Service Oriented Computing Platform for Shared Services Model

It is the need of the hour for business entities to revisit their growth plans and to perform consistent checks on their performance and operational utilization. One of the driving factor for the transformation of Application Service Providers (http://blogs.hexaware.com/pitstop/application-service-provider-vs-software-as-a-service-asp-vs-saas.html )to Software as a service is the change in the Information Technology Trends.

 Human Computer Interaction and Interoperable applications seems to be the cloud where the future software investments would be. Let’s look into the evolving service oriented computing platform which answers a lot of the present day business needs.

The Product based companies were quick to incorporate the service orientation in their product designs by mostly following the agile software development methodology whereas the Service based companies were quick to incorporate the shared resource pool to evolve the Shared Services Support.

Initially, the shared services model was spotted within organizations as specialized groups of system and vendor specific administrators and later evolved as ESSA (http://www.hexaware.com/shared-services.htm). The proposed service oriented computing platform for such shared services model would further enhance the customer satisfaction as the service design principles are followed.

Goin by the tag “If resources are not retainable, Let’s retain their knowledge within the organization” – the service oriented computing platform goes one step further from the traditional vertical solutions(CRM,TAM,.) by providing an SOA based solution utilizing the present day horizontal solutions(Livelink ECM ). This Open technology solution is vendor independant and can accomodate the existing applications of Oracle(Peoplesoft, Siebel), Microsoft(sharepoint),SAP,Kronos Workforce Timekeeper,.. by establishing a meta data driven knowledge solution for the shared services resource pool to work on.

Few Key advantages of this service oriented solution for the shared services model are

a.Reusabilty – the reduntant support (technical/Functional) effort is minimized.

b. Service Governance

c. Discoverability

d. Less Time consumption in performing a support activity

e. Knowledge Service Composition – enabling the maintenance of organization wide service data irrespective of their source department or technology.

Like the Peoplesoft Person Model which was based out of SOA, the service oriented solution design for the shared services model would make a huge difference among the corporate cube warriors. Let’s wait for more such innovative solutions to surface soon.

New Mile Stone in Workforce Modelling and Intelligence – Orgplus

It was the last quarter of 2007 when we had a discussion on the workforce modelling and intelligence(refer -”workforce modelling and intelligence” post) in our pitstop. Now, the news is – Orgplus enterprise is named as the top HR product of the year 2008.


Yes,.. In a latest news release by pressreleasepoint, the author states that ““OrgPlus allows managers to easily visualize and understand their talent data, and if an organization is growing, reorganizing or merging, OrgPlus rapidly models these changes using accurate financial, workforce, and budget data so HR, finance and executive teams can make better decisions to impact overall corporate objectives.”

The Integration between the PeopleSoft HCM 9.0 and Orgplus was much awaited to be validated by Oracle and now Orgplus had recieved the integration validation. In short, the integration revolution within the HR IT Products seems to win the race.The importance of such integrations were realised by companies who concentrated on their ROI few years back and I would suggest them even in our present financial crisis term. 

Enterprise Content Management – Livelink Vs SharePoint

Do you feel that the growth of an organization is directly proportional to the content mangement within the organization ? or vice versa? Let’s look into one of the driving force behind a companies growth – It’s the Enterprise Content Management. ’Collaboration’, ‘Goals’, ‘Processes’, Business Data Analysis are the words frequently uttered across; when a company revisits its own growth.

The ECM suites provides a better way to organize, reuse and share data across the organization. To name a few, Livelink ECM Suite and Microsoft SharePoint provides an interactive space for document management, version management, auditing, business workflows, business intelligence and many other interesting search features with a user friendly – ‘web site’ style application.And also Microsoft’s BDC and Web Part technologies plays a vital role in third party integrations.(the details of which can be seen in our future posts)

By now,one can define in simple terms that a place where documents are managed can be termed as Enterprise Content Management Suites.In reality, the ROI’s are too high for organizations that have implemented SharePoint or Livelink. Livelink goes one step further by handling the retention management process for documents and incorporating a seemless workflow approval chain along the organization tree. This enables an organization to setup the time period for which a document can be accessible and then purged. In comparision, Livelink seems to be DoD certified and SharePoint may be in the process of getting one…

AdventureWorks 2000 and SQL Server 2005

Wow !!! It was Lewis Hamilton in India – On hearing the news I almost thought he was in india for the inauguration of our formula one circuit at Delhi or Hyderabad. But later heard that it was for a commercial deal. Ok Friends, Here I am today trying to explain some of the activities that needs to be performed for attaching the AdventureWorks2000 database to SQL Server 2005.

What is AdventureWorks Database? – Microsoft provides a sample database for demonstration of various functional as well as technical aspects of a business need. An excerpt from microsoft website reads ‘The purpose of AdventureWorks Databases is to demonstrate best practices for designing an integrated enterprise-class schema, and provide a sample database for that schema’. This database is not automatically installed with SQL Server Express.

Now, having known little about what AdventureWorks is, let us get into the details of downloading the database and attaching it to the SQL Server 2005.

By accessing the microsoft download center, download Adventure Works Database 2000.msi and install.Once installed, the file AdventureWorks2000_Data.mdf gets loaded into the specific MSSQL folder within the program files whose path could always be found by a windows search. Having performed this activity, one could follow the procedure present in microsoft’s msdn page. The very first issue when executing the command SQLCMD -S (local)\sqlexpress -E in the Visual Studio 2008 command prompt is unable to remote in to the server error. Inorder to enable the remote connectivity, we need to perform the setup in SQL Server 2005 Surface Area Configuration. After the surface area configurations for services and connections are setup with the help of microsoft’s support, we would be able to attach the Adventureworks 2000 database for our testing and learning process. And always the best way to test the above activity is to verify whether the database is attached or not.

For all the people who are new to MSSQL, Hope this gives you an heads up on what AdventureWorks 2000 is ? and how it could be installed in SQL Server 2005 ?.

Read More: SQL Server 2005

Part II – DBA Refresher for Peoplesoft Database Cloning

Please read the Instant Peoplesoft Cloning Refresher Kit before continuing in this post,

Take care to remove the reuse word in the create control file statement and replace it with SET

Once the Control file is created

alter database open resetlogs

If you encounter problems,

login to command prompt,

sqlplus /nolog
connect sys/manager as sysdba
shutdown immediate
startup
exit

select * from psdbowner;

update PSDBOWNER SET DBNAME = ‘destination db name’

create user sysadm identified by <password> default tablespace <tablespacename> temporary tablespace <tablespacename>

Create user PS identified by <password> default tablespace <tablespacename> temporary tablespace <tablespacename>

Create user PEOPLE identified by <password> default tablespace <tablespacename> temporary tablespace <tablespacename>

Grant connect, resource, dba to sysadm

Grant connect, resource to ps

Grant create session to people

And after revisiting all the above points, you would be able to access application designer after configurations in configuration manager.

Read About: DBA Refresher

Part II – Peoplesoft and Microsoft Active Directory Single Sign On Setup

Hip Hip Hurray !!!! 2 Lewis Hamilton Fans !!!!!

Its a dream run on monaco for his team. And it is also time for us to hit the fast track to part 2 of the single sign on between Microsoft and Peoplesoft,

Steps to perform on LDAP:

1. Access ldp.exe from within the Microsoft Active Directory

2. Connect to the LDAP server with the default port 389 (click on Connection->connect)

3. Click connection-> bind and enter the user account name and password

4. Click View->TreeView and enter the Base DN (DC=Helix,DC=Hexaware,DC=com)

5. Select the User Group present with the ldap, CN=Users, DC=Helix, DC=Hexaware, DC=com

6. Select the administrator listed down under the selected user group (e.g CN = Hexaware Admin, CN=Users, DC=Helix, DC=Hexaware, DC=com)

Sample Environment Used: DNS- Helix.Hexaware.com

Steps to do on Peoplesoft:

1. Navigate to PeopleTools > Security > Directory > Configure Directory

2. Create a New Directory ID

3. Select the directory product as ‘Microsoft Active Directory’

4. Enter the default connect DN (The steps are listed on the above section, e.g CN = Hexaware Admin, CN=Users, DC=Helix, DC=Hexaware, DC=com)

5. Enter the administrator password for the administrator user id ‘Hadminis’

6. Enter the LDAP Server Name and the default port 389

7. In the Additional Connect DN’s tab, enter the User DN “Helix\Hadminis” and its password

8. Now test the connectivity to get the success on all the sub sections.

Most Common Errors:
===================

1. User who is setting up the single sign on should be aware of the difference between the Administrator User ID and Its Canaonical Name

2. In Connectivity Failure – Use Network Analyzer Tool ( I will bring in more details in my next post)

Hope the start off steps helps ,.. Await more on Peoplesoft Schema Caching in pitstop’s next post.

Thanks For Give Time To Read This Blog. Read About: Peoplesoft and Microsoft Active Directory