EnterpriseLINK™

EnterpriseLINK™ is a Web-based tool that allows members of an organization to view, share, and collaborate on the valuable artifacts of their enterprise. It can be configured to publish and support any kind of information, whether your goal is to develop a full enterprise architecture, to communicate business area information to managers and operational staff, to build a meta data repository, or to house IT’s system inventory.

All this information – that is, the meta data about the business, its data, its products, and its systems – become assets that can be brought together in EnterpriseLINK’s knowledge asset repository and viewed via a standard Internet browser. As you analyze more and more of the business – process by process, area by area, or data warehouse by data warehouse – you add to the information in EnterpriseLINK so it becomes the central repository of your enterprise information.

EnterpriseLINK provides a central meta data repository, a visual user interface, and the capability to incorporate definitions and visual models from many sources. It presents the information in an easy-to-follow network of related items so that viewers can easily understand what’s there and can provide their feedback, if they desire. Even better, viewers have access to the information anywhere, anytime, without any special software. That improves communication, collaboration and decision-making because viewers always have access to the most up-to-date information, they can research data quality issues or the impact of a change, and they can make comments and see comments that others have made.

Features and Highlights

Web based interface allows access to anyone using secure logins

Highly intuitive user interface and navigation mechanism uses standard business entity labels, naming conventions and tabs to organize the information

Variable size model diagrams with hot spots and hyper links to related child diagrams and definitions allows one-click access to detailed information

Context sensitive Table of Contents and header links

Highly optimized search capability allows item lookup using name and key word searches

Comment feature allows associating user comments to any items for sharing, approval and resolution

Administration features allows setup of secure user accounts and email/notification capabilities

Comprehensive web based reports including matrix reports, usage reports and easy integration with 3 rd party report tools

Workflow support for managed user groups to collaborate in change management and approval process
Highly optimized and scalable relational data model for the Link repository implemented in SQL Server 2000 allows aggregation of enterprise information in a single publishing database for cross-referencing and linking
Native ETL implementation for SQL Server 2000 using MS DTS for efficient data transforms, imports and exports

Component based web application architecture using ASP.NET on Windows 2000 Server (and later) with support for .Net Framework 1.0 and 1.1

How We Work With You to Build YOUR
Enterprise LINK

We recognize that not everyone needs or wants the same types of information in EnterpriseLINK. That’s why we work with our clients to identify what meta data they need to store and share. We also identify the processes that will create the meta data, as well as the processes that will need to be in place to manage the meta data.

We use the enterprise architecture modeling tool, System Architect from Popkin, to create artifacts. When ready to be shared, models and definitions are published from the System Architect encyclopedias using an intermediate extract and transform application. This application uses System Architect API to access repository information, apply transformation rules and import it into an intermediate meta-model data store. This data store is implemented as a SQL MSDE database.

The information in the intermediate data store is then published to the EnterpriseLINK publishing repository using MS DTS packages. The publishing repository is a highly scalable and optimized SQL Server 2000 database which supports archiving and versioning of published information.

Why do we use System Architect as our starting point? First, System Architect is a true enterprise modeling tool and it provides native support for most standard models – Use Case Models, Process Maps, Entity Relation Diagrams. Second, System Architect is customizable and allows us to add new diagrams, symbols or definitions with ease. Finally, System Architect has an open architecture, which means we can use its API to extract information and package it exactly as we want – whether into a formatted deliverables document or for publishing to EnterpriseLINK.

Steps in the Process

Step 1: Our approach first looks at your current situation. What will be the sources of the meta data? Do you want to focus only on your business data, or would you also like to incorporate information about the business applications, or its technical infrastructure, or its strategies and goals? What specific types of meta data are needed? What properties? Do you have defined processes that will support capturing the meta data in the correct structure? What should EnterpriseLINK contain and how will it be structured? This stage of the process involves interviews with all the key stakeholders.

Step 2: We provide straw models to help confirm the meta data content and structure. At the same time, we identify the management processes that will be required.

Step 3: We develop a prototype of the meta data repository so that you can work with the user interface and make sure that it functions in the most useful way possible. We also customize the “look” of EnterpriseLINK to conform to your organization’s standards.

Step 4: We design the environment for sharing, storing, and managing the meta data assets. The environment will support the ability to:

Search for assets
Research the impact of a proposed change
Collaborate with other users
Comment on assets, or request them for re-use
Notify users of changes to assets

EnterpriseLINK is a knowledge-sharing tool for business assets. How does it work?

First of all, EnterpriseLINK is part of a complete solution. To begin, analysts work in a modeling tool to develop their models and textual definitions. Once they are at a point where the assets are ready share, they use EnterpriseLINK’s extract, transform, and load functionality to build a database of the assets, their properties and their relationships (their links) to other business assets. Now the assets are available to all users – anywhere, anytime.

Users can select what kind of information they want to view, whether Business (business processes, organization information, business goals), Product (product descriptions, product rules), Data (enterprise models, class models), or Systems (system descriptions, system technical inventories). If these groupings don’t meet the needs of your organization, EnterpriseLINK can be tailored to include exactly what you want, how you want it.

Technical Specs

Models and definitions are published from System Architect encyclopedias using an intermediate extract and transform application. This application uses System Architect API to access repository information, apply transformation rules and imports it into the Link intermediate meta-model data store. This data store is implemented as a SQL MSDE database.

The information in the intermediate Link data store is then published to the Link publishing repository using MS DTS packages. The publishing repository is a highly scalable and optimized SQL Server 2000 database which supports archiving and versioning of published information (snapshots).

The Link framework architecture is built using ASP.NET, VB.NET, SQL Server, MS DTS.

Minimum Server Configuration & Software

Operating System: Windows 2000 or later
Processor: 1 GHz+
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Hard Drive: 30 GB
Web Server: MS Internet Information Server (IIS) 5.0 or later
Framework: .Net version 1.0 or 1.1
Database: MS SQL Server 2000 Standard Edition (1 CPU License)

How Can EnterpriseLINK Help You?

Some typical problems:

Viewers don’t know how an asset relates to other assets.
Users need to research data quality issues.
Employees don’t know where to find a complete system inventory.
Users cannot examine models because they don’t have modeling tools.
Team members beginning new projects don’t have a single source of “approved” business information.
Managers don’t know how their processes currently run, or how they might be improved.

The advantages of using EnterpriseLINK:

Makes business information available to all approved users anywhere, anytime via a web browser.
Allows users to research, review and comment on information online.
Provides tracking reports, including change history and current status of objects.
Presents artifacts from different perspectives making review easier for different stakeholders.
Notifies users when updates are available.