Cloud Computing and SOA Convergence in Your Enterprise: A Step ...

Case Study: Defining the Data for Blue Mountain Hammocks 97
CASE STUDY: DEFINING THE DATA FOR BLUE MOUNTAIN HAMMOCKS
Let’s use a mini case study to make the concepts and processes presented in this
chapter a bit clearer. We continue to use this case study in the next two chapters
to demonstrate how we move from the data to the services to the processes so
that we can understand our problem domain and perhaps take advantage of
cloud computing using SOA approaches and best practices.
Blue Mountain Hammocks, or BMH, was founded in 1973 and has more traditional
IT in place, including
A sales automation system that uses Oracle as the database, with the
application built in C++. This application is also connected to BMH’s online
store.
An open source inventory management system built using Java and MySQL.
A general ledger system that uses a packaged accounting system built using
dBase, a PC-based database.
They all run on different hardware and software platforms, on-premise.
The BMH management team wants to save some IT costs and believe cloud
computing could be a potential solution. The team is aware that BMH’s existing IT
operations cannot expand quickly enough to keep up with the company’s growth
rate. Also, the existing architecture cannot quickly adjust to changes in the business,
including moving into new product lines such as manufacturing and selling
lawn furniture, which requires very different business processes. The company
needs the ability to expand quickly, on demand, and the ability to change processes,
as needed, in support of any beneficial directions of the business.
Let’s look at aspects of BMH’s data for the purposes of this chapter. In a very
simplified form, the core data is as follows.
Sales Automation Database
Customer
CustNum (char 20)
Fname (char 10)
Lname (char 15)
CompanyName (char 15)
Address (char 30)
City (char 20)
Zip (char 5)