Agresso’s VITA ERP Architecture - Technology Framework
ERP Technology Framework - Overview
Over time, organizations grow and/or collapse, management’s change, political/environmental/ regulatory rules come and go. Simultaneously, the IT world moves recklessly fast through its own set of hardware, networking, operating system, etc., changes.
This deadly duo of dynamic change and technology waves causes havoc for the vast majority of ERP solution architectures, as platform after technology platform is passed on to the great dustbin of uselessness.
The elements of Agresso’s VITA architecture mimic the same components of fine winemaking, allowing for this cycle of change to occur in harmony with the changes and growth of the organization. Metaphorically, the three most critical variables both to winemaking and facilitating business agility are:
- The Soil (technology framework)
- The Grapevine (technology ‘topic of the moment’; i.e. client/server, web services, SOA, etc.)
- The Weather (technology agility to respond to unknown, but expected variables)
Business Data Model - The Soil
Business Data Model - The Soil
Agresso’s fundamental data model provides a rich, fertile environment for whatever technology is planted in it – and that “soil” has allowed the generations of mainframe, client-server, Web-based, Web services and SOA technologies to thrive. Called model-based architecture by some and data architecture by others, the very foundation of Agresso’s agility is housed within this “soil” … its information warehouse. Each piece of data – financial or non-financial, structured or unstructured, is filed and coded into Agresso’s data model via one of these three patterns:
- Dimension (i.e. your name is a dimension);
- Measurement (i.e. your salary is a measurement);
- Time (stationery point in time or by range).
By classifying data so simplistically and generically, it remains open, easy to export, classify or reclassify and to attach whatever additional dimensions or attributes of data that are desired.
To ensure that any additional changes to the Agresso architecture continue to meet the intentions of the original Agresso database authors/designers, no data model changes are accepted unless they undergo a series of tests: it must be expressible via SQL and it must reuse the pattern to “get out” or be extracted. Anyone trained to work with Agresso’s architecture adheres strictly to these principles. Further, Agresso customers are not permitted to change these underlying metadata definitions in the data model, which provides for unlimited customisation of all of the data therein. In vintner’s terms, the soil can be cultivated, things can be planted and removed; fields can be realigned and re-harvested; fertilizer and growth accelerators may be added; but the soil will always behave as soil. It will remain grounded as the foundation, and the fertile base from which all technologies (the “grapevines”) planted within it flow. If the soil is good, the grapevines will flourish; if it is substandard those technologies will be marginalized. That is why services-oriented architectures sitting atop weak architectures - will struggle mightily to fulfil the promise of true business agility.
Business Grapevine - Technology Topic of the Moment
Business Grapevine - Technology Topic of the Moment
Agresso’s VITA architecture is distinctly different from other leading ERP solutions, and most particularly those that are the result of disparate software and technology acquisitions.
Technologies will come and go, and as a 30-year old company, Agresso has seen a lot of them, including the latest flavour – Services Oriented Architecture (SOA). The advantage of good soil is to continue to be able to support the best vines, and to replace them cost/resource-effectively, as they age/tire or become less (organizationally) prolific.
Agresso’s VITA architecture will support whatever technology trend that people-centric, mid-market businesses desire. The solution has been built intelligently from the ground up with the right soil – whatever grapevine technology is planted is irrelevant. It is not a matter of “will it grow;” it is a fact that it will “grow better” within an environment that has anticipated new growth. (VITA=life).
All business information in the dynamic data model continues to map the relationships between the pre-existing conditions and those that are new. Business concepts can be planted and harvested in the information structure – literally on the fly. New workflows are supported immediately – and yet obsolete (historical) data/process trails are retained for auditing/reporting purposes.
Agresso VITA is an N-Tier, Web-based scalable architecture that is Microsoft.NET compliant, supports extensible Mark-up Language (XML), Web Services and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Today, via an ultra thin, smart client (the grapevine- of choice), Agresso is portal and browser independent, middleware independent and Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and MySQL compliant.
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