Given by Geoffrey C. Fox at CPS714 Computational Science Information Track on May 26 99. Foils prepared May 26 99
Outside Index
Summary of Material
We describe and exemplify Enterprise Information Portals |
We discuss some general properties and tools for portals |
We discuss computing and education portals giving links to other presentations here |
We define xxxxxxML and ScienceML |
We describe collaboration -- both synchronous and asynchronous -- in terms of event propagation |
Computing Portal Overview: |
http://www.npac.syr.edu/users/gcf/npacgatewayworkshopmay99/ |
Education Portal Overview: |
http://www.npac.syr.edu/users/gcf/wwnt_october98/ |
http://www.npac.syr.edu/users/gcf/minnowapril99/ |
Outside Index Summary of Material
Instructor: Nancy McCracken |
teamed with Geoffrey Fox and many others from NPAC |
Syracuse University |
NPAC |
111 College Place |
Syracuse NY 13244 4100 |
Phone: 3154432163 |
We describe and exemplify Enterprise Information Portals |
We discuss some general properties and tools for portals |
We discuss computing and education portals giving links to other presentations here |
We define xxxxxxML and ScienceML |
We describe collaboration -- both synchronous and asynchronous -- in terms of event propagation |
Computing Portal Overview: |
http://www.npac.syr.edu/users/gcf/npacgatewayworkshopmay99/ |
Education Portal Overview: |
http://www.npac.syr.edu/users/gcf/wwnt_october98/ |
http://www.npac.syr.edu/users/gcf/minnowapril99/ |
Note Combination of |
Search Engine and Lists |
Yahoo itself has market value $25B |
Annual Sales of $200M |
Annual Revenue Growth of 200% |
Market Value $6.6B |
Annual Sales $154M |
Annual Revenue Growth 210% |
An unfortunate constraint |
on size of personalized Image |
Zipcode or City |
selects weather |
Customize Display |
A mix of server side storage and cookies to store access information |
.amazon.com TRUE / FALSE 928051083 session-id-time 928051200 |
.amazon.com TRUE / FALSE 928051083 session-id 002-5946756-8250258 |
.pathfinder.com TRUE / FALSE 927945280 ttttt ttttt |
.barnesandnoble.com TRUE / FALSE 2051222155 SITESERVER ID=2f7c218e2ca3043cbd01b25cc68ea740 |
.barnesandnoble.com TRUE / FALSE 1148438183 userid 2NMKACG9NH |
.preferences.com TRUE / FALSE 930309561 MLCursor iqL8%5EN%26h%21a%3BcH81%23%3FP%3AbC |
.excite.com TRUE / FALSE 1609415858 popup no |
.webcrawler.com TRUE / FALSE 1609415858 UID A192436035843DE1 |
.excite.com TRUE / FALSE 946684658 mec_splash yes |
Market Value $18B with $610M annual sales and 300% annual growth .... |
Market Value $19B |
Annual Sales $47M |
Annual Growth 700% |
If Gateway is a Portal to Computing and Intranet is a Portal to Enterprise Information, then how how are they linked |
They share features in the "Information Toolbar"
|
Area 1998 2002 CAGR |
Content Management $1.2B $4.7B 40% |
Business Intelligence $2B $7.3B 38% |
Data Warehouse/Marts $.99B $2.6B 27% |
Data Management $0.18B $0.36B 18% |
Totals $4.4B $14.9B 36% |
http://www.sagemaker.com/company/lynch.htm or |
http://www.sagemaker.com/company/downloads/eip_indepth.pdf |
We divide Enterprise Information Portals into four major product segments: Business Intelligence, Content Management, Data Warehouses and Marts and Data Management. |
Ultimately, we see these separate software segments converging into an integrated, enterprise wide information repository and application which we believe will be the Corporate Information Portal. |
Content Management systems capture, archive, index, manage, combine and distribute internal and external information to create a corporate knowledge repository. |
A content management system used by an Investment bank might create, manage and track an interest rate swap contract as it moves through its business lifecycle from creation to approval to execution. |
New "packaged" applications emerging from these vendors also target specific corporate functions such as sales and marketing planning, competitive analysis and product requirements. |
Business Intelligence Applications leverage enterprise database sources to provide timely, accurate and targeted information across the enterprise. Business Intelligence Systems include software for Query, Reporting, On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP), Data Mining and Analytical Applications. |
Query, Reporting and OLAP solutions, to a large extent, analyze historical data to answer questions about business performance. |
Data Mining software wouldn't be used so much to answer questions but to uncover hidden patterns such as "most men who buy milk and diapers at the grocery store also purchase beer". |
Analytical Applications, in addition to leveraging historical transactional data, let users factor in external events (macroeconomic conditions) and change business assumptions to forecast future events. |
Analytical Applications address business processes such as Budgeting & Planning, Customer Churn Analysis, Fraud Analysis and Sales Forecasting. |
Data Warehouses and Marts create an environment where data is stored, managed and optimized for analysis. These optimized platforms are used by companies to support complex and enterprise wide Business Intelligence solutions. |
Data Marts are focussed domains extracted from Warehouses allowing greater precision and speed for analysis. |
Most Data Mart vendors and many Database vendors have begun providing "suites" that also include Data Management and Business Intelligence software. |
Data Management systems perform Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) tasks, clean data and facilitate scheduling, administration and metadata management for Data Warehouses and Marts. |
Ultimately, we see these separate software segments converging into an integrated, enterprise wide information repository and application which we believe will be the Corporate Information Portal. |
We also see the convergence of these systems as providing another market opportunity whereby a 3rd party vendor provides outsourcing services for data warehouse management. The following table details recent trends that have shaped this sector and highlights our view that the market will migrate to the Corporate Information Portal. |
Ref 5 |
Ref 2 |
Ref 2 |
The ability to provide automated identification and distribution of relevant content |
The ability to go beyond search and retrieval to provide content sensitivity |
Ability to interact intelligently with each user and his/her information activities while providing profiling, filtering, and categorization support to manage information overload |
The ability to expose the actual, distributed, enterprise information taxonomy -- a task impossible to accomplish through centralized legislation |
Physical: the actual location/ownership of the information, which is usually cross enterprise and cannot be centralized |
Prescribed: the formal categorization based on regulatory, policy, or historical mandate |
Practical: the actual use of/need for the information without regard to its location or prescribed method of use |
Correspond to organization structure |
Physical Layer -- infrastructure: the way the organization's information systems (electronic and otherwise) support any given process or set of processes (most often created in pieces and reflective of yesterday's priorities) |
Prescribed (Process) Layer -- organization: the way an organization defines a process and assumes it should work, usually based on defini- tion from outdated sources or peripheral parties (such as managers and executives) |
Practical (Logical) Layer -- people: the way people naturally work together; often how they work around obstacles and impediments of the other two layers; usually spontaneous and rarely documented, due to fear of retribution and protection of job security |
Tools (technologies) and Standards |
User Customization, Security, Collaboration, Web-linked repositories, specialized applications |
Generic WebTool tools
|
Lotus Notes developed those of relevance to corporations |
AOL and Web Portals show those tools needed by real people |
Standards should allow interchange of information
|
Object Web is Architecture standard |
Every field has data of special significance -- for field xxxxxx, we imagine a group of standards for semantic content realized in XML. We call this xxxxxxML |
http://www.xml.com/xml/pub/submlist lists some standards currently proposed for XML |
The Portal for xxxxxx must support xxxxxxML |
For businesses, perhaps one needs special support for "excelML" (XML export format for EXCEL) as well as support for more general information data
|
This we define as a group of defined formats that support scientific data, note taking and sketches |
XSIL (Scientific data Interchange) defines metadata needed to specify scientific data files including high level parameters and methods needed to read data
|
VML is Vector Graphics Mark up Language |
DrawML is designed to support simple technical drawings (easier than VML but VML should be able to do this?) |
VRML (3D scenes) re-implemented in XML as X3D (http://www.vrml.org/news/pr990210-content.html) |
MathML Mathematical Expressions |
CML Support Chemistry -- not clear if adopted widely |
Presumably this allows Scientists to make notes and record thoughts in a way that it supports important scientific constructs |
At its simplest this is an authoring tool like Microsoft Word, PowerPoint or Framemaker
|
One useful utility would be a whiteboard that supported scientific notes using ScienceML |
Such a collaborative whiteboard (implemented in Tango for instance) would be useful in research and teaching
|
http://www.osc.edu/webed/ list of web based learning and training projects |
http://www.imsproject.org standards for learning portals |
http://www.npac.syr.edu/users/gcf/webwisdomrefs/ some NPAC related summary documents |
http://www.npac.syr.edu/users/gcf/petcandt/ some old but good references |
http://www.webct.com/webct/ well known server based system |
This is often termed groupware support and Lotus Notes is best known corporate product |
Collaboration implies sharing of electronic objects and is needed in asynchronous and synchronous modes |
AOL Yahoo etc. have Internet games which illustrate one sophisticated form of collaboration |
Chat rooms are perhaps most popular and are simplest synchronous tool. White boards next most popular |
Asynchronous mode is
|
http://www.npac.syr.edu/tango/ is a collaboration system supporting synchronous sharing of events where events signify changes in objects |
Notification and linkage service can be based on object registration mechanism and allows important collaborative capabilities |
one associates with each group activity a "magic ID" (barcode) |
every digital object associated with this activity registers itself when it comes on line with some registry (registry can be distributed). A given object may have multiple barcodes attached to it
|
Either users or Portals (PSE's) register interest in certain barcodes |
The (Portal) event service notifies registered observers when a digital object of interest becomes available |
Notification mechanism enhances collaboration as enables dynamic federation of relevant objects to be automatically maintained
|
Notification can be used for people so their presence on-line can be made known to those in particular collaborative users |
Users decide if notification causes an active signal (send electronic mail, ring a buzzer) or passively alters a list on a web page. |
Event Model unifies synchronous and asynchronous models of collaboration
|
Shared Objects need to accept data from Portal compliant applications |
Portal Events need to be integrated into SPDL |
Portal federates different "event domains" |
Local Event/Message Bus |
Collaboration == Sharing Event |
in "Tango" Server |
Local Event/Message Bus |
Local Event/Message Bus |
Portal Events |
Whiteboard and Shared Browser can be loaded with files and data from Portal compliant systems |
More generally consider any client side rendering of a gateway system -- either data input or (visualization/data) output
|
Examples from Tango and Computing Portal
|