IN THE BEGINNING, there was batch processing: ERP and supply chain
systems and data warehouses. Geared for monthly planning and analysis,
these systems talked to one another, if at all, using proprietary
interfaces and query-based messaging architectures. Often, managers
couldn't see what was going on in their businesses until it was too late
to react. For many organizations little has changed, and executives are
still making key decisions based on batches of sales, manufacturing, and
other critical data that is days, weeks, or even months old. In an
information-driven economy, where competitors are acting on what's
happening now and not what happened last month, the batch approach just
isn't good enough.
So technologies should enable businesses to operate in real time. The
technologies which promise Real Time information should have some
fundamental difference. The basic characteristics that enable RTE
exhibit are a) Process automation that bridge distinct enterprise
boundaries, media, and information systems. b) Real-time provision and
exchange of information with customers, employees, partners, and
suppliers, c) Processes that ensure this information is current and
consistent throughout the network, d) Event-driven processes forming a
sense-and-respond approach that minimizes manual input, batch
processing, delays, and inventory; and e)High adaptability.
All process automation now is based on input output functions. Given an
input, it triggers a procedure which produces an output, which is
further piped into another procedure. The process automation so far now
is now fully procedure oriented. The need in real time systems is to
provision information services representing customers, employees
partners and suppliers. These provisioned information services should be
coordinated in complex information flow patterns which deliver value at
the end of process. These services should be served in real time without
the need for batch processing or other delay causing processes.
MasterKube with its Agent oriented technology can deploy light weight
agents distributed over geographies which process information in real
time. These lightweight agents can compute and make decisions on event
driven basis, delivering a very smart information system. These agents
can be hyperlinked with each other to create complex value network
shapes. These entperprise source could be an existing information
resource, a human being, a device at the edge of the enterprise network.
These agents are hot deployable so the change in the requirement is
affected immediately making the over all enteprise more adaptive.