1 Managing Your Integrations an Operations Science Approach Steven Rdzak Infrastructure Services [email protected].

1

Managing Your Integrationsan

Operations Science Approach

Steven RdzakInfrastructure Services

[email protected]

2

Some Background

• webMethods customer since 1999– Started with ActiveWorks

• ES 5.0.1– 80% of integrations are ES based– 5 ES Broker Servers In Production– 125-150 Adapter instances (ILA, Db, XML), many co-located with the

resource they serve

• IS 4.6– 20% of integrations are IS based– 1 IS production server for external customers– 1 IS production server for internal customers

• 350+ Integration Components– Team of 8 integration developers

• Average of 1 million component activations a week

3

What is Integration Management?

• A continuous improvement story for EAI• Application of improvement tools

– Measurement tools, Analysis tools

– Control Charts, Pareto Charts

• Application of improvement techniques– Operations Reviews

– Corrective Action Plans

• Logical flow of analysis and improvement initiatives– Measure the operation (you must inspect what you expect!)

– Change or modify the behavior

– Achieve the desired results (no errors, better performance)

• A.k.a Operations Science

4

Steps to Successful Integration Management

1. Design the Integration • Standard patterns

• Common audit components

2. Measure the Integration • Result metrics

• Measurement framework

3. Analyze the Integration • Key Analysis Questions

• Analysis framework

• Control Charts, Pareto Charts

4. Improve the Integration • Operations reviews

• Corrective action plans

5. Optimize the Integration • Standardization

• Institutionalization

5

Design the Integration

• Standard Patterns– Each Integration Component (Flow or EI) sets up standard Try/Catch

Block– Common audit sub-components are included in each component build

out– Starting timestamp recorded before other processing– On completion, success or error is recorded depending on outcome.– Integration component duration is calculated from start timestamp– Peer review ensures standards are followed

• Common Audit Components– Error and Debug Logging

• Persists integration name, component name, key data, message– Metrics Capture

• Persists component name, outcome, timing data (enqueue duration, component duration), outcome message

– Custom design at Level 3• Never used built-in capabilities like EntLogger adapter

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Design the Integration (cont.)

• Capture Architecture

SourceAdapter

TargetAdapter

CommonAudit

Components

CommonAudit

Components

IS Server

CommonAudit Flows/

Services

Audit Database

JDBC

ServiceAdapter

Broker IS

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Measure the Integration

• Result Metrics– Indicators that measure the integration for conformance or non-

conformance– Should be represented in a quantifiable way– Customers can and should validate the chosen indicators

• Result Metric Types– Better

• Represents a quality indicator based on what is important to the integration customer. Example: < 1% error rate for order submit component.

– Faster• Represents a time indicator based on overall time to perform the

integration. Example: component processing time of 5 seconds or less.

– Cheaper• Represents a value indicator based on what is important for the

company. Example: productivity measurement like orders/day. The integration must process > 500 orders per day.

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Measure the Integration (cont.)

Audit Database

2

34

Capture AdapterReporting Adapter

1

1 .. N

Tables (query)MET_INTEGRATIONMET_COMPONENTMET_COMPLETION_TRANSLATION

Tables (insert)MET_SUMMARYMET_SUMMARY_BREAKDOWNMET_SUMMARY_DURATION

Tables (query)L3_AWORKS_METRICS_UPDATE

1. Query for Integrations/Components to capture2. For each component PR&W for daily summary data3. Query for daily summary data4. Process Data and Update daily summary data

• Our Measurement Framework– Scheduled nightly batch run to summarize result metrics

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Analyze the Integration

• Key Questions To Ask During Analysis

Past Is the integration in control?

Integration produces consistent output

Present Is the integration performing to specifications?

Integration is capable in its current environment

Future Is the integration able to adapt or be flexible?

Integration is capable of performing in a future environment

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Analyze the Integration (cont.)

• Our Analysis Framework– Low tech reporting architecture utilizing MS Excel spreadsheets Pivot Table and Charts

fed via an external data query from the Audit database– Reports and Charts are generated from summarized result metrics

Audit Database

Metrics by Day -2003 08 August

Metrics CountsYTD

Metrics Durationby Component

Date Range

Metrics CurrentDay

ODBC

ODBCODBC

ODBC

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Analyze the Integration (cont.)• Control Chart

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Analyze the Integration (cont.)• Pareto Chart

Top 10 Errors

9371

6409

15971173

6 1

50.50%

85.04%

93.64%99.96% 99.99% 100.00%

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Improve the Integration

• Operations Reviews– Formally assess the operation weekly– Prioritize improvement efforts– Why have a review?

• Ensure integrations are meeting customer expectations and achieving corporate objectives

• Review success of corrective actions and formulate new action plans

– Who should attend?• Integration designers/developers

• Integration stakeholders

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Improve the Integration (cont.)

• Corrective Action Plans– A plan targeted on a specific integration improvement, problem

or defect.– Can be formal or informal– Key Points in the Plan

• What happened

• Why did it happen

• What correction is being taken

• What will this accomplish

• Who is responsible

• When will it be completed

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Optimize the Integration

• Standardization– Simplification

• Streamline the methods and procedures used to create your integrations

• Promote use of standard components

– Training• Can be formal or informal

• Institutionalization– Peer review of integration design– Make each developer an owner of his or her integration

performance

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Some Takeaways

• An integration that is not measured is not managed• Don’t go overboard and try to measure the world, you

will end up with no time left for improvement efforts• Data collection, storage and analysis are activities that

add no value until they are used to control or improve your integration.