How Web Services affect Network? (3FQC)
- Renewed IT investments are driven by increasing demands for more efficient communications and information sharing across disparate agency networks. Increasing volumes of data required for decision support results in progressively more complex data management environments. Web services, which use distributed software programs and applets that form building blocks for application development, operate across geographically dispersed computing platforms. The need to reference multiple applications physically residing in geographically distributed locations creates additional traffic and service management challenges. Controlling large quantities of intersystem traffic requires robust, flexible networks that provide high levels of network performance (i.e., low latency and high throughput) to enable a high-quality user experience (3FQD)
Comment: Suggest grounding these claims on specific policy documents such as FEA PRM and NCOW, and expand them to address security and interoperability requirements from NCOW/others. (3FRH)
Why SLA (High Availability) affect Network (3FQE)
Agencies increasingly focus on data availability and protection as they implement solutions for continuity of operations (COOP) and disaster recovery (DR). Data transport between primary and backup locations, often separated by hundreds or thousands of miles, is integral to effective COOP and DR strategies. As data backup needs increase, agencies must weigh the risk versus importance of the data and balance this by providing an affordable, secure and highly adaptable network solution. Increased user demands on agency networks, coupled with the growth in latency-intolerant and bandwidth-hungry applications, often exceed the capabilities of existing network infrastructure. (3FQF)
Comment: Is govt really suffering from "increased user demands on agency networks, coupled with the growth in latency-intolerant and bandwidth-hungry applications" today? Isn't that a "problem" govt wishes it had? (3FRI)
- Disjointed network architecture with multiple transport technologies managed by a mix of in-house and third parties contribute to the limited interoperability of networks and applications. Taken together, these factors drive network planners to seek flexible, adaptable and manageable WAN solutions. These WAN solutions include private optical networks and managed wavelength services tailored to the networking requirements and cost constraints of government agency networks. (3FQH)
Comment: What is the advice to govt planners, given that this diversity arises from funding realities beyond their control. Especially legacy applications and the tendency for each program stovepipe to build its own infrastructure with little regard for interoperability? (3FRJ)
- Portal Infrastructure: To implement a service-oriented architecture (SOA), companies must consider what steps and technologies are involved. Portals represent a logical first step in the process. A portal can clarify the sometimes confusing SOA concept for an organization's IT staff and end users. An enterprise portal project pulls together the disparate groups involved in cross-enterprise technology projects. No other technology is more tangible than a portal, and IT professionals and users can relate to it. Portal products have leveraged service-oriented concepts since 1998, so they provide a natural approach to SOA. It leverages Web services extensively. It leverages portlets, which consume services or communicate to provide orchestrated flows and on-the-glass composite applications. (3FQK)
Comment: Why isn't the first step to deploy a foundation infrastructure capable of secure+interoperable transport? Why build a portal before there are any services, or even a transport infrastructure capable of reaching them securely/interoperably? (3FRK)
- Meta Data Management: Although promising as a new method for building applications, SOA will fail if long-standing data quality, data redundancy and semantic inconsistency issues are not addressed. Unless organizations take a disciplined approach toward enterprise wide information management; the SOA method of development may become fraught with highly redundant and inconsistent data stores and data integration applications, which is no different than today's reality in most large enterprises or Gov. Organizations. Complex or conflicting sources, inconsistent semantics and poor quality data (previously hidden and protected in tightly coupled systems) are suddenly exposed during service composition, creating confusion as multiple developers try to achieve efficiency and reuse. (3FQL)