IT’s core mission is to use information technology to help the enterprise achieve its objectives with maximum efficiency. In a perfect world, IT systems would provide seamless support across business processes and have the inherent flexibility to adapt to changing conditions. For example, the perfect manufacturing application would support every step of the manufacturing process with robust functionality – from materials procurement and warehousing, to execution, maintenance, quality, time and labor and shipping logistics. And, the application would be able to adapt to changing market demands, unexpected supply chain exceptions, new regulations, etc., while also providing complete visibility from start to finish on the state of the process.
Historically, achieving this level of integration has required tradeoffs. Deploying best-of-breed applications delivers the required functionality, but also results in application "silos" that are difficult to integrate. Deploying the offerings of application suite vendors delivers the required integration, but the functionality of the individual applications is lacking, and deployments are legendarily complex and costly.
Enter Service Oriented Architecture. SOA is the emerging IT architecture in which application functionality is exposed as "business services" across a standards-based communications infrastructure. Web Services are the key enabling technology to SOA, by providing a common framework for applications to interoperate. This enables companies to tear down application silos and replace them with libraries of business services that can be accessed as needed to support business processes.
Within an SOA, the traditional standalone application paradigm is replaced by a process-centric view of IT systems, in which business services are called upon to provide seamless end-to-end support for business processes. However, SOA is only feasible if applications are truly SOA-ready.
HxGN EAM is the only product in its class that is fully architected for SOA by enabling more than 1,800 Web Services integration points. This provides one of the industry’s broadest solution sets for integrating with complementary applications such as CRM, GIS, ERP and SCADA.
Customers in a variety of industries – including public works and water/wastewater treatment, oil & gas companies, transportation agencies, pharmaceutical and life science, food & beverage, and automotive manufacturing – are directly benefiting from this architecture today. Additionally, SOA- readiness enables HxGN EAM to deliver unprecedented support for managing geographically distributed assets by enabling advanced capabilities including:
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Integration to GIS Applications – HxGN EAM Web Services foundation enables full integration with leading GIS applications, such as those from ESRI. This enables GIS applications to be accessed directly from HxGN EAM, and vice versa, thus radically simplifying and streamlining the process of locating and maintaining geographically dispersed assets.
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Full Mobile Support – One of the most powerful aspects of SOA is its ability to extend the reach of application functionality to the most remote edges of the enterprise. And, the ultimate edge is the mobile application. HxGN EAM Web Services foundation enables customers to deploy zero- footprint interfaces on virtually any handheld device, from Tablet PCs to handheld computers and even cellular telephones. This frees customers from the limitations of custom-built hard- wired mobile applications by eliminating the inherent deployment, maintenance, and integration problems.