Report of Enterprise System Architecture

 In previous days, big companies applied different information systems to be used in providing various business functions such as marketing, sales, production, manufacturing, and many more. However, all these functions used a separate information system. Even though there were some efforts made to disparate so that only one information system to be applied for all the business functions, but still, there was no positive result in those days and thus, the information was unable to be shared with each business function equally. The companies found quite difficult to assemble the entire data fragmented into these separate information systems for then presenting an overall presentation of the business operations and also in the decision-making process.

            Recently, in order to overcome these difficulties, lots of companies have opted to change some separate information systems with an exclusive incorporated system that would able to support the entire business activities, and perfect for different business functions as well. Those systems named Enterprise System.

            An enterprise system or also familiar as Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP system is basically a cross-functional system with the capability to provide organization-broad synchronization and incorporation of the main business operations, as well as assisting the companies to plan out the resources. This ERP system arranges the information to flow impeccably across the company. In addition to this, different business operations right from the sales process, production, fabricating, logistics, along with human resources would also able to be incorporated into exclusive organization-broad processes (Simmonds, Tadesse, & Murthy, 2018).

            An ERP system is actually driven by a set of ERP software which contains a combination of software modules and a standard centralized database. The software modules will assist the fundamental business operations in various functional fields. Meanwhile, the database will store the entire data, and then provide it to numerous applications which support the internal business operations of the company.

ERP systems were initially applied since the 1960's and at that time, the companies desired an ideal solution to manage and regulate their inventory control systems by utilizing the Inventory control systems (IC). Later on, as business accessed the 21^st century, the initiative of comprehensive ERP systems transformed to be a further complicated concept that comprises the entire functions that previously was outside the ERP systems such as information management, workflow management, Human Resource Management, project management, customer relationship management, as well as incorporated financials (Bahssas, AlBar, & Hoque, 2015).

Enterprise System Architecture of Enterprise System Architecture

            Enterprise system architecture plays its role as the proposal for the enterprise system. This architecture has its function to enable and make sure the entire knowledge, indulgent, and communication of both interdependencies and interconnections among the systems and the system components of the providing and capabilities. In simple words, the enterprise system architecture is created with a purpose to satisfy the requirements of functionality and other non-functional demands, in order to satisfy the users, customers, and also the stakeholders as well.

            The most common types of architecture used by the companies are the two-layer architecture or the three-layer architecture. In general, the three-layer architecture, as for the name, consists of three layers of logic which are presentation layer, application layer, and also data source layer (Lapalme, Gerber, Merwe, Zachman, Vries, & Hinkelmann, 2016).

The Role of Each Layer of Enterprise System Architecture

·         The Presentation Layer

The presentation layer has its role as the front end layer which contains the user interface. This type of user interface is frequently presented as a graphical one displaying content along with the useful information for the end-user, which accessible through a web browser or else throughout the web-based application (Fowler).

·         The Application Layer

The application layer consists of the functional business logic which drives the center abilities of an application. It is every so often written in , ., , , , and so on. In simple words, this layer contains the logic that basically is the system’s real point (Fowler).

·         The Data Source Layer

The data source layer consists of the data storage system or database, along with data access. This layer has its roles to support the communication with databases, the messaging systems, the managers’ transaction, and some other packages (Fowler).

Architectural Patterns of Enterprise System Architecture

            For the application of three-layer architecture of ERP systems, there are several patterns to be used, along with a specific focus on the application server layer. All of these patterns can be viewed as a small pattern language, or else an initial step to a comprehensive pattern language for the application of three-layer architecture (Aarsten, Brugal, & Giuseppe). Those patterns are as mentioned below:

·      which guides the procedures of separating the middle layer into some application servers

·      which makes the application to become portable into various platforms of database

·      which releases the developers commencing the dull and error-prone operation of manually locking, as well as unlocking the objects in the database.

·      which deals with the incorporation of the frequent contradictory world of the object brokers along with the databases’ object.

Advantages, Drawbacks, and Compatibility of the Patterns

In this pattern, there is a context of a huge application will acquire certain application servers. The table below presents the advantages and drawback of Application Server Partitioning.

Table 1 - Advantages and Drawback of Application Server Partitioning

Advantages	Drawback
It allows a fraction of the application to be advanced without disturbing some other fractions.	It able to reduce the performance due to this pattern makes the Remote Procedure Calls or RPCs to become compulsory
Removing certain categories of application with a purpose to a separate server which able to decrease dependencies.

 

Compatibility of Enterprise System Architecture

            Partitioning might be organized to allow further effective interaction of the systems if compared with physically separate systems. A sample could be the ability to transmit data from an exclusive partition or domain to another throughout direct memory-to-memory progress. This pattern might also be applied for the traditional intention of providing separate experiment, and also the production environments. Ultimately, partitioning would able to provide an ideal environment for ease of software upgrades (Aarsten, Brugal, & Giuseppe).   

            With this pattern, the objects of application are typically stored within an object-oriented database. However, every so often the customer utters database platform whereas the database is typically relational. The table below presents the advantages and drawback of the Abstract Database Interface.

Table 2 - The Advantages and Drawback of Abstract Database Interface

Advantages	Drawback
Controls the code location that should be modified.	This pattern does not scale very well in defining which code should be modified.
Enables the utilization of the Prototype and Reality pattern with simplifying the prototyping and tentative development.

 

Compatibility of Enterprise System Architecture

            The entire databases acquire significant diverse programming interfaces. Even though there will be a standard exists, but this standard might be somewhat inadequate, and each implementor appears to fail in supporting certain parts of it. This simply means that, an application written and designed for a particular database’s object is considered to unable to become portable to other different databases (Aarsten, Brugal, & Giuseppe).

 

            In this pattern, the application servers responsible to handle some requests from the clients all together at the same time. Even if there might be a condition where a connection of client runs within a separate memory space, but the servers will share the objects of application which are stored within the database. In addition to this, an application server will share a similar database with other different servers. The table below presents the advantage and drawback of Automatic Object Locks.

Table 3 - The Advantage and Drawback of Automatic Object Locks

Advantage	Drawback
Database locking and also the modification of notification could be concealed behind the accessor techniques so that the programmers would not need to change their programming style.	It might impose a non-standard programming style for various other languages, includes C++ which uses the accessor techniques designed for public features.

 

Compatibility of Enterprise System Architecture

The locking procedures are utilized within the database management systems with a purpose as concurrency regulator. There are many types of transactions that might demand a lock on data item concurrently. For this reason, there is a need for a mechanism to handle the locking requests created by the business transactions (Aarsten, Brugal, & Giuseppe).

            The application objects are able to be accessed throughout an ORB, and at the same time, those objects are also stored within the database. ORB and databases are normally incompatible, whereas in a class, there should not be both appearances of a constant database class and an exported ORB class at the same time. The table below presents the advantages and drawback of the ORB Proxy Database Interface.

Table 4 - The Advantages and Drawback of ORB Proxy Database Interface

Advantages	Drawback
Can improve the privacy and security level of the customers’ device	This pattern might create maintenance issues due to a necessity of two separate hierarchies in ORB.
Can be used in bypassing the blocked websites.

 

Compatibility of Enterprise System Architecture

Normally, the proxy server will act as an intermediary between the customer’s computer and the server computer. The customers will typically take the support provided by the proxy server for requesting certain files or documents, any web pages, or some further resources. At this point, the proxy server will act as an identification shelter between the customer’s system and the server (Aarsten, Brugal, & Giuseppe).

Three New Trends in ERP Architecture

Throughout the past few years, the ERP software system has been evolving with a purpose to adapt the consistently changing business requirements, the demands from customers, as well as enterprise technology innovations. ERP has its base functionality to incorporate the entire fundamental processes done by a company within an exclusive system. With using the ERP system, then the companies will able to catch up with the demanding customer base, as well as managing the business operations on an exclusive and organized database. Thus, along with the growth of a business standard, some new trends are also emerging and involving the utilization of ERP systems (Romero & Vernadat, 2016). Some new trends are as mentioned below.

Cloud of Enterprise System Architecture

            A cloud-based ERP system supports the companies throughout a subscription structure by cloud vendors. This new trend is considered as an excellent cost-effective option to on-premise systems. On a cloud server, the ERP software has the abilities which are effortlessly accessible from any type of device or instrument connected to the Internet, which makes the maintenance to become lots easier since there is a requirement of on-premise preservation.

The cloud solutions have been increasingly getting much attention from the business people and it has also immediately swapping up the heritage with on-premise solutions. The global cloud computing in the year of 2017 has gained $250 billion as revenue. In addition to this, there is a prediction that by 2020, about 80% of the Container Terminal Operation Systems or CTOs within the top companies will accommodate the identification, along with the analysis of the rising technologies system to assist the digital transformations of the companies (Jain & Sharma, 2016). 

The Internet of Things or IoT

            The Internet of Things (IoT) is the data interconnection from the devices that usually will endure being disconnected from the Internet. The companies would able to get certain valuable visions into how the ERP systems conduct from the IoT, for instance like where and how the system is applied. The Internet of Things (IoT) could enhance the accuracy and also extend the availability of data, which would support emerge of intelligent and further flexible ERP systems. Furthermore, combining IoT along with the ERP systems would able to add valuable information to a greater image in an enterprise. An example of the use of IoT can be seen in how the companies could tag the product deliveries with the proper devices that report the timing of transportation along with the information of the current location. The manufacturers then could use these details to create better schedules of production and also plant the locations as well (lee & Lee, 2015).

Mobile ERP of Enterprise System Architecture

            This new trend of Mobile ERP applications allows the companies to get the benefits from the enhanced service quality, better business interactions, and further accurate data capture. The applications of Mobile ERP will able to improve the effectiveness of separate business operations as well. Furthermore, Mobile ERP also could dramatically increase the customer relationship strategy for the companies, whereas the staff could easily communicate with the customers anytime, anywhere (Lee, 2016).

References of Enterprise System Architecture