Is OmniERP fitting the top strategic technologies? ::Part VI - Enterprise Mashups
Mashups are actually web hobbies, but one thing I’m sure, some of them have a lot of value and that can be brought to enterprises, changing or completing business applications. Usually these are called Enterprise Mashups (topic 8).
Through 2010, the enterprise mashup product environment will experience significant flux and consolidation, and application architects and IT leaders should investigate this growing space for the significant and transformational potential it may offer their enterprises. In Dave’s Blog
OmniERP can use well known mashups, creating powerful features with data provided by them. For example using Google Maps the geographical location of suppliers and customers can be marked on a map in order to complete their data on the system.
Is OmniERP fitting the top strategic technologies? ::Part V - Unified Communications and Social Software
Social networking, social collaboration and social media are concepts that we heard everyday and can all be included in the conception of Social Software (topic 6). May you like it or not, Social Software must be brought to enterprise solutions as it will improve not only the services provided to customers, but also the experience given to the ones who use these applications. As David Clearley says in it’s blog: “Enterprises should consider adding a social dimension to conventional Web sites to enhance the customer experience, (…) [as well as] examine use of social software to extend internal collaboration applications to support specific and targeted communication and coordination needs”.
Business processes can perfectly be streamlined by Unified Communications (topic 5), as the operational ones become more efficient. Integrating all forms of communication into one single platform can even allow an individual to send a message on one medium and receive the answer on another.
“During the next five years, the number of different communications vendors with which a typical organization works with will be reduced by at least 50 percent”. In Gartner’s Blog
In its conceptualization phases, OmniERP was thought not only as an application that supports the enterprises processes, but also as a collaboration tool. Omni aims to handle, integrate and provide several communication methods (email, chat, voice mail, etc.) where users can interact without getting away from their work environment.
Is OmniERP fitting the top strategic technologies? ::Part IV - Green IT
One of the main goals of Green IT (topic 4) is maximize energy efficiency during the product’s lifetime.
In fact, environmental regulations are multiplying and have the potential to seriously constrain companies in building data centers, as the effect of power grids, carbon emissions from increased use and other environmental impacts are under scrutiny. In Gartner’s Blog
With OmniERP, a green solution is adopted, as it is supported by a computer grid infrastructure with dynamic resource allocation. This way, a good energetic usage is granted, as systems will be used only if they’re needed, eliminating company’s energy waste.
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Is OmniERP fitting the top strategic technologies? ::Part III - Cloud computing and Web Oriented Architecture
As you know, Cloud Computing (topic 3) and Web Oriented Architectures (topic 7) are related one another, so we’re taking this two concepts at a time.
The definition of cloud computing can be given in 4 topics:
1) delivery of capabilities “as a service”;
2) delivery of services in a highly scalable and elastic fashion;
3) using Internet technologies and techniques to develop and deliver the services;
4) designing for delivery to external customers.
Small companies can be the first ones to benefit from cloud computing, as the cost can be very attractive, but when you think of low cost and highly scalable systems, you realize that this reduces barriers to entry, and enables these small companies to grow fast.
Do you remember OmniERP? Well, as we said it is not just software but actually a service, or should I say Software as a Service (SaaS)? OmniERP gathers all the features of a rich client application in a web browser, so once again it meets what is expected from a solid business application.
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Is OmniERP fitting the top strategic technologies? ::Part II - Business Intelligence
Let’s see how Omni handles when we’re talking about Business Intelligence (topic 2).
Being on the top technology priority in Gartner’s 2008 and 2009 CIO survey, business intelligence can have a positive impact, “dramatically improving its ability to accomplish its mission by making smarter decisions at every level of the business from corporate strategy to operational processes“. In Dave’s Blog.
As we said in our OmniERP presentation post, it’s our main goal to integrate the activities of the supply chain participants, offering the share and exchange of information between business partners. In fact, good business-to-business interaction can positively contribute to a good business intelligence platform that provides a better understanding of company’s commercial context.
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Is OmniERP fitting the top strategic technologies? ::Part I - Virtualization
The main goal of Virtualization (topic 1) is the ability to reduce IT cost when using virtual machines that emulates the host computer. Besides reducing the costs, OmniERP takes advantage of some other virtualization features like sandboxing and multitenancy.
On one hand, OmniERP sandboxing, like the typical software sandbox, provides extra security as Omni runs in a controlled and restricted environment. On the other hand being Omni provided as a service (Software-as-a-service), it can be considered a multitenant system, as a single instance of the software running on a server, serves multiple client organizations.
The Omni multitenancy principle is also made available due to virtualization, where each client organization works with a customized virtual OmniERP instance.
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Is OmniERP fitting the top strategic technologies? ::Intro
A few days ago I searched for the Gartner’s top 10 strategic technologies list released every at fall Symposium, and I realized that OmniERP fits pretty good on it.
I would like to share it with you, so here’s the list for 2009:
1. Virtualization
2. Business Intelligence
3. Cloud Computing
4. Green IT
5. Unified Communications
6. Social Software and Social Networking
7. Web Oriented Architecture
8. Enterprise Mashups
9. Specialized Systems
10. Servers – Beyond Blades
Pay attention to the next posts, as we will discuss each topic and the way Omni fits each of these concepts.
To be continued…
Hands on Omni
Since the basic features of OmniERP are almost released, I will show you two screenshots, just to disclose a little more the way it looks like.
Enjoy!
Main screen
Point of sale screen
Switching to OmniERP
“In 1999 the much quoted Standish Group report disclosed that 80% of data migration projects either overrun time, budget, both or fail entirely. Nearly ten years later and the Bloor Research Report shows that 84% of Data Migration projects overrun time or budget or both or fail entirely.” In Johny’s Data Migration Blog
Everytime a customer accepts switching to another information system, the worst thing that could happen to him is not to have his old data available in the brand new system implemented, and as you know, data migration could be a really difficult process to handle. And you must face it every time a different system should be replaced.
OmniERP is about to be implemented on our first customer, so part of our team is now working on data migration.
Our approach to this problem is composed by several stages:
1. Study and interpret data from the system to be replaced;
2. Conceptually link the 2 data models;
3. Load data to a virtual intermediate data structure;
4. Populate OmniERP database.
We’re currently on stage 3, and using our Colony framework to give us a hand. It is behaving pretty well (if that matters to you ;-)), but the result of all this process remains incognito by now.
The reason of stage 3 and the use of colony can be perfectly explained if you think about the many different OmniERP customizations that could exist. If a customer has a module that another one doesn’t, and if both are replacing the same system, then all you have to do is add the necessary plugins to the data migration platform (nothing that Colony couldn’t control), in order to make it capable of handle the data from that customization module. “Any software problem can be solved by adding another layer of indirection.” by Steven M. Bellovin
Once you have a platform handling the data migration from a system to OmniERP, then it will be reusable despite the customizations it might have to face.
Now we just want to fill the right place with the right data… and in the right order by the way.
Hoping to bring you good news! Wish us luck!
OmniERP
Omni is an innovative business application platform. It is completely based on open source technologies, bringing an whole new level of modularity and flexibility to the business solutions environment. Leveraging on software engineering design techniques and practices related to component based architectures, and a refreshing rich internet application user interface, it aims at taking the business application experience in the small-medium enterprise market to a whole new level. By not being just software, but actually a service (SaaS), with high availability and scalability, it is its main goal to integrate all the activities of a company’s supply chain participants. Only by integrating the information flow between business partners, in order to access the data required to take the best decisions, in any place and at any given time, can a competitive advantage be acquired in today’s fast paced world, and it is Omni’s goal to fulfill this requirement and go much further, pushing the envelope in new and innovative ways.
As you can see in the screenshots below, OmniERP has nice graphical user interfaces, but it goes beyond that, focusing on the user needs and providing its features through a great user experience.
OmniERP Point of Sale
The Omni point of sale shows exactly the OmniERP philosophy. Selling a product is a well defined process composed by several different activities, so why shouldn’t this workflow of activities be completely integrated and organized in the information system?
Well, Omni POS does just that. It faces the act of selling a product just like it is: a set of activities that should be completed in a preferred order.
OmniERP is always focusing on reaching the way users think.
Besides its core functionalities, OmniERP can easily be customized and new functionalities can be added just by attaching new plugins. This modularity comes from its foundations, where a plugin based framework (Colony) “does the job” making it easy to manage and meet different customers requirements.