“We were pioneers in the utilisation of software to automate our business processes even in the early days. However, the early adoption of technology has left us with legacy. We, at ITC (Information Technology Centre) the central IT operations for the group, are working closely with the business to properly utilise our existing IT assets while rebuilding new applications to meet new business requirements.” says Wassim Hamwi, Chief Technology Officer, Information Technology Centre, Dubai World.
The emerging SOA concept has been seen as a strong route to overcoming this challenge. “SOA is a model that uses loosely coupled modules interfacing with one another via well defined messages. In this scenario, what you typically have in place of a monolith large application is multiple pieces of loosely coupled modules mapped to different business domains – Customer, Order, and Payment – working together to service multiple business processes” Hamwi adds.
Waiting in the wings are two major SOA projects expected to go live this July. The two key applications “The Declaration Processing” at Dubai Customs and the Container Terminal Project for DP World are on their way to be SOA enabled.
“The idea is to build a SOA framework at the same time so we don’t have to rethink the process all over again. Once we achieve success with these initiatives, we are looking at replicating this model in the implementation of other business processes and also sharing this experience and expertise with other business units and group businesses,” he adds.
Single customer Data Hub
A major benefit of this transformation project will be geared toward improving its businesses’ abilities to service customers. The SOA in particular will allow Dubai World to have a single Customer Data Hub that stores customer information for all applications within a business or across different business units.
“In the early days, each application within a business would have its own customer data with no consolidated view of how the customer is interacting with our business when using different applications. In the Customer Data Hub world, what you have is a single customer module that is shared among different applications to store and present a unified view of the customer and his activities with the business as whole,” Hamwi says.
Adopting the methodologies advocated by the concept is also expected to deliver ROI for the business in a number of different ways. “We will be able to reduce costs, improve the time to market, gain agility and integrate data and information easily with other business units,” he adds.
Moving to e-Services
The SOA initiative also offers Dubai World opportunities to streamline a number of other ongoing projects and migrate to web services. “We have a number of large initiatives related to process automation and paperless transactions. Close to 90% of our services are slated to be delivered on-line. Therefore enabling easy integration across platforms is an important aspect,” Hamwi shares.
In line with this strategy, Dubai World has roped in software and middleware major Oracle as a key technology partner. Dubai World has also taken a strategic decision to utilise the Oracle Database as the de-facto standard database for all applications. The Oracle Enterprise Service Bus and middleware technology are being considered in the implementation of SOA for the Customs Declaration Process at Dubai Customs.
“We will be working closely with Oracle since Dubai World will be the first to use Oracle SOA technology stack in the region. Talks have also been initiated with Oracle to engage some of their consultants who have completed similar projects in the US or UK,” he says.
“The organisation is also in the process of defining the standards by conducting multiple proof-of-concept exercises and we should be completing this work by end of May,” Hamwi adds.
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Dubai World has also used the Oracle Identity and Application Server technology stack while rebuilding its consolidated e-Services portal – Dubai Trade (www.dubaitrade.ae).
“The plan is to initially create one Data Hub per business unit keeping in mind the need to share and integrate data across different business units by allowing the different data hubs to share selected data at a higher abstract layer,” he notes. This will lead the company into a new era driven by automation, information and integration.
Understanding the business
A commitment to an SOA framework is not an easy task. There are a number of pre-requisites - the most important being the construction of a holistic view the business vision and objectives as whole which can be mapped into different levels of business processes interacting with one another executing the core business model.
The way to overcome this challenge came to Hamwi and his 300 member IT team in the form of an Enterprise Architecture exercise. “EA answered a number of questions for us, it allowed us to understand the big picture, define a blueprint of our organisation, discover opportunities for reuse, and more importantly it aligned our IT strategies toward the critical business-driven activities to provide our organisation and its customers with immediate values. EA provides a great opportunity for the business to work closer with IT and meet their common objectives,” shares Hamwi.
Using an EA model in the SOA build out enables an enterprise to discover processes and missed opportunities that it could have capitalised on. “EA allowed us to properly trace the impact of a business change. We design our systems with good understanding of the enterprise entities, relationships and the guidelines for their evolution over time,” he says.
On the horizon are also a number of emerging technologies that Hamwi wants to keep a watch for, mainly to cater to the ITC’s charter to enable the business, and automate its processes to increase efficiency and reduce the cost of ownership.
“We at ITC see a promise in virtualisation; it should help with proper utilisation of IT assets and improve the ability to work across multiple environments,” he says.
And what are those benefits that IT has brought about to the business? “The remit of IT is to enable the business to deliver on its objectives – We do IT for business. The adoption of the new Enterprise and SOA have simulated the thinking process to re-look at the ways business can be done with an objective to improve revenue, reduce cost and mitigate risk. It has also enabled the business to discover processes and find new ways to deliver on them better, faster, and cheaper,” Hamwi states. A good direction to move in indeed!