can play a vital role integrating business and systems engineering.

Enterprise Portal Design
The relationship between EEP and development, implementation, and refinement of organisational strategy is addressed. The goal of any Enterprise Portal effort is to develop effective knowledge management capabilities that provide quality data to users so they can develop, implement, and refine organisational strategies. It describes strategic planning, data modelling, strategic modelling, and decision support methods to capture strategic, tactical, and operational knowledge as structured data in support of Data Warehouse design and Enterprise Portal design.

Enterprise Portal Concepts
This introduces the concepts of Corporate Portals, Enterprise Portals, and Enterprise Information Portals and the engineering disciplines that are used in the EEP methodology. It discusses the roles of data models and metadata and briefly introduces how XML uses metadata. It introduces the basic principles of the Zachman Framework - Portal Engineering Concepts

Metadata Engineering Activities
This illustrates the key role that metadata engineering plays in integrating data warehouse and EP development with the implementation of organisational strategy. Unless you understand possible dimensions of system metadata and metadata engineering it is not possible to specify what components will be able to help you solve your problem. It illustrates how to match the development of appropriate system metadata subsets with specific requirements for developing an Enterprise Portal.

Metadata Quality
This describes the process of engineering quality into your organisational metadata engineering practice, so that a Data Warehouse or Enterprise Portal has quality engineered into it from the beginning. This avoids having to ``bolt quality on'' after your warehouse or Enterprise Portal is up and running. Not only will this save you embarrassment when you go live but it will also reduce your overall development costs.

Using XML/Portals as a Business and Systems Reengineering Technologies
XML is a significant enabler to translate these business reengineering opportunities into fact. Using XML as a systems reengineering technology also establishes an environment for forward engineering to different platforms, DBMS, or operating systems environments. XML and Portals can play an important role in the reengineering of legacy systems and databases. Further, it can be integrated with existing or planned business reengineering efforts using EPs to leverage enterprise integration activities.

Peter Aiken

Peter Aiken is Director of the Institute for Data Research and an Associate Professor of Information Systems, Virginia Commonwealth University. His research has widely explored the area of reverse engineering and its relationship to systems and business reengineering. He is the author of Data Reverse Engineering and Clive Finkelstein’s co-author of Corporate Information Portals (McGraw-Hill 1996/99). His research publications have appeared in the IBM Systems Journal, IEEE Software and many others. He is a member of the ACM, a Senior Member of the IEEE and has been a DAMA International Advisor since 1999. He earned his Ph.D. in 1989 from George Mason University and has lectured internationally on this and other reengineering topics.

Descriptions and Ordering from
AMAZON Along with the seminar materials delegates attending this seminar and the XML:The Strategic Implications for Data Administration, Management and Architecture seminar will receive a Free copy of Building Corporate Portals using XML by Clive Finkelstein and Peter Aiken (McGraw-Hill, 1999 www.mcgraw-hill.com) ISBN 0-079-13705-9