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You are here: The Open Group > CIOBoundaryless Information Flow Frequently Asked QuestionsPrefaceThe Open Group is responding to a vision of “Boundaryless Information Flow.” To achieve Boundaryless Information Flow an organization needs to put in place infrastructure services that bring information together and provides that information to those users and applications that need it. Boundaryless Information Flow represents a set of challenges that most companies have. The Open Group intends to tackle the problems represented by Boundaryless Information Flow and will be the place in the industry to work on these issues. The following represents answers to frequently asked questions regarding Boundaryless Information Flow. What is the imperative behind Boundaryless Information Flow?The need for organizations to have Boundaryless Information Flow stems from the need to improve operational efficiencies and competitive advantage. Business processes must be integrated horizontally and vertically creating a Boundaryless Organization to improve operational efficiencies. However a Boundaryless Organization needs Boundaryless Information Flow and the systems currently supporting the business processes present obstacles because they contain multiple stovepipe point solutions where information is not currently shared – that is there is a lack of integrated information. Additionally access to the information in the multiple systems is provided by stovepipe point solutions that don’t easily and readily submit to requests from other access paths. Note these problems aren’t merely about information technology; they start with business issues, business policies and are sometime supported by information technology. The barriers that must be broken down are at the business and technical levels. It is estimated that large companies lose $100s of millions every year in lost opportunities and spend billions due to the lack of having an Integrated Information Infrastructure. Where did the idea of Boundaryless Information Flow originate?The Boundaryless Information Flow approach was developed after looking at the problems of 2 major manufacturers. We then discussed the problem of interoperability with members of the customer council. All indications are that this problem exists in most, if not all companies today to some extent or other. Why has The Open Group decided to do something about Boundaryless Information Flow?The Boundaryless Information Flow problem is real and real big. It is causing our customers real pain in terms of quality, time, and cost. Additionally the customer council has registered a requirement that is directly associated with this problem. The members of the customer council put this problem on the high priority list. So it is real to us, real to our buy-side members, real to the industry, and real big. The real problem is integration of business processes and supporting services, not of integrating information. Why the focus on information flow?We absolutely agree that the primary driver for Boundaryless Information Flow is creating operational efficiencies in the organization and that this requires process integration. We address the discovery and documentation of these issues today with Business Scenarios where we address all aspects of people, process and technical issues. We have additionally found that in many case there are real technology issues that are hindering many of the integration issues with processes, when we're in the technical space this is the hot area that needs attention, but of course not to the exclusion of the business process issues. Isn't the world going to continue to be heterogeneous?Yes, we accept heterogeneity as a given for numerous reasons such as mergers and acquisitions, the need to incorporate new solutions, new procurement policies, etc. Isn't forcing an architecture going to backfire?The goal here is not to impose architecture on anyone, but rather allow any given organization to develop its own architecture based upon its own business needs. Yet we can standardize the pieces that enable an organization to move forward. The reference model that we refer to is firstly only part of the way we are looking at the problem, and secondly only a way for us to categorize and organize the pieces that do need to be in place within any given implementation. Wouldn’t vendors merely say that the solution is their product?Vendors might simply reply that their product is the answer. A data warehouse company might say they have a solution by consolidating information. Yet another response from a server vendor would be that server consolidation would solve the problem. The real answer is that any new point solution may alleviate the problem for a while, but it will just add to the problems of the future, as it becomes a stovepipe in itself. A lasting technical solution must accept and embrace a dynamic heterogeneous environment and deal with brokering between information clients and information servers. What is the difference between this and EAI (Enterprise Application Integration)?It is true that the same business drivers inspire most EAI efforts and Boundaryless Information Flow. Additionally many of the EAI efforts are dealing with the some of same technical issues. However the need for certified standards based products is required to provide the guarantees needed. That's where The Open Group comes in, to integrate the standards in usable profiles and to certify the products to assure that the products conform to the standard. The EAI community is one of many communities that can respond to our calls for standards in the open process that we host. What is the difference between this and IT Dialtone?The major differences between Boundaryless Information Flow and IT Dialtone are as follows: IT Dialtone was striving for ubiquity in solutions. This ubiquity was itself a problem in terms of achievability in any realistic timescale. It also required providers of components and services required for IT Dialtone to support a single, unified approach. In contrast, Boundaryless Information Flow is about creating certified standard products and collections of standard products so organizations can put in place the open standard services necessary to provide Boundaryless Information Flow. The plan for Boundaryless Information Flow includes a great deal of partnership with organizations such as IETF, W3C, DMTF, OMG, OASIS, and TMF to name a few. We aren’t going it alone. IT Dialtone was not driven from a market need, but rather was conceived as “a good thing to do”. Boundaryless Information Flow has been inspired by real-world business problems, captured in a way that that considered all the constituencies – the Interoperable Enterprise Business Scenario. Haven’t we seen this problem before?Sure unsolved problems do usually come back up sooner or later. However the conditions today are more pressing, the business pressure is greater and there are fewer opportunities today to gain business efficiencies. To put it simply our customers are just running out of options – there is much greater scrutiny on IT spending today than in the past. What is the timeframe for delivering on the vision?Progress on Boundaryless Information Flow can be made immediately. Additional progress will be made over a number of years. Realization of the complete vision will take years not months to become fully achievable. What is the general strategy for delivering on the vision?Focus on the business issues; solve the process and technical problems that resolve the business issues. Partner with a vengeance; the job is large and we need to leverage past and existing work in other groups. Act quickly and work hard; now is the time and the sooner we act the more likely we will succeed. Produce constantly; continuously provide value to the industry to demonstrate the power of collaboration. Promote aggressively. Why do we think the problem can be tackled today?Today there are many reasons why the problem can be addressed where 10 years ago the solution alternatives were incomplete and inefficient. (EDI was one of the approaches used in the past, it was not standard, it was expensive, it was intrusive,…). Some specific reasons why this problem is more tractable today are:
What actually is Boundaryless Information Flow?Boundaryless Information Flow represents a significant approach to tackle a problem of our customers and is a shorthand representation of “access to integrated information to support business process improvements.” Boundaryless Information Flow is a desired state for an enterprise’s infrastructure and is specific to the business needs of the organization. An infrastructure that provides Boundaryless Information Flow can be described with the following characteristics
What does it mean to The Open Group?Boundaryless Information Flow means that there is a real world problem that can be used to focus all of our efforts. It provides The Open Group an objective to which all forums and businesses of The Open Group can contribute. It provides the context for priority setting for all of our organizations – it becomes the uniting force for what we are doing. What can The Open Group actually deliver?Delivering on Boundaryless Information Flow requires attention in the areas of both business and technology, by providing re-usable information and infrastructure. This results in the following 4 categories of work. Business information in the form of re-usable business policies, guidelines, lessons learned, and best practices to communicate the issues to the business world in a language consumable by the business world. Work like the Manager’s Guide to Information Security belongs in this category. Business infrastructure needs to be put in place within an organization to make the right priority calls, to understand the mechanisms of potential information exchange, to develop and choose the options that would be address the business problems of the specific organization. Architecture Development Methods driven by business imperatives falls into this category. Technology information in the form of technical reports on gaps and overlaps, applicability of alternative approaches, proof of concept reports. Architecture building blocks also fall into this category. Technology infrastructure in the traditional form of standards and profiles of integrated standards, actual re-usable proof on concepts, and of course certification programs for products. What does The Open Group actually plan to do to address the problems?To populate the above categories there are specific things that The Open Group would do such as:
Can The Open Group deal with supporting business processes that use the information?Yes it can, by getting buyers to speak with one voice (for example, XPG helped to consolidate buying power), and by educating business managers and decision-makers over understanding what they need and what they buy - stuff that is elementary in a business school but focused on IT purchases. What will the membership actually do and what’s in it for them?Buy-side members will represent the real issues and assure that their business requirements are appropriately reflected in the work. The buy-side must also be active in representing a single voice and back it up with signs of future procurement. If a customer chooses to go it with The Open Group they have a greater chance in having their voice heard and are more likely to get a last solution to their issues. Vendor members will represent approaches to solving the problems and will engage in the process of responding to requests for solutions. The vendors must be active in representing a commitment to conform. The vendors will ultimately produce product that is more likely to meet the needs of the customer constituency and therefore reach a larger market. Consultant members will be on the front edge of evolving the necessary methods required for organizations to build their Integrated Information Infrastructures. They will get greater exposure to a larger number of customer issues, which builds their knowledge base.
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CIO Corner"Boundaryless Information Flow is Real and Relevant". Prior PapersEliot Solomon's paper on Approaches to Boundaryless Information Flow Architecture (.pdf) reports findings from the Washington Conference. The Boundaryless Information Flow Reference Architecture (.pdf) explains a framework to guide the creation of specific architectures whose key IT objective is the reduce the friction of internal and/or external boundaries. The Family of Architectures (.pdf) white paper positions the necessary architectures to address the Boundaryless Information Flow problem. Two white papers on Boundaryless Information Flow are available through the publications catalog as Adobe Acrobat files and are free of charge. The Manager's Guide to Business Scenarios is also available. Please see the Frequently Asked Questions page on Boundaryless Information Flow. The What Is Boundaryless Information Flow presentation is available in two forms: one for commercial users, and another for non-commercial users. Staff met with a few CIOs to capture their issues resulting in a Business Scenario brief. Please let us know if these problems resemble your problems and if so get engaged! |