TU9		OT2004 Session The Application Reference Model
		An Essential Element for Successful Enterprise Software Development Monday March, 11:30
		tutorial -    75 minutes
		John Cheesman Greg Hodgkinson
Session results	When available, can be found at TheApplicationReferenceModelSessionResults
Abstract	Enterprise information systems typically exist to automate aspects of one or more business processes. Since enterprises in the same market typically compete in large measure through the efficiency of their business processes, this places a constant pressure on those business processes to improve and evolve. In short, business processes are always changing. The requirement for business process change therefore places an essential requirement on the underlying applications for flexibility in the face of change. But this need for flexibility to automate ever-changing processes has to be balanced with the equally important requirement to leverage the investments made in existing application software and data elements. These elements may be bespoke software, COTS systems or packages, and databases, and will typically employ a variety of different implementation and connection technologies. In order to manage this complexity, a technology-independent view of the role, purpose and dependencies of these elements is needed. An approach is needed where existing applications can be reconfigured into new applications without needing to rewrite everything. Flexibility therefore needs to be allied with timely production based on the integration and reuse of existing, proven application software and data elements. The solution to these requirements is to move the focus away from the individual application or project and onto the underlying elements – functional components. Functional components provide the basis for integration, reuse and technology-independence. An application can then be recast at as an assembly or configuration of such components at runtime (component objects) providing improved application flexibility, particularly when combined with loosely-coupled connections within the assembly Slowly the industry is raising the bar of the technology platform, creating an ever more powerful base on which to create applications. We need to become better at applying the potential of these technologies, and that means capturing best practice, encoding it and standardizing it. And all this needs to occur at multiple levels - at the technology level and at the functional level. In many ways the very advances in the technology base undermine efforts to standardize on their employment - by the time best practice emerges the technology has moved on. One thing we can hope for then is at least to agree on the various categories of information and policy which need to exist and be standardized, for any given technology, to allow a successful, flexible, architected approach to application development - we need a reference model for application development. This session will introduce the Application Reference Model and key concepts such as the Functional Component and Application Platform. As well as discussing the above concepts the presentation will make use of real project examples to illustrate the benefits of applying the principles of the Application Reference Model.
Audience
Benefits	bullet points
Materials