When we spoke with MIT Systems Researcher Jeanne Ross, she pointed to Boston’s Big Dig as an archetypal muffed project.

This was a massive federal project to replace Boston’s Central Artery, which added a tunnel to the airport and replaced an elevated highway with a depressed one.  It started in earnest in the late 1980s or early 1990s, depending on how you estimate “earnest.” Originally set for 1998 completion and budgeted at $2.8 billion, the eventual cost was over $15 billion (by some estimates, the final tag was $22 billion) and its completion occurred late in 2007.

From Ross’s point of view, The Big Dig was an example of classic underestimation of the kind that can happen in software development.  How much are we spending on an existing system while we are laboriously rebuilding it? Some people don’t deal with those figures. Here is Ross’s take:

I highlight the Big Dig here in Boston because the thing cost over $15 billion dollars. The idea was: “We’re going to take this highway that goes over the city, and we’re going to put it under the city.” Brilliant idea! The main thing they underestimated was what happens to [existing systems] while you are building the new capability. They were just trying all kinds of new technologies and approaches to doing things, and they really had no way of estimating how long it would take or how much it would cost.

The lesson in it for architects in IT is that at least a third of the $15 billion was spent on just making it possible to continue to do business, for cars to continue to be able to navigate their way to the airport, to the office, wherever it is they’re trying to get to, even while this major transformation was taking place downtown. So, a third of the money is not going towards the new capability, it’s going towards being able to continue to exist while you’re building the capability.  I think that’s a thing as a rule that architects would like to shy away from. It feels like such a bad use of your money.

To read the rest of Ross on business capabilities, go to “MIT’s Ross says exploiting IT business capabilities is next EA step.”  Ross, director and principal research scientist at the Center for Information Systems Research (CISR) at the MIT Sloan School of Management, spoke with us shortly after speaking at The Open Group Conference in San Francisco. – Jack Vaughan

There, the business side may buy the tools and model the processes, but then leave it to developers in the application integration team to make it all work with enterprise software services.

The business side sees the cool power slides and money in the bank; the development team sees the dangers in impedance mismatch between services and processes. The business side has the vision; the development side cleans up the mess. That is a bridge that must be crossed.

In fact, people have been looking to bridge this divide for many years. Certainly, business process modeling tools have improved enough for business analysts to do more of the modeling work in BPM/SOA situations. But the work - and the hand-off of business process models - must be approached carefully. Developers still usually need to create a useful sandbox for the business model users up front, so that the business modelers don’t end up creating processes that crash and burn when they are implemented on SOA infrastructure.

This comes to mind when considering the recent advent of BPMN 2.0. The BPMN 2.0 notation came into being to improve the ability of business-side modelers to create standard business process descriptions that can in turn be executed via BPEL or other means.

But how easy is BPMN 2.0 modeling, really? Is it ready for business users?  The BPMN notation quite resembles a flowchart, so it is no more easy or difficult than a flowchart diagram from the original computing era. (Anybody remember green plastic flowchart template rulers?) Certainly there are people on the business side that can think in terms of flowchart symbols. But they may not be the majority. And their ranks may thin even more if they try to plow through 500-plus pages of BPMN standards documentation.

BPM modeling tools may have improved, but it is fair to say that the business architect and the software architect will still have to continue to collaborate in order to achieve business visions that are successfully executable.

We recently spoke about BPM, BPMN, SOA and BPEL issues with Michael Rowley, CTO, Active Endpoints who was a contributor to BPMN 2.0 and editor of the BPEL4People OASIS standards. There are both effective and ineffective ways to pursue cross-team process/development architecture, he suggested.

“When BPMN 2.0 first came out, some people thought this was going to be well suited to somebody that was familiar with Visio. Then they discovered there is a lot to it. There are a lot of icons to learn, and they are very specific,” he said.

“People were surprised at how detailed BPMN 2.0 came out to be. But it is a natural thing, given its goal to allow you to design anything, any kind of process, and have it be executable,” said Rowley. “That requires a lot of technical detail.”

“You can’t make BPMN simpler without changing the goals of what it is trying to accomplish,” he said.

BPMN, of course deliver benefits. Its support is broad enough that one can envision a growing pool of skilled practitioners. It can precisely describe processes. It is executable. Its notation can be shared by IT and the business side. But the amount of sharing may be better if tempered.

Constant collaboration, in Rowley’s view, is not a necessarily a good thing. “Every time the business side changes something in a drawing they shouldn’t have to go back to the development side,” he said. Nor should the business side be burdened with learning about programming issues such as WSDLs, he said.

“We believe the right way to get the business and IT user to collaborate is to do it less frequently,” he said. This can be done successfully, he said, if the development side pre-configures service activities. These in turn become safe modeling elements that the business side can use to describe their process workflows. – Jack Vaughan

The system supports both one-off inquiries (a user sends a text with their current location and destination and the system replies with the appropriate transit route) and subscriptions to find out about emerging changes in train schedules (for example, a commuter might sign up to find out ASAP when scheduled maintenance effects their route to work).

The backbone of the new system is built on an open source enterprise service bus (ESB) and the associated open source business activity monitoring (BAM) system from WSO2. According to Simon Bidel, head of professional services at Godel Technologies, using a service-oriented architecture with an ESB to separate all the diverse services has made the system easier and less costly to implement.

For example, Godel Technologies was able to implement an intelligent router service that is able to sort incoming text based on content. The router, in turn, powers an application that allows users to text in alerts about problems such as broken traffic lights. The system is able to route the message to the appropriate channels for maintenance and repair and even to respond to the user with a thank you message. In a company-provided case-study, Bidel is quoted as saying “The traffic light reporting service was built in just two weeks. It proved how quick and easy it was to add a new service, which was one of the primary goals of the SOA.”

In a presentation at WSO2 Con 2011, Simon Bidell recalled, “Someone was asking if BAM was a requirement, or a ‘nice to have’ that we did because we could. In this particular case, it was absolutely a requirement.” He went on to explain the monetization of premium SMS messages and the requirements of accountability to prove and record premium messages.

The BAM system can monitor trends in usage and other areas. For example, the system might show elevated levels of route requests before and after major football matches (that’s soccer for our American friends) when huge crowds of fans, many of whom are unfamiliar with London, are finding their way to or from the stadium.

The BAM system was also found to be useful in detecting and planning for predictable, but unscheduled, usage spikes. It was known that during icy winter weather usage spiked as travelers checked to see how long delays would be and at the same time outgoing messages were scheduled for regular weather alert subscribers. The BAM system allowed Godel Technologies to analyze usage and provide the right amount of bandwidth to ensure that no foreseeable spike in usage would max out the system.

”One of the challenges for companies is to keep up with the pace of mobility. It is difficult - updating [mobile apps] in some cases on a monthly basis,” said Steve Drake, analyst, IDC. That is where the mobile middleware trend gets impetus.

The trend proved vibrant enough this week for IBM to scoop up Israel-based mobile middleware house Worklight for an undisclosed sum.

As part of its ”enterprise mobile application” platform, Worklight supports open source PhoneGap HTML5 and JavaScript cross-platform tools and runtimes. PhoneGap was originated by Nitobi Software, now part of Adobe. Software like Worklight’s is an important addition to IBM’s mobile portfolio.

Growth of mobile and client fragmentation presses IT development resources, said Scott Hebner, Vice President Marketing, IBM Tivoli Software.

”Worklight has an extensive set of libraries. These are APIs that you write to. It supports HTML5, JavaScript, CSS 3, and it supports native [mobile operating systems],” he said. The software will be integrated with existing IBM WebSphere middleware, he indicated.

”It’s a good move for IBM. It really kind of steps up their mobile offerings,” said IDC’s Drake. ”They certainly needed a bit of a boost when it comes to a need for a mobile application platform.”

Clearly, there is an intersection of cloud computing and mobile application underway, and Big Blue’s moves — it has also purchased firms like mobile security manager Big Fix, which last week was officially integrated into IBM with products rebranded as IBM Tivoli Endpoint Manager - show it is determined to be a big mobile player.

”One of the big drivers of cloud is mobile. You will see us enable mobility, analytics and cloud across the portfolio,” Hebner said. ”Mobility is a strategic [goal] of IBM.” - Jack Vaughan

Developers were hoping to have the open source version of WebOS at all at once; however HP announced that the platform and its supporting tools will be released in installments running through September. The first version, Open WebOS 1.0, will be converted to a standard Linux kernel which will make it easier to port to different hardware.

It has been a winding road for WebOS since it was first introduced by Palm in January 2009 as the successor to Palm OS. After Palm was acquired by HP in April 2010, webOS was released to new HP devices. It was practically left for dead, after product line changes and complicated corporate shuffling at the top of HP.

Its troubled path since Palm’s acquisition by HP has caused experts to doubt webOS’s outlook. Al Hilwa, program director for IDC, said it will face an uphill battle.

“The battle for mobile platforms appears to have narrowed considerably,” Hilwa said, “And it is difficult and unrealistic at this point to expect WebOS to see a recovery back into that market.” In a smartphone poll performed by Nielsen in Q2 2011, webOS only had a 2 percent market share in the U.S. compared to 39 percent for Android and 28 percent that for Apple iOS.

However, Hilwa believes that the flexibility of webOS may help the platform become relevant in the future.

“It is quite possible that hardware vendors in the embedded space can take WebOS up for appropriate projects,” Hilwa said, in an email message. “Also, there are parts of WebOS, such as the development framework, that may be used independently.”

This month, HP expects to release and intended project governance model, QT WebKit extensions, JavaScript core, and UI Enyo widgets. In March, HP is set to release graphics extensions, LevelDB, USB extensions. An update for Enyo (2.1), the release of Ares 2.0, and Node services are expected for April. July sets up the ground for September with the release of a system manager dubbed, Luna, a system manager bus, core applications, and another update of Enyo (2.2). The Open webOS beta will be released in August, the company said. - Ryan Punzalan

Today, Accenture released an updated version of a self-service portal to provide people electronic access to their caseworkers and the benefit application process in state resource systems.

Accenture Citizen Self-Service Portal Version 2.0 has enhanced self-service features, a training module and a ”natural language” rules engine to increase public agencies’ flexibility to adapt benefit eligibility programs and processes in response to legislative and policy changes.

Human service agencies using the portal will be provided ”24/7” access to citizens who want to determine their potential eligibility for public assistance programs, apply for benefits and manage benefits.

The new portal is designed mainly to help meet the needs of social service agencies and the people served by those agencies. It builds on the Accenture Public Service Platform to help public agencies manage human services delivery cost effectively with improved technological flexibility and enhanced citizen services and program outcomes.

This is part of an on-going Accenture effort to provide SOA expertise to government agencies. Read here to find how the company is now working with the state of Kansas to help create a new benefits eligibility system that implements service-oriented architecture.

“The most secure store never opens,” quips SABSA Academy leader John Sherwood.

The TOGAF-SABSA collection of best practices will find a ready audience as IT moves to endorse more and more Web APIs. And it is not always about security. When Sony’s game playing audience saw their sites down due to security issues they complained – not to get the sites secure, but to get the sites running. Can you say paradigm shift?

Gamesters are different than enterprise apps users. The enterprise app users sue. The balancing act is delicate. Read about the TOGAF/SABSA Guidance.

This comes to mind after a recent conversation with Hub Vandervoort, CTO of SOA Infrastructure Products for Progress Software. He contended that one of the major elements that goes into handling events is a dedicated event processor. That puts it outside the realm of general purpose computing familiar to the broad ranks of developers.

“You have a window of time in which events take place,” he said. Thus, there arises a use for a dedicated processor that can handle things quickly - as they happen. “You can’t use a thread-based model as is found with general-purpose application servers,” he continued.

For Progress’s part, an Apama Correlator based on a HyperTree architecture is specialized for executing event pattern matching logic to take care of a high volume of event data.

Time-oriented language semantics are supported too, this being another differentiator from popular general-purpose approaches. Sounds complex, yet, Progress Apama has forged model-based development methods that allow business power users to help program the event engines.

What do you think? Ready to try CEP? What alternatives are you considering? Let us know.

Cloud computing continued to evolve in the past year– and more such evolution is about all we can confidently expect in 2012. As with other, earlier ”game changing” technologies, much of the new frontier is familiar. Cloud momentum is slowing a bit as the real work gets underway – that is, to create useful application integrations on the cloud that are equal or superior to those already available in the data center.

One especial back-to-the future cloud experience comes via the apparent resurgence of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) or the Value Added Network (VAN), now, in the cloud era, being reconfigured and renamed as the ”cloud service brokerage.” The thinking behind the cloud service brokerage is this: It is all getting kind of complicated - maybe you should consider outsourcing your integration work, especially with the new cloud platforms. Some firms will quickly decide that integration is an expertise they can outsource, others won’t. Read ”Cloud services brokerages can lead way to cloud computing.”

The cloud variety that is known as “Platform as a Service” (PaaS) experienced a shift in emphasis over the course of 2011. The open source developer community has increasingly been turning to Web-based software development tools, and that seemed like a natural fit for cloud computing. So PaaS is starting to mean both a cloud computing runtime and a cloud computing development platform.  RedHat was prominent in 2011 with this type of PaaS, but an assortment of vendors, including some big players, are in the hunt as well, not the least of which is Microsoft.  Planning and strategy for cloud computing is one of the big challenges of 2012 – check out the SearchSOA.com ”SOA and Cloud Computing Strategy Guide” for more on the topic.

Beyond cloud, a whole host of hot technologies served to enliven 2011. HTML5, TOGAF, EAI, REST and Watson (all considered elsewhere in this year-ending ”This Week” newsletter edition) will flourish or fade in the year ahead. Stay tuned to SearchSOA.com for more and have a good 2012!

According to Woolbright, OmegaFi started out in the early nineties with a client/server based software application that they sometimes had to install for college students that were not yet computer savvy. The company quickly moved to Web applications as the Internet grew in popularity, and now it provides software as a service via the Web.

One of the technical challenges that OmegaFi faces is keeping up with the expectation of their core user base who are now much more tech-savvy than college students were two decades ago. Today’s fraternity treasurers grew up with Google and Facebook and expect a seamless user interface. As OmegaFi integrated with third-party systems to provide a broader range of financial services and customization options, they found their own integration architecture lacking. “We didn’t have the ability to offer up and secure data services from our system to trusted third parties,” lamented Woolbright.

To overcome that challenge, Woolbright turned to an XML gateway from Forum Systems. The security appliance focuses on identity federation to increase integration opportunities while increasing the Web applications’ overall security. According to Woolbright, there were use cases new to Forum Systems that had to be worked out. “We worked with Forum to build new types of authentication standards into their product that would work well with proprietary systems we’ve built from scratch to serve our clients’ unique needs.”

Reflecting on the process, Woolbright had a few pieces of advice for other CIOs that are looking at adding security or ID management appliances into their application infrastructure:

• First on Woolbright’s list is the breadth of third-party identity providers with which the appliance can be integrated. Focus on using industry standards to play well with other applications that are identity service consumers.
• Second, “Look for products that can use identity across both the front-end Web applications and the back-end data services so that you have identity enforcement throughout the entirety of the transaction.”
• Don’t overlook traditional gateway features like security, performance and transaction monitoring, debugging and load balancing. Woolbright stresses that gateways vary greatly with respect to the ease of use of their products and tooling.
• “Finally, it is important to look at how the appliances can help you govern your infrastructure by providing information about the transactions you are delivering to consumers,” Woolbright concludes. Adding that many tools provide useful service logging features that can ease maintenance tasks.