What are characteristics of autonomic system?

Autonomic systems bring both challenges as well as opportunities for the future networking. The increasing numbers of users have had a negative impact on the complexity of the networks; it has also increased by multiple folds. Autonomic systems provide a solution for this problem. 

Characteristics of Autonomic System

1. High intelligence: These systems have more intelligence incorporated in to them which lets them tackle this increasing complexity easily.
2. Business Goal: They are driven by the business goal that the quality of experience of the user must be high. Even with the changing environment, there goals remain the same. But there are changes that take place in the low – level configurations. For example, when a user switches over to a low bandwidth network, the bit rate of the video has to be reduced in order to satisfy the goals of the business.
3. Complex operations: All the operations carried out in an autonomic system are complex in nature even for the simplest of the services. For example, authentication, video encoding, billing, routing, shaping, QoS prioritizing, admission control.
4. High level objectives: The human operator just has to specify the high – level objectives and it is left to the system whether it chooses to optimize one or more of the goals. In order to achieve this, the system has to translate these objectives in to low – level configurations.
5. Adaptability: The system has the ability to adapt itself to the current environment.
6. Policy continuum: There are a number of perspectives to this as mentioned below:

Ø  Business view: Includes guidelines, processes and goals.

Ø  System view: The service should be independent of the technology as well as the device that is being used.

Ø  Network view: It should be specific to technology but independent of the device.

Ø  Device view: Both technology and device specific.

Ø  Instance view: Operation should be specific to an instance.

7. Elements: The elements of the network are assumed to be heterogeneous by the autonomic communication systems whereas in plain autonomic computing the elements are taken to be as the homogeneous.
8. Distributed: These systems work up on a distributed environment.
9. Complexity: The complexity in autonomic systems is more because of the complex autonomic loop that includes the following operations:

Ø  Interaction between the context  and the business goals

Ø  The MAPE (monitor, analyze, plan and execute) loop.

10. Reliability: In autonomic systems, the network has the authority to decide for itself focusing on high level objectives. Autonomic systems rely heavily up on artificial intelligence. However, there are issues associated with artificial intelligence like it becomes difficult to intervene in between when the things go wrong.It is quite difficult to know whether the system is doing the things it is supposed to do or not.

11. Scalability: This is another major characteristic of autonomic systems. It is required to keep track of the large amounts of knowledge and information. Autonomic systems have three tools to take care of this:

Ø Distributed ontologies

Ø Distributed large – scale reasoning

Ø Exchanging only the useful information

ØDistributing information among the different components of the autonomic network.

But in these cases, detection of the conflicts is a difficult task. For handling the various interactions taking place the various autonomic components efficient protocols are required. 

Currently two approaches have been suggested for developing the autonomic networking systems namely:

1. Evolutionary Approach: Incorporating the autonomic behavior in to the pre – existing infrastructure. This approach will consist of updates in increments till a fully autonomic system is developed. This approach is more likely to be adopted even though it requires a lot of patchwork.

2.  Clean slate approach: This approach is focused up on re – designing of the internet.

Elaboration Phase - One of the phase of Rational Unified Process

The life cycle for a project under the context of the rational unified process is known to consist of the following four phases:

1. Inception phase

2. Elaboration phase

3. Construction phase

4. Transition phase

Here we shall discuss about the second phase of the unified process i.e., the elaboration phase. In Rational Unified Process, the four phases represent the process at a high level although the iterations that are carried out in every phase of development are the key to the process. 

Each phase here is provided with an objective and a milestone. It is necessary to have a milestone for each so that it could be decided that when and where a particular phase is ending and the next one is starting. All the above phases as well as the process disciplines are visualized in to what is called an “RUP hump chart”. 

About Elaboration Phase in Rational Unified Process

- The primary objective of the elaboration phase is defined as the mitigation of the key risk items whose identification is done by the analyzation of the whole phase from the beginning till the end. 

- It is here in the elaboration phase where the project starts taking the shape. - In elaboration the following 2 basic things take place:

1. The analyzation of the problem domain is done.

2. Basic form is given to architecture. 

- The following are the outcomes of the elaboration phase:

1. A use case is obtained in which both the actors and use cases have been identified. This use – model consists of most of the developed use – case descriptions. It is required that this use – case model should be at least 80 percent complete. 

2. A description concerning the architecture of the software system in a development process. 

3. An architecture that is executable and realizes the use cases which have an architectural significance. 

4. A revised risk list.

5. A revised business case.

6. A plan for the overall development of the project. 

7. Prototypes which give a demonstration on the mitigation of the identification of the technical risks. 

8. An optional preliminary user manual.

- There is a milestone criteria called the life cycle architecture milestone which involves answering the following questions:

1. Stability of the architecture?

2. Stability of the vision of the product?

3. Have the major risk elements been addressed and resolved and has been indicated by the executable demonstration?

4. Has the sufficient detailing has been done for the construction phase plan and is it accurate?

5. Have all the stakeholders agreed for achieving the current vision using the current plan under the current architectural context?

6. Is the expenditure of planned resource vs. actual resource acceptable?

- It is important that the project should pass this milestone and if it doesn’t there are 2 possibilities:

1. It can either be redesigned or

2. It can be cancelled.

- However, when the project leaves this phase, the project is transitioned in to an operation that involves high – risk i.e., to say here the changes are quite detrimental as well difficult to be made. 

- The system architecture serves as the key domain analysis for the elaboration phase. 

- The basic thing here is addressing of the major technical risks threatening the project. 

- Another thing is to have a bare system which provides answers to all of the major technical questions. 

- Once all the questions have been answered by the end, the development team will know whether a working system can be successfully built or not. 

Inception Phase - One of the phase of Rational Unified Process

There are 4 phases which together constitute the rational unified process namely:

1. Inception phase
2. Elaboration phase
3. Construction phase
4. Transition phase

This article is dedicated entirely to the first phase of the unified process i.e., the inception phase. The major development takes place in the iterations of development which are carried out within each phase. All of the above four phases have their unique key objective as well as milestones.

The accomplishment of the objective is denoted by the milestone. An RUP hump chart is used for the visualization of all the four phases of the rational unified disciplines and phases over the time. 

Objective of Inception Phase

- The primary objective of the inception phase provide adequate scope to the software system or application as a basis on which the validation of the budgets and initial costing could be done.

- The inception phase involves the establishment of a business case which is inclusive of the following:

1. Business context
2. Success factors such as the market recognition, expected revenue and so on.
3. Financial forecast

- In order to complement the business case, the following things are generated:

1. A basic use case model
2. Project plan
3. Initial risk assessment
4. Project description which in turn includes the following:

    a)   Key features

    b)   Constraints and

    c)   The core project requirements

- Once the generation of the above mentioned sources is complete, the verification of the project begins against the following criteria:

1. Stake holder concurrence on the following:

  a)   Cost estimates

  b)   Schedule estimates and

  c)   Scope definition

2. Understanding of the requirements as per the evidence obtained by the fidelity of the use cases.
3. Credibility of the following:

  a)   Cost and schedule estimates

  b)   Priorities

  c)   Development process and

  d)   Risks involved

4. The depth and breadth that was developed for any architectural prototype.
5. Establishment of a base line using which the planned expenditures and actual expenditures can be compared.

- If for one or the other reason the project is unable to pass the milestone (commonly termed as the life cycle objective mile stone) then there are only two possibilities after redesigning the program (for meeting the criteria in a better way) as mentioned below:

1. It can be cancelled or
2. It can be repeated

- This phase is involved with launching the project. 

- A proper business case can be developed for the project. 

- It is by the end of the inception that the development team comes to whether to carry on with the project or not. 

- In inception phase, one can see a core idea being developed in to a vision for a product. 

- In this phase may reviews, discussions, etc. are carried out regarding the business case involved in the project. 

- The scope of the project is delimited in the inception phase and also the product feasibility is established. 

- This is perhaps the smallest of all the phases of a project and also according to its ideal nature it should be short. 

- If the duration of the inception phase is too long it indicates that there has been an excessive up – front specification (even though this goes against the spirit of the rational unified process.).

Explain BPR model? What are steps involved in BPR model?

BPR or business process re- engineering model is the model that is being used by many of the organizations of today’s software world for analysing and designing their processes and work flows! 

In this article we have discussed about this business process re- engineering model in detail. 

The model works on the principle that the business processes are a set of logically related tasks that aim at working together towards a defined business goal. This model has been deployed by many management systems like:

1. Information systems management
2. Supply chain management
3. Group ware systems
4. Human resource management systems
5. Enterprise resource planning etc.

Phases of BPR model

The business process re- engineering model involves a cyclic process consisting of four main phases:

1. Identification of the processes
2. Review and updating and analysis
3. Design to be
4. Testing and implementation to be

Implementation of the business process engineering requires that you implement an HPO or high performing organization. It should be kept in mind BPR is an organizational method that redesigns an organization’s process in terms of effectiveness, efficiency and economy. 

Few of the activities that are undertaken in BPR are:

1. Activity based costing analysis
2. Business case analysis
3. Industrial engineering techniques
4. Productivity assessment
5. Human capital tools
6. Base lining and bench-marking studies
7. Functionality assessment
8. Organization analysis
9. Work force analysis

Steps in Implementation of BPR model

Now we shall what all steps are involved in the implementation of this business process re- engineering model!

1. Establishment of BPR and HPO project plan: 

In this step the reason for the BPR nomination is justified and the organization states the objectives of the BPR. The employees and activities that will be affected are identified. The customers and the stakeholders that will take effects by the impact of the BPR are also identified. The available contractor support is also identified. The organization then needs to describe the outcomes like metrics, business and human capital.

2. Preliminary planning: 

It involves identification and assignment of the MSO development team members (MSO stands for most sustainable organization), development of the action plan with check points and milestones, development of the communication plans, and establishment of the data analysis requirements and collection methods.

3. Development of the business case: 

This step involves the implementation of the AS- IS analysis of the organization, development of the MSO to be, measuring the gaps between the actual and the “to be” organizations and the development of the transition plans.

4. Implementation of the business case: 

This step involves the identification and assignment of the most sustainable organization implementation team members, establishment of the letter of obligation between MSO activity manager and agency head and the initiation of the transition to the MSO.

5. Tracking and validation of the MSO performance: 

It involves usage of the identified metrics in the measurement of the:

 (i)  Closing skills

(ii)  Competency gaps

(iii)Closing performance gaps

(iv) Improving timeliness and quality

(v)   Achieving savings and so on.

This whole process is driven by two teams namely:

1.Development team: 

It develops the MSO and includes functional experts, personnel specialists etc.

2. Implementation team: 

It implements the MSO and includes development team members and employees who will work in MSO.

3. Other people involved in the business process re- engineering are

- Acquisition officer: participates in the BPR efforts.

- MSO activity manager

- Human resource advisor

- Human capital officer

- CFO

- General officer

- Budget officer

- Support contractor and so on.

Re-engineering involves fundamental re- thinking towards achieving the improvements in performance and speed. 

What is meant by Business Process Reengineering?

Business process reengineering or BPR is a very important concept when it comes to achieving the business goals centred on the development of a software product. This article is all about the same concept. Let us define the business process re-engineering process formally.

"The process that involves analyzing and designing of the processes and workflows within the organization which is developing a particular software product is called business process re-engineering". 

Business process re- engineering has got many other names like:

1. Business process redesigning
2. Business transformation
3. Business process change management

What is a business process?

- A business process can be thought of as an aggregation of tasks that are logically related to each other and are meant to achieve a pre-defined business outcome. 

- Re-engineering eventually led to many changes in the management processes for the good. - The best example that can be given is of the cross functional team! 

- The concept of cross functionality came in to existences because of the need for re- engineering of the functional tasks which are separately developed in to the processes that are completely cross functional. 

- The concept of business process re engineering is gaining popularity worldwide since there are so many management information systems developments which aim at achieving a wide integration of a large number of business functions.

- Few of those management information systems are:

1. Supply chain management
2. Enterprise resource planning
3. Knowledge management systems
4. Human resource management systems
5. Groupware systems
6. Collaborative systems
7. Customer relationship management and so on.

- This technique emerged in the private sector to help the organizations fundamentally, so that they can improve up on their customer service to a large extent. 

- This technique also helped in reducing the development cost and gain the world class competitive edge.

Key Aspects of Re-engineering Process

The following are the two very important key aspects of the re- engineering process:

1. Deployment of the sophisticated information systems and
2. Continual development.

Details about Business Process Re-engineering

- The leading organizations of the world which are known to support the innovative business processes are used to deploy this technique instead of refining the current methodologies of doing work. 

- Business process re-engineering involves rethinking and then radically redesigning the already existing processes and resources of the organization.

- The business process re- engineering cannot be called as a mere business improvisation technique rather it is a technique using which the whole way in which the work is done can be redesigned for the better. 

- A high level assessment of the mission of the organization, its customer needs and strategic goals marks the beginning of the business process re-engineering. 

- The business process redesigning invokes the question, “does the (aspect) needs to be redefined?” 

- During the implementation of the business process re- engineering technique, an organization may feel that till now it has been working up on the assumptions that are questionable. 

- On implementing this technique, they are forced to think what exactly they should be doing. - The primary focus of the business process re- engineering is on the business processes of the organizations that govern the usage of the resources to develop software products and services to cater the needs of the customers. 

- Business process re- engineering works on the philosophy that “a business process can be broken down in to several short and simple processes which then can be individually measured, modeled, and improved up on”.   

- Apart from this, all the processes can also redesigned altogether.

- With business process re- engineering, the whole business process is optimized in such a way that the organization and the customers reap only benefits. 

What is meant by Rational Unified Process?

RUP or rational unified process - refinement of the unified process has been categorized among the most popular and commonly used iterative software development process frame works. The rational unified process has been a trade mark of the IBM Corporation since the year of 2003 when it was developed by the rational software corporation. 

The rational software corporation has long been recognized as a division of the IBM. 

What is a Rational Unified Process?

- Rational unified process as it sounds is an adaptable process frame work rather than being a single and concrete prescriptive process. 

- The rational unified process serves as a frame work that can be tailored according to the needs and objectives of the software development organizations and the project development teams who are responsible for the selection of the elements of the development process that fit their needs. 

- You can call the rational unified process as a specific implementation of the unified process since it is absolutely right. 

- Rational unified process is a kind of software process product which was acquired by the IBM from the rational software corporation. 

- The rational unified process forms a part of the IBM RMC (rational method composer) using which the whole development process can be customized. 

Based on the experience of the implementation of the RMC for various projects, the below mentioned 6 practices were declared as best practices for modern software engineering:

     1. Iterative development using risk as the primary iteration driver.

     2. Management of the requirements.

     3. Employment of an architecture based on components.

     4. Visual modelling of the software system or application.

     5. Continuous verification of the quality.

     6. Keeping the changes under the control.

Rational unified process contributes greatly in making improvements in the quality of the software system or application and in predicting the software development efforts.

Aspects of Rational Unified Process

The rational unified process is characterized by its following three aspects:

     1. It can be tailored according to the needs that will guide the development process.

     2. It is a tool that can be used for the automation of the whole development process.

     3. It is a service that serves for the accelerated adoption of all the processes and the tools involved.

Rational unified process was actually developed in the year of 1996. The year of 1997 saw the addition of the requirements and the test discipline to the rational unified process. In the year of 1998 again two new aspects were added to the process namely the business modelling and change. Apart from these, some techniques were also added that included:

     1. Performance testing

     2. UI design

     3. Data engineering

With all these techniques the rational unified process was updated to the UML 1.3. the rational unified process constitutes of some set of building blocks that describe the functionality which is to be produced. 

Below mentioned are the main building blocks:

     1. Roles

     2. Work products

     3.  Tasks

Nine disciplines governing the tasks have been defined:

     1. Deployment

     2. Implementation

     3. Requirements

     4. Business modelling

     5. Analysis and design

     6. Test

    In addition to these nine disciplines there are 3 additional disciplines:

    1. Environment

    2. Configuration management

    3. Project management

    

   Like the normal unified process, the rational unified process also consists of the 4 phases namely:

     1. Inception

     2. Elaboration

     3. Construction

     4. Transition

The RMC product has proved to be quite an effective tool for configuring, authoring, publishing and viewing processes with rational unified process incorporated in to it. The above mentioned 6 practices are now recognized as a paradigm in the field of software engineering for designing any software and increasing productivity. The development cycle is said to finish when the product release milestone is reached.