TY - GEN
T1 - Policy-based automation to improve solution engineering in IT services
AU - Sarkar, Ronnie
AU - Devarakonda, Murthy
AU - Tanner, Axel
PY - 2008
Y1 - 2008
N2 - IT outsourcing service providers are increasingly being challenged to reduce costs while improving the quality of service implementation and delivery. A key contributor to those goals can be an improved methodology for services solution engineering - which involves analysis of the client's requirements and environment, mapping the information to the capabilities of the service provider, documenting the design and implementation of each service, and defining transformations of the customer's environment to the target IT infrastructure defined by the overall design that facilitates more efficient service delivery. One such improved methodology leverages reuse, in the form of a taxonomy of standardized service offerings and a repository of standardized service designs they can be mapped to. In this paper, we describe a prototype system that provides automation for such a methodology by encoding design policies that are used to assist the services solution architect gather relevant information from the customer and cross check design decisions. The approach demonstrates how the notion of computer-aided design can be applied to the world of IT services and introduced in an incremental manner. This paper presents the system architecture, discusses the sources and models of knowledge, and illustrates how this knowledge can be used with specific examples from the services field.
AB - IT outsourcing service providers are increasingly being challenged to reduce costs while improving the quality of service implementation and delivery. A key contributor to those goals can be an improved methodology for services solution engineering - which involves analysis of the client's requirements and environment, mapping the information to the capabilities of the service provider, documenting the design and implementation of each service, and defining transformations of the customer's environment to the target IT infrastructure defined by the overall design that facilitates more efficient service delivery. One such improved methodology leverages reuse, in the form of a taxonomy of standardized service offerings and a repository of standardized service designs they can be mapped to. In this paper, we describe a prototype system that provides automation for such a methodology by encoding design policies that are used to assist the services solution architect gather relevant information from the customer and cross check design decisions. The approach demonstrates how the notion of computer-aided design can be applied to the world of IT services and introduced in an incremental manner. This paper presents the system architecture, discusses the sources and models of knowledge, and illustrates how this knowledge can be used with specific examples from the services field.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=52049097255&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=52049097255&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/SCC.2008.161
DO - 10.1109/SCC.2008.161
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:52049097255
SN - 9780769532837
T3 - Proceedings - 2008 IEEE International Conference on Services Computing, SCC 2008
SP - 52
EP - 59
BT - Proceedings - 2008 IEEE International Conference on Services Computing, SCC 2008
T2 - 2008 IEEE International Conference on Services Computing, SCC 2008
Y2 - 7 July 2008 through 11 July 2008
ER -