The document discusses application networks, which seamlessly connect applications, data, and devices through a shared infrastructure that allows nodes on the network to discover and consume each other's capabilities. The key aspect of an application network is reuse - when new nodes are added to the network, their data and functions become available to other nodes, increasing the overall value of the network. For an application network to be successful, it must incentivize the creation of reusable assets while still respecting the self-interest of individual teams. The benefits of an application network include being clearly defined, broadly deployed, accessible, modular, seamless, elastic, scalable, and secure.
SafePeak offers a Plug & Play application acceleration solution for cloud, hosted and business SQL server applications.
SafePeak unique Dynamic Database Caching to resolve information access bottlenecks and latency without any change to existing applications or databases.
Maximising value while migrating your Oracle Estate to Microsoft Azurerun_frictionless
This white paper aims to provide organisations moving to the Microsoft Azure cloud with the necessary knowledge and business strategies to navigate these issues. It aims to explain the common misunderstandings and challenges in this area, and reassure enterprise organisations that Oracle workloads can be moved to Microsoft Azure cloud in an equivalent and cost-effective manner.
https://runfrictionless.com/b2b-white-paper-service/
Accelerate Business Growth and Outcomes with AICognizant
Here’s how 10 organizations are using AI to accelerate decision making, improve processes, enhance user engagement, reduce costs and drive business performance.
Open data is obviously socio-politically relevant and helps to reduce administrative costs. It is kind of an infrastructure which is „invisible“ for the business community
But to make it attractive for enterprises, open/external data obviously should be integrable with internal databases.
Are linked data and open semantic web standards the solution?
Serving the long tail white-paper (how to rationalize IT yet produce more apps)Newton Day Uploads
Businesses benefit from having fewer technology tools in their 'enterprise stack'. Yet CIOs still need to encourage innovation and employ software tools as an enabler for growth and cost reduction. This white paper focuses on the role of Situational Applications platforms to reduce the number of technology platforms whilst increasing opportunities to serve the long-tail of applications demands from individuals and communities of users whose needs are unfulfilled by core enterprise platforms.
SafePeak offers a Plug & Play application acceleration solution for cloud, hosted and business SQL server applications.
SafePeak unique Dynamic Database Caching to resolve information access bottlenecks and latency without any change to existing applications or databases.
Maximising value while migrating your Oracle Estate to Microsoft Azurerun_frictionless
This white paper aims to provide organisations moving to the Microsoft Azure cloud with the necessary knowledge and business strategies to navigate these issues. It aims to explain the common misunderstandings and challenges in this area, and reassure enterprise organisations that Oracle workloads can be moved to Microsoft Azure cloud in an equivalent and cost-effective manner.
https://runfrictionless.com/b2b-white-paper-service/
Accelerate Business Growth and Outcomes with AICognizant
Here’s how 10 organizations are using AI to accelerate decision making, improve processes, enhance user engagement, reduce costs and drive business performance.
Open data is obviously socio-politically relevant and helps to reduce administrative costs. It is kind of an infrastructure which is „invisible“ for the business community
But to make it attractive for enterprises, open/external data obviously should be integrable with internal databases.
Are linked data and open semantic web standards the solution?
Serving the long tail white-paper (how to rationalize IT yet produce more apps)Newton Day Uploads
Businesses benefit from having fewer technology tools in their 'enterprise stack'. Yet CIOs still need to encourage innovation and employ software tools as an enabler for growth and cost reduction. This white paper focuses on the role of Situational Applications platforms to reduce the number of technology platforms whilst increasing opportunities to serve the long-tail of applications demands from individuals and communities of users whose needs are unfulfilled by core enterprise platforms.
Cloud Computing Trends: at the Horizon\'s WatchJocelynDG
As follow up to our cloud primer, Cloud Computing: Fact versus Fog, Grail Research interviewed 20 cloud computing experts in order to offer cloud providers, investors and prospective customers a more detailed and consolidated understanding of who cloud customers are and what is driving them to move to cloud today. Experts interviewed for this study span a cross-section of the most progressive cloud thinkers, including industry analysts, senior executives at major cloud vendors, and founders of technology firms. This report summarizes the key themes about customers and adoption drivers that emerged from the research.
Why Can't All Of Our Data Silos Just Get Along?Michelle Bruno
The technology landscape in the event industry is fragmented. There are lots of platforms that do lots of different things. The problem is that many don't share data and functionality, i.e. they don't work well together. Integration would be immensely helpful to change the situation, but there is still pushback and a layer of complexity that many event professionals aren't equipped to address. Read about what's going on and what needs to happen to change the situation.
Social Enterprise: Trust; Vision; RevolutionPeter Coffee
Becoming a social enterprise is not a technical evolution, but a business transformation. Technologies enable it, but only a cultural commitment will achieve it. Doing it is not optional, unless going out of business is also considered an OK option.
What is an api, why should you care + the curse of knowledgeAlec Coughlin
De-mystifying one of the most significant technology levers that can deliver innovation at scale to help the business community get up to speed on what the IT/Creative Technology community is already very excited about, embracing etc.
In this executive guide to Encanvas Applications Fabric, the company has brought together a series of articles that form a useful overview for executives on why code-less software is so important to businesses wishing to 'go digital'
Data mashup means in the BI space and makes the business case from both the business-side and the IT-side for enabling this ultimate level of self-service – a unique capability of InetSoft's BI solutions. For more details visit: https://www.inetsoft.com/evaluate/whitepapers/
Deep-linking for apps and mobile is still in its nascent stage, but there's already a number of platforms working hard to get this technology off the ground. Find out all about them and their different takes and solutions in this guide.
Learn How to Maximize Your ServiceNow InvestmentStave
Understand how leading companies are adopting an aPaaS strategy
Learn the evolution of ServiceNow's platform capabilities
Assert IT's influence over shadow IT practices
Cloud Computing Trends: at the Horizon\'s WatchJocelynDG
As follow up to our cloud primer, Cloud Computing: Fact versus Fog, Grail Research interviewed 20 cloud computing experts in order to offer cloud providers, investors and prospective customers a more detailed and consolidated understanding of who cloud customers are and what is driving them to move to cloud today. Experts interviewed for this study span a cross-section of the most progressive cloud thinkers, including industry analysts, senior executives at major cloud vendors, and founders of technology firms. This report summarizes the key themes about customers and adoption drivers that emerged from the research.
Why Can't All Of Our Data Silos Just Get Along?Michelle Bruno
The technology landscape in the event industry is fragmented. There are lots of platforms that do lots of different things. The problem is that many don't share data and functionality, i.e. they don't work well together. Integration would be immensely helpful to change the situation, but there is still pushback and a layer of complexity that many event professionals aren't equipped to address. Read about what's going on and what needs to happen to change the situation.
Social Enterprise: Trust; Vision; RevolutionPeter Coffee
Becoming a social enterprise is not a technical evolution, but a business transformation. Technologies enable it, but only a cultural commitment will achieve it. Doing it is not optional, unless going out of business is also considered an OK option.
What is an api, why should you care + the curse of knowledgeAlec Coughlin
De-mystifying one of the most significant technology levers that can deliver innovation at scale to help the business community get up to speed on what the IT/Creative Technology community is already very excited about, embracing etc.
In this executive guide to Encanvas Applications Fabric, the company has brought together a series of articles that form a useful overview for executives on why code-less software is so important to businesses wishing to 'go digital'
Data mashup means in the BI space and makes the business case from both the business-side and the IT-side for enabling this ultimate level of self-service – a unique capability of InetSoft's BI solutions. For more details visit: https://www.inetsoft.com/evaluate/whitepapers/
Deep-linking for apps and mobile is still in its nascent stage, but there's already a number of platforms working hard to get this technology off the ground. Find out all about them and their different takes and solutions in this guide.
Learn How to Maximize Your ServiceNow InvestmentStave
Understand how leading companies are adopting an aPaaS strategy
Learn the evolution of ServiceNow's platform capabilities
Assert IT's influence over shadow IT practices
Effective performance engineering is a critical factor in delivering meaningful results. The implementation must be built into every aspect of the business, from IT and business management to internal and external customers and all other stakeholders. Convetit brought together ten experts in the field of performance engineering to delve into the trends and drivers that are defining the space. This Foresights discussion will directly influence Business and Technology Leaders that are looking to stay ahead of the challenges they face with delivering high performing systems to their end users, today and in the next 2-5 years.
APIs challenge every notion of IT – governance, financial planning, team composition, success metrics, security – and many notions of business – secrecy, precise business agreements, locus of control.
This is not because of APIs as a technical evolution.
This is because APIs are part of the vanguard of the new world of work, the beginning of a 20-year productivity boom that will unsettle traditional hierarchies and business models in an even more pervasive way than the 10-year boom of the Web.
Looking back from 2018, how will you describe the changes and how you led your company to a dominant market position?
ChainLink Analyst on How Cloud-Enabled Supply Chain Networks Drive Companies ...Dana Gardner
Transcript of a discussion on how technology innovators and new services from such suppliers as Tradeshift are translating advances in procurement and finance into business impacts.
Peter Coffee of salesforce.com summarizes the state of the cloud after a decade of enterprise assimilation, and lays out the upside value opportunities of the reconceived Cloud 2 -- combining cloud economy with connected community
Driving Digital Supply Chain Transformation - A Handbook - 23 MAY 2017Lora Cecere
Insights on driving a digital transformation based on research on new technologies, advisory work with clients, and quantitative research projects. This is a short handbook to help companies get started on their journey to define the digital supply chain.
How FinTech Innovator Razorpay Uses Open-Source Tracing And Observability to ...Dana Gardner
Transcript of a discussion on an open-source project, Hypertrace, and how it helps designers, builders, and testers of modern APIs gain visibility across their internal and third-party services.
Many small and medium scale industries could not afford the expensive enterprise software either
on premise or through Application Service Providers as it incurred heavy installations cost, maintenance cost.
Mean while the development of social, economic, increasing Internet technology lead to the evolvement of Cloud
computing Technology which allowed the users to share the resources across the Internet. This development brought
about a radical change in the computing technology posing new challenges as the requirements of the users kept on c
hanging frequently and such an installed Application Service Providers on the premise of the user made it difficult to
meet these changed user requirement. Thus the vendors developed a new architectural style based upon the
constructional forms and changing the way the functionalities are delivered to the user. This shift in the way of
delivery of software created a new business market. In this the user is freed from the need of installation of the
software thus shifting the maintenance cost to the vendor. This type of business model is termed as Software as a
service which is one-to-many model based on “on use pay” (subscription) basis. SaaS not much different from
traditional ASP has some SaaS specific functions added to it like registry, billing etc. This paper reviews th is
business model comparing it with the traditional ASP application and the Service Oriented Architecture. It describe
the life cycle of SaaS by covering its maturity model and its architecture. It also highlights the advantages of SaaS
along with some of the characteristics required / desired in any SaaS application.
The goal of this white paper is to demonstrate why the only successful way to approach a major ecommerce project today is to pursue a rigorous "integration first" strategy, rather than relying on traditional procurement methods. Based on our experience helping hundreds of companies achieve their online commerce goals, we'll also provide you with practical, hands-on advice for managing your project and evaluating software using this approach.
3 Crucial Application Modernization Strategies for Enterprises.pptxArpitGautam20
Here are 3 effective application modernization strategies, challenges that most companies face & other crucial information for organizations. https://natifi.ai/3-crucial-application-modernization-strategies-for-enterprises/
Unit 8 - Information and Communication Technology (Paper I).pdfThiyagu K
This slides describes the basic concepts of ICT, basics of Email, Emerging Technology and Digital Initiatives in Education. This presentations aligns with the UGC Paper I syllabus.
Exploiting Artificial Intelligence for Empowering Researchers and Faculty, In...Dr. Vinod Kumar Kanvaria
Exploiting Artificial Intelligence for Empowering Researchers and Faculty,
International FDP on Fundamentals of Research in Social Sciences
at Integral University, Lucknow, 06.06.2024
By Dr. Vinod Kumar Kanvaria
Operation “Blue Star” is the only event in the history of Independent India where the state went into war with its own people. Even after about 40 years it is not clear if it was culmination of states anger over people of the region, a political game of power or start of dictatorial chapter in the democratic setup.
The people of Punjab felt alienated from main stream due to denial of their just demands during a long democratic struggle since independence. As it happen all over the word, it led to militant struggle with great loss of lives of military, police and civilian personnel. Killing of Indira Gandhi and massacre of innocent Sikhs in Delhi and other India cities was also associated with this movement.
Francesca Gottschalk - How can education support child empowerment.pptxEduSkills OECD
Francesca Gottschalk from the OECD’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation presents at the Ask an Expert Webinar: How can education support child empowerment?
Normal Labour/ Stages of Labour/ Mechanism of LabourWasim Ak
Normal labor is also termed spontaneous labor, defined as the natural physiological process through which the fetus, placenta, and membranes are expelled from the uterus through the birth canal at term (37 to 42 weeks
June 3, 2024 Anti-Semitism Letter Sent to MIT President Kornbluth and MIT Cor...Levi Shapiro
Letter from the Congress of the United States regarding Anti-Semitism sent June 3rd to MIT President Sally Kornbluth, MIT Corp Chair, Mark Gorenberg
Dear Dr. Kornbluth and Mr. Gorenberg,
The US House of Representatives is deeply concerned by ongoing and pervasive acts of antisemitic
harassment and intimidation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Failing to act decisively to ensure a safe learning environment for all students would be a grave dereliction of your responsibilities as President of MIT and Chair of the MIT Corporation.
This Congress will not stand idly by and allow an environment hostile to Jewish students to persist. The House believes that your institution is in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and the inability or
unwillingness to rectify this violation through action requires accountability.
Postsecondary education is a unique opportunity for students to learn and have their ideas and beliefs challenged. However, universities receiving hundreds of millions of federal funds annually have denied
students that opportunity and have been hijacked to become venues for the promotion of terrorism, antisemitic harassment and intimidation, unlawful encampments, and in some cases, assaults and riots.
The House of Representatives will not countenance the use of federal funds to indoctrinate students into hateful, antisemitic, anti-American supporters of terrorism. Investigations into campus antisemitism by the Committee on Education and the Workforce and the Committee on Ways and Means have been expanded into a Congress-wide probe across all relevant jurisdictions to address this national crisis. The undersigned Committees will conduct oversight into the use of federal funds at MIT and its learning environment under authorities granted to each Committee.
• The Committee on Education and the Workforce has been investigating your institution since December 7, 2023. The Committee has broad jurisdiction over postsecondary education, including its compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, campus safety concerns over disruptions to the learning environment, and the awarding of federal student aid under the Higher Education Act.
• The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is investigating the sources of funding and other support flowing to groups espousing pro-Hamas propaganda and engaged in antisemitic harassment and intimidation of students. The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is the principal oversight committee of the US House of Representatives and has broad authority to investigate “any matter” at “any time” under House Rule X.
• The Committee on Ways and Means has been investigating several universities since November 15, 2023, when the Committee held a hearing entitled From Ivory Towers to Dark Corners: Investigating the Nexus Between Antisemitism, Tax-Exempt Universities, and Terror Financing. The Committee followed the hearing with letters to those institutions on January 10, 202
A review of the growth of the Israel Genealogy Research Association Database Collection for the last 12 months. Our collection is now passed the 3 million mark and still growing. See which archives have contributed the most. See the different types of records we have, and which years have had records added. You can also see what we have for the future.
Biological screening of herbal drugs: Introduction and Need for
Phyto-Pharmacological Screening, New Strategies for evaluating
Natural Products, In vitro evaluation techniques for Antioxidants, Antimicrobial and Anticancer drugs. In vivo evaluation techniques
for Anti-inflammatory, Antiulcer, Anticancer, Wound healing, Antidiabetic, Hepatoprotective, Cardio protective, Diuretics and
Antifertility, Toxicity studies as per OECD guidelines
2024.06.01 Introducing a competency framework for languag learning materials ...Sandy Millin
http://sandymillin.wordpress.com/iateflwebinar2024
Published classroom materials form the basis of syllabuses, drive teacher professional development, and have a potentially huge influence on learners, teachers and education systems. All teachers also create their own materials, whether a few sentences on a blackboard, a highly-structured fully-realised online course, or anything in between. Despite this, the knowledge and skills needed to create effective language learning materials are rarely part of teacher training, and are mostly learnt by trial and error.
Knowledge and skills frameworks, generally called competency frameworks, for ELT teachers, trainers and managers have existed for a few years now. However, until I created one for my MA dissertation, there wasn’t one drawing together what we need to know and do to be able to effectively produce language learning materials.
This webinar will introduce you to my framework, highlighting the key competencies I identified from my research. It will also show how anybody involved in language teaching (any language, not just English!), teacher training, managing schools or developing language learning materials can benefit from using the framework.
3. 3
Introduction
We are in the “fourth industrial revolution”1
where the forces
of digital disruption deeply affect businesses of every size and
in every industry. It’s an era where all parts of the enterprise
function using software, SaaS, and custom apps. More than
ever, consumers have lofty expectations and are willing to
shop around. And if that wasn’t enough, the barriers to entry
for each industry have evaporated. Startups everywhere
are disrupting all types of products from financial services
to crowd-sourced insurance to customizable health care to
unique shopping experiences. A new idea can be built in a
hackathon and developed in the garage using major building
blocks like unlimited cloud compute power, free dev tools,
open APIs, and open source components. These new entrants
build fast, move fast, and continue to educate consumers on
the type of experience they should be getting. Consumers,
employees and partners now expect everything to be on
demand and fully connected.
There is not a single business in the world unaffected by these
changes, but large organizations with calcified processes and
monolithic infrastructures are hit the hardest. Fortunately, the
means for real business transformation are within reach. An
application network can help an organization be more agile,
change the clock speed of business, and respond to changes
in the market, the business, and the consumer without having
to break things.
Companies need to launch new solutions that innovate in
order to provide new products and experiences to meet
customer demand, get ahead of the competition, and make
their businesses more efficient. Actually producing these
1
Wladawsky-Berger, Irving. “Preparing for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.” The Wall
Street Journal, February 26, 2016.
4. 4
solutions, particularly in larger, older organizations with a
technological or cultural legacy, can be difficult. Customers,
employees, and partners are demanding ever faster
innovation; if a business can’t deliver, there is a real risk of
losing customers, surrendering market share, and missing
growth targets. MuleSoft conducted a recent survey of 800 IT
professionals and found that 66 percent say they are under
“drastic” pressure to deliver technology projects across the
business; a similar number say that change has to occur2
in
order to meet business demand.
The problems are compounded further by the increasing
number of people operationalizing change, particularly those
not in IT. Businesses who are using and deploying technology
in traditional ways cannot respond quickly to change. In
addition, the creation of and alterations to monolithic business
processes is time consuming and complex, creating paralysis
rather than agility.
IT cannot keep up with changing business needs if it continues
on a traditional path. If IT continues to work as a sole
technology provider for the business, it can neither integrate
systems quickly nor leverage the big data now coming from all
parts of the company’s operations.
Radical transformation can happen if you create smaller, agile
units for business, processes and underlying technology,
while still maintaining stability and control. To effect the kind
of change that will allow organizations to compete in a truly
disruptive business environment, we propose a new vision of
enterprise IT: the application network.
2
Mulesoft.com. “MuleSoft survey finds top 5 reasons APIs are taking centre stage for
businesses.” January 12, 2016.
5. 5
What is an application network?
Application networks seamlessly connect applications, data
and devices. They take a different approach to the methods
used to connect applications, data, and devices today. Instead
of utilizing point-to-point connections or isolated architectures,
the application network provides an infrastructure for
information exchange by allowing applications to be “plugged”
into the network. The network can be as simple as two nodes
that enable two applications to share information, or it could
span across the enterprise as well as to external ecosystems.
Designed to honor Metcalfe’s law, every new node added to
the network will increase the network’s value since the data
and capabilities of that node are made discoverable and
consumable by others on the network.
Every new node added to the network will
increase the network’s value since the data and
capabilities of that node are made discoverable
and consumable by others on the network.
Unlike prior approaches to connecting applications in the
enterprise, an application network is designed to allow many
people inside and outside the enterprise to have controlled
access to valuable business data. This will occur by allowing
anyone in the business to use consumption models they are
familiar with. In other words, it makes it easier for someone in
the organization to create a useful application, use of data, or
an API creating a particular experience, and then expose that
value to the network.
For example, someone might have found a way to expose the
organizational structure of a group of people in the company,
perhaps by tapping into the HR services provider system the
6. 6
company uses to manage its employees. To do this, they may
have used the HR services provider’s API and some credentials
to pull in the org chart below a particular executive or by
function. Or they may have wrapped that HR services provider’s
native API with a friendlier API optimized for consumption
in certain use cases. They likely have done so as a part of a
bigger project: perhaps to create a portal of skillsets, or to
manage access to source code repositories, or to synchronize
with a disaster recovery contacts database that needs to be
available offline.
If this work is made available beyond the scope of this
project — e.g. by making the friendlier API available to others,
or allowing the connection credentials to be reused, or by
capturing the project in a template — then the provider’s
service is exposed to the network and may be leveraged in
other scenarios. Some of those use cases might be a team
needing to create dynamic visualizations of resources applied
to company objectives, whereas another team might need to
automate the laptop requisitioning request process. Through
the application network, they can more easily access the HR
services provider’s employee subsystem through the work of
the original team, without the explicit help of that team.
7. 7
The key aspect of an application
network: Reuse
The key aspect of an application network is reuse; a node of
the network must be reusable elsewhere via its connection to
the network. For instance, in a social network, the information
of a member — whether in the form of the content they post,
or in their rating of existing content (explicit or implicit), or in
various other signals they provide — is then reused across
the network.
A social network member’s content is viewed by many others;
that content can then be shared with others on the network.
Those ratings and other signals inform what content is
promoted to yet more members; in other words, they are
reused by the larger subset of the network. The network
enables reuse by other members whether those members
understand their work has been reused or not. This induced
cooperative behavior provides the classic network effect, and is
the core source of value of the network itself, atop the value of
each application to its direct consumers.
As in other networks, the value of exposing information from
and allowing access to the application network comes at a
price; not all information should be exposed to everyone, and
not all capabilities should be made available to just anyone.
In a social network, members may restrict certain content to
be viewed by only some of their connections; they may only
allow certain people to follow them, or to post to their timeline.
Attention must be paid to the transitive nature of this access.
If I grant access to a friend, and they grant access to another
friend, does that friend-of-a-friend (FOAF) also have access,
perhaps on a more limited basis?
For an application network in the enterprise, this manifests
via APIs and the transitivity of API access. For example, an
8. 8
employee management system API allows access to employees
and their data based on entitlements assigned to the API’s
clients, and perhaps to the end user on whose behalf the
clients are accessing that API. The team that integrates with
the system API will need to register as a client of that API,
and they will need to figure out what entitlements to set up
and establish which end user(s) on whose behalf it will access
that system API. And if this team in question offers its own
API which makes use of the system API, it will need to think
carefully what access clients of its API should have to the
employee management system API.
9. 9
Success depends on self-interest
Another key aspect of the application network, and one that
affects the viral growth and stickiness of the network, is the
degree to which it caters to the self-interests of each node.
Facebook, for example, depends entirely on its ability to
satisfy the innate curiosity of humans about other humans;
in particular, it satiates their need to know what their friends
(real or otherwise) are doing and offers engaging content
to each member based on their taste as inferred from their
friends’ tastes. Any given member is engaging with the network
primarily because of their self-interest, not because of an
interest in contributing to the network as a whole. Members
curate content for their friends knowing their friends will see
it; they will judge their friends’ reactions and rate their friends’
content, which establishes reputation and self image. It is then
up to the network and its dynamics to translate that to the
value of the network as a whole.
A successful application network
must find ways to align the teams’
self-interest with the creation of reusable
assets that benefit everyone.
This is equally true for an application network, in which the
teams attaching the applications and creating valuable new
services are usually most concerned about getting specific
projects done, rather than creating reusable assets for the
whole organization. A successful application network must
find ways to align the teams’ self-interest with the creation of
reusable assets that benefit everyone. Just as a social network
must allow members to keep some content private and some
access limited, an application network must also allow some
services, design assets, and APIs to be kept private, without
10. 10
necessarily imposing on the teams the burden of maintaining
them for a broad population of other teams to reuse.
Many factors can influence this balance between the autonomy
and independence of each team and the value of their work
to the broader community. There may be incentives placed to
encourage building reusable assets, such as recognition by the
community or management; constructive criticism that goes
to increasing the quality of the asset; access to other services
(“you can use my service if I can use yours”); funding of some
sort to offset the cost of maintaining reusable assets, etc. In
some companies, the reusability of assets may be imposed
as a requirement. For example, a review process may be
instituted to ensure all integrations and APIs that access an HR
services provider are documented and registered as potentially
reusable assets, and are reviewed for compliance with security
and privacy concerns, usage limits, and so forth.
Whether assets are in fact reused will also depend on the self-
interest of teams engaging with the network and consuming
or contributing to it. In traditional enterprise IT initiatives
based on Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) principles,
reuse was mandated from the top. Certain patterns and
service interfaces and architectures were predetermined by
a small group of enterprise architects and were required to
be reused by all teams. While this approach may still make
sense in some scenarios, increasingly it is being replaced by
“merit-based reuse”: potentially reusable assets are created
by a broad population of teams in the course of implementing
projects; those assets are then consumed or not by that same
population based on the merit each team finds in them. This
approach prefers the “wisdom of the crowd” over that of the
central architects, who often participate by guiding or enabling
the teams and potentially pruning assets rather than pre-
determining everything.
11. 11
The result is a much healthier, more
valuable, and self-sustaining ecosystem of
apps than would have ever been produced
by a single controlling provider.
An analogy may be found in the world of mobile consumer
apps. Rather than the traditional app stores based on a
single telecom provider’s creation and curation of mobile
apps, the modern app stores allow apps from a broad base
of developers and let consumers “vote with their feet” to
determine which apps have more merit. Usually, as long
as there is a vibrant community of both consumers and
producers, the best apps rise to the top rather quickly and are
reinforced in a non-linear way. The result is a much healthier,
more valuable, and self-sustaining ecosystem of apps than
would have ever been produced by a single controlling
provider. The role of the provider, and of the application
network architects, is to provide just enough enablement to
seed the network and to enable and encourage best practices
and just enough governance to create a trusted ecosystem and
safety net for the organization.
12. 12
Benefits of an application network
In order to serve the needs of the business and provide the
benefits that organizations need to thrive in today’s connected,
competitive environment, an application network must be:
›› Clearly defined: A well-defined operating model enables
the business to get the most value from the IT assets
on the network.
›› Broadly deployed: It empowers the whole organization —
not just IT — to discover and access the data and assets to
fuel applications, reporting, analytics, business processes
and automation.
›› Accessible and modular: Every application is accessible
and recomposable to fit the rapidly changing needs
of the business.
›› Seamless: Is a seamless network of applications, data
sources, devices and APIs, whether in the cloud or on-
premises, home-grown or acquired.
›› Elastic: The application network is elastic and can grow or
shrink depending on the demands of its consumers.
›› Scalable: It allows companies to introduce new applications
more easily because the application network already defines
how to access, expose and share new application data.
›› Secure: It can be organized to reflect the security and
governance constraints in a business of any size.
›› Monitored end to end: Data running through the network
can be tracked end-to-end, monitored and analyzed. The
impact of a request from one node in the network can be
traced back to all the other nodes that take part in that
request. Analytical: The network understands dependencies
13. 13
between applications and can perform impact analyses on
changes made to applications on the network. This gives
organizations a real-time enterprise wiring diagram that
can be inspected. Measurable: The value of an application
network can be explicitly measured through a set of built-in
KPIs that track reuse, utilization, adoption and redundancy.
›› Organic growth and reuse: As the first applications are
connected to the application, data and functionality is made
available for reuse. IT and the business can plug in more
applications over time. Each application adds more value
to the network, more reusable building blocks for building
applications, services, and business processes. The business
and IT can use the existing assets to build new assets which
are also made available through the application network.
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Capabilities of an application network
When an application network is in place, it allows businesses to
break down information silos as well as build and deploy apps
and processes faster, all in a highly scalable manner. It creates
room to govern and control while allowing the business to
reconfigure the architecture easily.
The qualities of an application network allow for
these capabilities:
›› Standard communication: The base architecture for the
application network provides a standard communication
model which simplifies data exchange between applications
on the network.
›› Security: Any application connected to the application
network will be subject to the same security policies and
access controls. Different domains can have different
security policies, which allows enterprises to segment and
provide access to that data depending on the data source,
consumers, geographic location, or other factors.
›› Reusable, modular components: All data resources on the
application network are made available through reusable
interfaces, meaning that any application on the network
is composable.
›› Layered governance: The application network mandates
well-defined interfaces to access resources. It also provides
a layered governance model that makes it possible to track
data consumption from consumer applications (such as
mobile apps, web apps, dashboards, analytics) all the way
through to the backend data. It can also track dependencies
between applications and even perform change
impact analysis.
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›› Discoverability: The application network is designed to
exchange information between applications and people.
This means that assets on the network are discoverable. In
addition, different consumption models can be designed
around different groups of users within or outside
the enterprise.
›› Custom consumption models: It provides a set of core
APIs, allowing solutions to be built that enable different
consumption models for different groups of people across
the enterprise (such as a “data marketplace”). This might be
useful for business analysts to power their BI reporting.
›› Self-service enabled: It provides a core set of services to
enable consumers (developers, analysts, data scientists,
creative teams, mobile developers, ops and admins) to
access the network in ways that makes sense for them
through tools they understand. It also has a set of APIs that
allow new consumer models to be built.
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The key design principles of
an application network
When considering the genesis of an application network, it’s
important to define the design principles that shape how its
components are built:
›› The network is opinionated: The network has built-in,
well-defined and systematic mechanisms for attaching new
nodes and enabling them within the network. These include
publishing APIs and their specifications, registering client
access grants and hence also client dependencies, bringing
them within a security context, etc. It also provides built-
in, opinionated ways of operating the nodes and tending
to their life cycle, of collaboration between users on the
assets and their lifecycle, and of analyzing and securing
the network. The network is not intrinsically opinionated
about the specific architecture of which applications must
be connected in what ways, as that is often determined in
an incremental, merit-based way, vs a top-down traditional
SOA approach. However, architects may suggest or impose
certain architectures, API patterns, standardized data
schemas, etc. to enable and potentially constrain how the
network is built.
›› The network is consistent: Rules and policies are enforced
within a domain. Artifacts such as APIs, templates and
portals inherit the services and restrictions of the network.
This means that APIs are subject to the policy enforcement
of the network; templates use common error handling
defined by the network.
›› Applications are connected to the network: Conversely,
applications are mostly not connected directly with each
other. The connection into the network contains rich
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metadata about each application which the network uses to
expose that application inside the network.
›› The network adheres to Metcalfe’s law: Adding a new
node to the network must add n+1 value to the network.
That value must be a set of KPIs that are built in and
can be tracked.
›› All data connected to the network is discoverable and
addressable: Every resource is exposed through through
system APIs. Not all data will be exposed to consumers —
this is an administration choice.
›› The consumer is king on the network: The fundamental
value of the network is to unlock and enable consumption
of data and resources. Every person in an enterprise can
connect and get value from the network. This means the
network must cater to different consumer profiles across
technical and non-technical roles.
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How is an application network
different from SOA?
The principles of SOA still are valid today, but the needs of the
organization have changed drastically, requiring an equally
drastic shift in how IT works with the rest of the business.
SOA had to be built from the ground up for every company; it
therefore became a reflection of the complexity and custom
applications that defined the enterprise’s IT landscape. In
contrast, the application network is designed to enable the
whole business, not just IT. This is key, as innovation cannot
occur at the necessary speed if IT is the sole technology
provider to the business. The needs of the business will grow
faster than the capability of IT to meet them. Finally, SOA is an
architectural concept, while an application network is a tangible
product that connects not just applications, but people and
processes as well.
SOA is an architectural concept, while an
application network is a tangible product
that connects not just applications,
but people and processes as well.
It’s important to note that services must be loosely coupled
to provide the flexibility and scalability that businesses need.
Tightly coupled networks become brittle and expensive to
maintain, which defeats the self-service ethos of the application
network. Simply completing a lot of integration projects in a
traditional way does not result in an application network nor
does it provide an application network’s benefits. Instead of
connecting applications through point to point connections
or isolated architectures, application networks provide an
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infrastructure that can achieve reuse of services, knowledge,
access and best practices.
This means that IT has to shift its mindset from complete
control to a distributed authority over technology in the
business. It requires a federated approach to governing and
controlling data, applications, and systems. This allows IT
to be a platform enabler for the organization, will increase
productivity through reuse, and will make change more
predictable and easier to manage.
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Conclusion
With the massive number of applications, data, and devices
that need connecting in the modern enterprise, and the
incredible amount of time and resources that companies
spend trying to tie everything together, an application network
can provide the agility, flexibility, and speed that businesses in
today’s environment urgently need. New applications can be
plugged into the application network as easily as you can plug
in a printer. The application network can deliver unified vision
and control and offer intelligent data about the relationships
between different applications. A new vision of what your IT
organization can be and do can allow your business to harness
the digital revolution; an application network is designed to
make that happen.
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About MuleSoft
MuleSoft’s mission is to help organizations change and
innovate faster by making it easy to connect the world’s
applications, data and devices. With its API-led approach to
connectivity, MuleSoft’s market-leading Anypoint Platform™
is enabling over 1,400 organizations in approximately 60
countries to build application networks.
For more information, visit mulesoft.com
MuleSoft is a registered trademark of MuleSoft, Inc., a Salesforce company.
All other marks are those of respective owners.