A Distributed Approach to Business Intelligence Systems Synchronization

Transcription

1 A Distributed Approach to Business Intelligence Systems Synchronization Vlad Ciobanu, Florin Pop, Decebal Popescu, Valentin Cristea Computer Science Department, Faculty of Automatic Control and Computers University POLITEHNICA of Bucharest, ROMANIA {vlad.ciobanu, florin.pop, decebal.popescu, i t

2 E-CAESAR The Centre for Advanced Studies on Electronic Services (E-CAESAR) is a Romanian non-profit association with research focus in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector, especially in the area of e-services. The objectives of the E-CAESAR Centre are Research and Development in the field of interoperable, efficient and secure e-government service-oriented architectures, infrastructures and systems. 2

3 E-CAESAR Projects PrO - integrating companies with public institutions via secured and legally compliant communication channels. The EU-Services Directive - Point of Single Contact in Romania. SETUP - network of partners from the industry, administration, universities, Romanian research centers and other Fraunhofer Institutes. Web: e-caesar@e-caesar.ro 3

4 Business Intelligence Gather, store, analyze and provide access to data make better business decisions Two types of applications mission-critical to an enterprise s operation occasional to meet a special requirement Available BI solutions in the market Oracle Business Intelligence SAP Business Suite Microsoft BizTalk Server 4

5 Disadvantages Hard to install / configure Requires an R&D department Requires programmatic expertise to transform the enterprise business rules to electronic support Expensive to maintain and manage Solution: BI black-box solution in which orchestrations and business rules are remotely synchronized via a distributed system approach 5

6 System architecture Star-positioned client-server architecture Communication based on Install on Demand principle combined with Automatically Check for Updates feature Server application Connect with the source BI system Export the applications that are going to be transferred to clients Keep repository of all available applications Client application check the list of available applications download and install any available updates 6

7 BI Synchronization System 7

8 Synchronization package An archive containing a number of configuration files, among which there is the BI applications installation packages Main attributes Name of BI application Version Type of BI system Generic representation of the BI orchestration / business rules XML files based on a predefined XML Schema 8

9 Software architecture two-tier application design application layer controls the application s functionality Communication and security layer BI Integration layer data abstraction ti layer provides the data model Database support Local file system support 9

10 Software architecture (II) Communication layer assures secure and reliable means of transporting all the synchronization packages between the server and all the clients based on Windows Communication Foundation SOA architecture by providing a service interface used by different technologies XML as transport protocol Security layer support for Transport Layer Security (TLS) or its predecessor the Security Socket Layer (SSL) as cryptographic protocols 10

11 Software architecture (III) Data Abstraction Layer Local File System on the server used for repository for the synchronization packages Configuration Database keeps track of all the required metadata by using ADO.net on Microsoft SQL Server BI System Integration Layer The most important layer Specific for each BI system type that needs to be synchronized Enables the transformation: a specific BI orchestration a common format that is transportable via Internet Our implementation Microsoft BizTalk Server

12 Case Study: PrO Processor PrO Processor is a software communication processor that has as main purpose p to create a transparent and automated link between the companies and the public institution Main goals: optimize the current workflows in order to eliminate the redundant and low quality data reduce costs for the local maintenance of current existing systems BI System used: Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 in combination with Windows Sharepoint Services 12

13 PrO System Architecture PrO Processor Multiplicity N, one for each company Company Customer that has PrO installed in its premises Central Authority Unique institution responsible for translating the manual report filling into automated BizTalk orchestration Public Institution Intended audience for reports 13

14 Conclusions and Future Work Main role is to allow multiple Business Intelligence systems to be safely and automatically synchronized via Internet Great impact on small and medium sized businesses install-on-demand - relieves the need for the server to keep track of all clients The isolation of specific BI system development in an Integration Layer enables the system to interconnect with minimum effort to any Business Intelligence system that has an API present Future support for multiple BI systems: Oracle, SAP, OpenBPEL solutions 14

15 Q&A? 15