Mirja Pulkkinen

Managing information security in a business network of machinery maintenance services business - Enterprise architecture as a coordination tool

Today, technologies enable easy access to information across organizational boundaries, also to systems of partners in business networks. This raises, however, several complex research questions on privacy, information security and trust. The study reported here provides motivation and a roadmap for approaching integrated security management solutions in a business network of partners with heterogeneous information and communication technologies (ICT): Systems, platforms, infrastructures as well as security policies. Enterprise architecture (EA) is proposed as a means for comprehensive and coordinated planning and management of corporate ICT and the security infrastructure. The EA approach is proposed as a pre-requisite for transparent and secure inter-organizational information exchange and business process support crossing corporate boundaries. This study provides an example of security architecture planning based on EA, which aligns the development of technological solutions with the business goals. The EA approach combines the planning of business and ICT developments. The alignment provides arguments for cohesive identity and access management (IAM) in a business network. A case study with Metso Paper, Inc., the leading manufacturer of paper machinery and related services, exemplifies the EA-based security architecture planning and specification.

EA Planning, Development and Management Process for Agile Enterprise Development

In this study, we suggest an enterprise architecture (EA) development process model suitable for EA projects limited in scope and time. Several EA process models have been put forward, which have in common the idea of comprehensive EA management and development that is generic, cyclic and ongoing in a user organization. The suggested models are of varying level of abstraction. It is not simple to select the right issues from them for a restricted development effort. An ICT services provider needs a process model to follow in EA consulting and development projects. This approach is also needed for incremental EA development by user organizations. Starting with the suggested EA process models and with findings in IS literature, we create a generic process model for EA management. Based on this model, and supported with a case study, we then develop a process model for discrete EA development efforts undertaken as incremental steps.

Overview of Telecom Operator Software Market

Telecommunications is an essential enabler of modern societies and a global vertical industry, providing communication and information services, with its annual revenue of over trillion euros. In this book, a company providing these services is referred to as a telecom operator or communications service provider (CSP). CSPs create value by offering connectivity to and via an infrastructure of networks for transferring signals. The core business processes in a telecom operator company therefore revolve, on one hand, around physical networks and their maintenance, and on the other, managing their customers and their use of the connectivity services over the networks.

Defining Complexity Factors for the Architecture Evaluation Framework

The design and implementation of telecommunication systems is an incremental and iterative process, and system architectures may need to be revised and refined several times during their lifetime. Formal evaluation facilitates the identification of the weak points, where improvements are due in these architectures. In the domain of telecommunications, such evaluation can be based on the Architecture Evaluation Framework (AEF). During the evaluation, a deep understanding of the processes within a system is needed. Meanwhile, the systems being designed are usually complex systems encompassing a large number of components with an intricate pattern of interaction between them. As a result, it is extremely difficult to understand, predict and control the behavior of such systems. Theoretical studies in the field of complex systems describe potential reasons of system complexity, and explain its possible outcomes, as reflected in system structure and behavior. This knowledge may be utilized in architecture evaluation, in order to deepen the understanding of the interactions imposed by the architecture, as well as to extend the understanding of the involved architectural tradeoffs. For this, the complexity factors should be taken into account during the evaluation. However, no such factors are involved in the current version of the AEF. In this paper, the attempt is made to identify how the knowledge about properties of complex systems could be utilized for the evaluation of information system architectures. Based on the theoretical advances in the field of complex systems, a list of the complexity factors to be included in the AEF is compiled. These factors are going to be further refined, as the AEF is employed for evaluating real-world architectures.

Identity and Access Management for Remote Maintenance Services in Business Networks

Access to information systems across corporate boundaries with high demands to privacy and trust result into ambitious research and development targets. This study provides motivation and a roadmap for approaching integrated security management solutions in a business network of partners with heterogeneous ICT and security infrastructures. We aim at describing specifics of identity and access management in inter-organizational collaboration, and a vision and arguments for identity and access management in a business network. A case study with Metso Paper, Inc., the leading manufacturer of paper machinery and related services, validates the results, thus providing a motivating example of the possibilities of e-services.

Software business in the telecommunications sector

Operations and Business Support Systems (OSS/BSS) software of Communication Service Providers (CSPs) can be developed internally within the CSP or acquired from a Software Vendor. The software industry lifecycle model hypothesizes that software development is internal in the beginning of the industrys lifecycle, and that the share of external products increases when it matures. Empirical evidence shows signs of the OSS/BSS software industry approaching maturity. Current and future developments of the industry include the possibilities of utilizing the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model and Open Source software (OSSw). Both have gained increasing interest by the CSPs. However, the relatively small markets (number of CSPs), added with complex and proprietary interfaces of technology and software, seem to hinder this development. The results of scenarios on the future of the industry propose that the adoption of SaaS and OSSw could be motivated by general cost-cutting, by alliances within the industry or by a focus of CSPs business on either providing network capacity or value-added services.

Collaborative EA Information Elicitation Method: The IEM for Business Architecture

This study contributes to the enterprise architecture (EA) methodologies by suggesting a method for eliciting architecture requirements: gathering both the current architecture information, and the development needs and requirements for the business architecture (BA) dimension in EA planning. Most of all EA dimensions, the developing of the BA requires collaboration with various non-IT stakeholders. It presents thus challenges to the IT department, or the consultancy involved in EA related efforts. The contribution of the various stakeholder groups as informants is, however, crucial to well founded EA design decisions. The suggested method takes related IS development fields as starting points. Collaborative approaches are well established in the fields of requirements engineering and business process design. However, EA specific issues remain to be explicated and incorporated to the collaboration. A BA information elicitation method (IEM) is not only a tool of the IT professional for a sound foundation for defining of the EA baseline, and developing of the requirements, but also an organizational change management vehicle. Involving stakeholders in a planned, consistent and balanced manner, it supports the establishing of collaboration routines of the IT and business stakeholder groups. The observations in a 12 month EA initiation project in a public organization are a basis for this constructive effort, where a BA elicitation method for the enterprise architecting is created. The constructed method is enhanced by evaluative comments of seven EA-experienced IT professionals.

Software and Standards in an Emerging Domain

This paper considers the software market in the field of e-Learning and Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) through observing standardization developments in the domain. A model of software market evolution suggests that observations on development and deployment of standards in the domain indicate the status on the market. As the model holds, in a mature phase, level of standardization is high and the number of competing standards low. The result of the study is, there appears to be a market, but a heterogeneous one, with hesitation on dominant designs and an overall modest level of standards adoption. Content standardization enables the (re)use of the learning content in multiple formats with diverse learning management systems (LMS), virtual learning environments (VLEs), learning platforms, HRM and administration systems. A number of initiatives to develop specifications or standards exist. Competing standards or specifications are found for most target areas. Efforts to establish common frameworks and reference models have emerged. Such overall consensus frameworks will support developments towards content interoperability in this vertical as they have in other domains.

Insights from Operator Interviews

The previous section analysed use of software to improve productivity from a general perspective and provided a quick statistical analysis of software usage to the performance of a CSP. Before conducting elaborated statistical analysis on CSP software usage, we need to gain some insight into operator business and understanding on how operators see the role of software in their business as well as how they acquire software.