Information Technology Reference
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sales teams support like that." He paused while this sank in. \It's a variation
on the exemplary service idea."
\OK, Eleanor, tell us what is needed to make it happen." She looked round
the table, and smiled. \It's not that big a change, really. Most of what we need
to change is in the customer relationships area. We need to accept requests
based on the traveller's Factotum identier, and this needs to be validated
with their itinerary records. We will need to interface with the Factotum
courier services, and supply delivery details in their terms.
And the billing
will be dierent, of course."
\So, the two main external links into our system will be from their trav-
eller database into our headquarters customer accounts system and from their
courier workow management into our logistics control subsystem."
Nigel leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table. \What do we know
about their infrastructure? Can they handle inter-system links? Do they use
the same middleware we do?" Ira chipped in, \Do they have the information
we need in their systems already? Do we know what their information schema
looks like?" \What I want to know," Claire added, \is whether they will be
committed to making any changes to their systems that are needed to make
it all work together." \Yes," Eleanor agreed, \are they really going to give this
the right priority | you said it was just part of a package of new benets, so
they will be being pulled in dierent directions. Are they up to it?"
\OK, everybody," Marcus spread his hands for silence. \That's the aim
of this session, to brainstorm and find out what the issues are. I want to go
home with a list of questions for the management at Factotum and a rough
idea of the size of the task involved for us. But first, I would like to hear
something from Alex. In particular, do we have to talk them into using the
same framework that we have been working with?"
Alex leaned back in his chair and paused for a moment, looking out across
the valley. Then he glanced round the table. \This is a familiar kind of federa-
tion problem," he said, \and it's no dierent in principle from any other design
activity. We start with a federation community, with our two organizations
filling roles, and capture the obligations of each side in a federation contract.
This needs to be as formal as we can make it because it will form part of a real
legal contract this time. Then we can work through the viewpoints, looking
particularly for significant differences. At some level, we need to be sure that
we share an information model, but we must keep that as simple as possible,
and it's up to each side to ensure this simple description is consistent with
both our local views."
\And what if it's not?" asked Ira. \ Are we going to have to slug it out until
someone changes their system?" \No, it's not as bad as that. At least, not for
the detail. At some abstract level, we need to have a shared understanding
or we cannot communicate; after all, that's how communication works. But
then if there are differences in how we express things, we have to fight about
