1

SEISN 2001

Software as a Service - an example of interdisciplinary

research

Keith BennettUniversity of Durham

keith.bennett@durham.ac.uk

2

SEISN 2001

Pennine Research Group

• UMIST, Manchester• University of Keele• University of Durham

3

SEISN 2001

2001

2nd case Study ICSM2001

1st. Case studyCOMPSAC 2001

ArchitectureAPSEC 2000

RequirementsCACM 1999

IBHISproject

ISENNetwork

SEBPCprogramme

SEISNnetwork

FEAST

DurhamMaintenanceKeele

Design & componentsUMISTSW management

BT

DiCE

1996

Industry

Etc.

4

SEISN 2001

Preamble

5

SEISN 2001

Changing Nature of Business

• 40% of Fortune 500 companies in 1979 are no longer corporate entities

• 30% of firms under 10 employees generate 70% of EU turnover

• Competitiveness through time to market is major driver

6

SEISN 2001

Distinctive Domains

• Systems Domain– Well defined boundaries and

requirements

• Business Domain– Emergent Organisations

• “Organisations in a state of continual process change, never arriving, always in transition”D. Truex, R.Baskeville and H.Klein, “Growing Systems in Emergent Organizations”, Comm.ACM,

Vol.42, No.8, August 1999

7

SEISN 2001

Coping with Evolution

• 60-80% of lifetime costs of software relate to change

• Evolution technologies– Program comprehension, re-

engineering, reverse engineering and design recovery

• Design for maintainability – v. hard

8

SEISN 2001

Requirements

9

SEISN 2001

Key User Drivers

• Necessary and sufficient capability• Personalisation for each user• Adaptable/ self-adaptation to

changes• Distribution and granularity (small &

simple)• Transparency (to location, faults

etc.)P.Brereton, D.Budgen, K.Bennett, M.Munro, P.Layzell, L.Macaulay, D.Griffiths and C.Stannett, “The Future of Software: Defining the Research Agenda”, Comm. ACM, Vol.42, No.12, December 1999

10

SEISN 2001

Ambition

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

0

x100

year

x10

Vision: Software as a Service

Software as Product

x50

SpeedTime toMkt

11

SEISN 2001

The key idea

12

SEISN 2001

Components to Services

• In a service- based architecture:– Acquire– Use– Disengage

• Demand led

• Ultra late binding

• Core idea. SaaS

13

SEISN 2001

FAQs

• Is this not Netscape plug-ins or .NET?

• Why does this speed up evolution?

• What is new?

• What is significant?

• What about security etc?

• Doesn’t this give poor quality?

14

SEISN 2001

Ownership -> Service

• Software will remain basically rigid• Organisations & marketplaces

are adaptable• Ownership is the problem. Users

just want to USE software to get RESULTS.

• Combine service and marketplace

15

SEISN 2001

Software

• Software moves from a PRODUCT to a SERVICE.

• A SERVICE is something you find, use as and when needed – and then discard.

• The user decides what services are needed, and the technology negotiates, agrees and implements their binding, which involves many non-technical attributes (trust, cost, redress..)

16

SEISN 2001

Service

• An E-service represents a self contained internet based application, capable of completing tasks on its own, and able to discover and engage other E-services to complete higher level transactions.

• Engagement = functional and non functional properties.

17

SEISN 2001

Software as a Service

• NOW– Mass maintenance– Rental, Pay per use– Web based software update– Jini type service lookup, UDDI– Device level services– ebXML, Crossflow, TPAML, e-Speak etc

• This doesn’t solve terms & conditions

18

SEISN 2001

Vision of Service

• At the time of need we locate and then ‘bind’ (connect) to a service or services we need from the marketplace

• When we have finished use, we discard the service. Tomorrow we’ll have moved on. We’ll form new bindings. Hence EVOLUTION

• Bindings are both technical and non technical – and the latter are HARD

19

SEISN 2001

Summary

• We solve ultra rapid evolution, not by a magic bullet, but by using the well proven mechanisms of the market and adapting them to software for emergent organisations.

• Markets don’t just respond – they anticipate and plan.

20

SEISN 2001

Results to date

21

SEISN 2001

Results

• User analysis and requirement

• Informal SaaS Architecture

• Two case studies on publish/find

• NOT yet multi-disciplinary team

22

SEISN 2001

Conclusions

23

SEISN 2001

Research Issues 1

• How do consumers know what services are available?

• How do consumers express their requirements?

• How are services composed and evaluated?• How are services tested?• What is the appropriate, high integrity, service

delivery infrastructure?• How must consumers’ data be held to enable

portability between different service suppliers?

24

SEISN 2001

Research Issues 2• What standards can be used or must be defined to

enable portability of service? • What will be the impact of branded services and

marketing activities high quality v low price? • How can organisations benefit from rapidly changing

services and how will they manage the interface with business processes?

• How will individuals perceive and manage rapidly changing systems? What is the limit to the speed of change?

• What payment and reward structures will be necessary to encourage SME service suppliers?

• What will be the new industry models and supply chain arrangements?

25

SEISN 2001

Multidisciplinary Research

• Multidisciplinarity = the use of knowledge, models and skills from outside the IT domain. However multidisciplinary research is only truly interdisciplinary when driven by a unified need to achieve a common goal, in this case to model software as a service, and then it provides the opportunity of bringing together, academics and industrialists from a range of disciplines with a common objective.

26

SEISN 2001

Conclusion

• Long term software engineering research and innovation is a multidisciplinary activity

• SEISN has been very successful in– better mutual understanding of SE and

IS, and extrapolation to other fields e.g. law

– Research process– Win/win collaborative research

27

SEISN 2001

Acknowledgements

• EPSRC, BT and Leverhulme Trust• Colleagues and co-authors at

Keele, UMIST, Durham– David Budgen, Pearl Brereton– Paul Layzell, Linda Macauley, Nicolas

Gold– Malcolm Munro, Jie Xu

28

SEISN 2001

END

See:..www.service-oriented.com

keith.bennett@durham.ac.uk

29

SEISN 2001

end

30

SEISN 2001

Acknowledgements

Keele: David Budgen, Pearl Brereton

UMIST: Paul Layzell, Nic Gold, Linda Macauley

Durham: Malcolm Munro, Jie Xu

Funding: EPSRC, BT, Leverhulme

31

SEISN 2001

Plan of talk

Problemdomain

Problem

definition

PROBLEM SOLUTION

Service architecture

Servicedemonstrator

MethodCACM paper

APSEC paper NOW

32

SEISN 2001Project Philosophy

Interdisciplinaryteams across universities,industry

UK and internationalvisitors, industrialsecondments

Partnerships withindustry, access toSMEs, user engagement,spin-outs, technologytransfer, domains

Interdisciplinary Inclusive

Outward facing Research themes

Architecture, data,formalisation, evaluation,supply chains

SoftwareAs a

Service

33

SEISN 2001

The UK Software Engineering Enterprise

CoreFunding

ExemplarServiceprovider

Technologytransfer& consultancy

EPSRCcuriosity-drivenresearch

Industrialresearch

StrategicPartnerships

EducationandTraining

IncubationUnits

Spin-offCompanies

Enhanced industrial technologyand increased competitiveness

Educated workforce andIncreased public understanding

New start-ups, innovative marketdevelopment, strengthened UK industrial base

Cohesive software engineering research agenda, re-engaged with users

Partnership benefits to major suppliers and SMEs through the software service supply chain

Wealth generation

34

SEISN 2001

Strategic issue

• Not a technical issue• High profile company problems• Headlines in FT, shareholder return

disasters • Board level problem• A few recent headline examples • Strategic: research needs to help those

at top level in companies, many of which are ever more IT businesses.

35

SEISN 2001

Today: Software is a Product“If the seal is broken, the guarantee is void”

Payroll

Recordhours

Calculatepay

Checklegislation

Recharge tocost centres

Producepayslips

Transfermoney

Print slips

36

SEISN 2001

Future: Software as a Service

Vision = instant service

Customer

Inland Revenue

BT

Service-provider.co.uk

(SME)

SAGE

IBMICL

Competition.com

37

SEISN 2001

SoftwareLicences and

ownership

Responsibilitiesprior to use

System failurerecovery and

redress

Organisationalprocedures and

impact

Personalisationand

configurationPrivacy,

protectionand security

Performancecriteria

Payment termsand conditions

The Business of Software

38

SEISN 2001

Serviceware Payment terms

and conditions

Personalisationand configuration

Privacy, protectionand security

Performance criteria

Binding

System failurerecovery and

redress

Responsibilitiesprior to use

Trust and confidence

Software

39

SEISN 2001

How do we realise this?

• Web based demonstrators already exist• EPSRC network Interdisciplinary

software engineering • Research grants with industry as uncles

and supporters• Case studies with industry• Direct sponsorship of research by

industry• Transition routes for industry