ERP Implementations: It’s all about Partnership II

When starting an ERP implementation project an organization needs to fill the existing knowledge gaps in respect to whatever it takes to achieve the goals associated with the respective project. Therefore, it makes sense to work with a implementer that can help cover the gaps directly or indirectly. Moreover, it makes sense to establish a long-term relationship that would allow to harness ERP system’s capabilities after project’s end, increase the ROI and, why not, find other areas of cooperation. It’s in theory what a partner does, and a strategic technology partnership is about – providing any kind of technological expertise the customer doesn't have in-house. 

Unfortunately, from being a ‘service provider’ to becoming a ‘partner’ is a challenging road for many organizations, especially when this type of relationship is not understood and managed accordingly. Partnership’s management may resume in defining common goals, principles, values and processes, establishing a communication strategy and a common understanding of the challenges and the steps ahead, providing visibility into the cost estimates, billing, resources’ availability and utilization. Addressing these aspects would offer a framework on which the partnerships can nourish. Without considering these topics, the implementer remains just a 'service provider', no matter of the names used to characterize the relationship. 

Now, the use of the word ‘partner’ would make someone think that only one partner is considered, typically a big to middle-sized organization that would have this kind of resources. The main reason behind this reasoning is that the number of functional areas and volume of skillset required for filling the requirements of an implementation are high compared with other projects, the resources needing to be available on-demand without affecting the other constraints: costs, quality, time. This can be challenging, therefore can be met scenarios in which two or more external organizations are involved in the partnership, ideally organizations that complement each other. 

It is common in ERP implementations to appeal also to individual consultants for specific areas or the whole project. The principles and values of a partnership, as well the framework behind, can be applied to individual consultants as well. Independently of resources’ provenience more important is the partnership ‘mindset’ - being together in the same boat, working together on a shared and understood strategy, with clear goals and objectives.

Moreover, the people participating in the project must have a ‘partner's mindset’ as well. Without this, the project will likely get different impulses in the wrong direction(s), as a group’s interests will take priority over the ones of the organization. Ideally, this mindset should extend to the whole organization as topics like Data Quality and Process Improvement must be an organization’s effort, deep imprinted in organization’s culture.

More like ever, it’s important for the business to see and treat the IT department as a ‘partner’ and not as a ‘service provider’ by providing the needed level of transparency in requirements, issues, practices and processes, by treating the IT department as equal party in the decision-making and addressing its current and future strategical requirements. Ideally, this partnership should happen long before the implementation starts, given that it takes time for mentalities and practices to change, for knowledge to be acquired and used appropriately. 

Building a partnership takes time, effort and strategic thinking, this on top of the actual implementation, increasing thus the overall complexity, at least at the beginning. Does it pay off? Like in a marriage, it’s useful to have somebody you can trust, who knows you, whom you can rely upon, and talk with to find solutions. However, only time will tell whether such expectations are met and kept till the end. 

Previous <||> Next

Information Security: Denial of Service (Definitions)

"A type of attack on a computer system that ties up critical system resources, making the system temporarily unusable." (Tom Petrocelli, "Data Protection and Information Lifecycle Management", 2005)

"Any attack that affects the availability of a service. Reliability bugs that cause a service to crash or hang are usually potential denial-of-service problems." (Mark S Merkow & Lakshmikanth Raghavan, "Secure and Resilient Software Development", 2010)

"This is a technique for overloading an IT system with a malicious workload, effectively preventing its regular service use." (Martin Oberhofer et al, "The Art of Enterprise Information Architecture", 2010)

"Occurs when a server or Web site receives a flood of traffic - much more traffic or requests for service than it can handle, causing it to crash." (Linda Volonino & Efraim Turban, "Information Technology for Management 8th Ed", 2011)

"Causing an information resource to be partially or completely unable to process requests. This is usually accomplished by flooding the resource with more requests than it can handle, thereby rendering it incapable of providing normal levels of service." (Mark Rhodes-Ousley, "Information Security: The Complete Reference, Second Edition" 2nd Ed., 2013)

"Attacks designed to disable a resource such as a server, network, or any other service provided by the company. If the attack is successful, the resource is no longer available to legitimate users." (Darril Gibson, "Effective Help Desk Specialist Skills", 2014)

"An attack from a single attacker designed to disrupt or disable the services provided by an IT system. Compare to distributed denial of service (DDoS)." (Darril Gibson, "Effective Help Desk Specialist Skills", 2014)

"A coordinated attack in which the target website or service is flooded with requests for access, to the point that it is completely overwhelmed." (Faithe Wempen, "Computing Fundamentals: Introduction to Computers", 2015)

"An attack that can result in decreased availability of the targeted system." (Mike Harwood, "Internet Security: How to Defend Against Attackers on the Web" 2nd Ed., 2015)

"An attack that generally floods a network with traffic. A successful DoS attack renders the network unusable and effectively stops the victim organization’s ability to conduct business." (Weiss, "Auditing IT Infrastructures for Compliance" 2nd Ed., 2015)

"A type of cyberattack to degrade the availability of a target system." (O Sami Saydjari, "Engineering Trustworthy Systems: Get Cybersecurity Design Right the First Time", 2018)

"Any action, or series of actions, that prevents a system, or its resources, from functioning in accordance with its intended purpose." (Shon Harris & Fernando Maymi, "CISSP All-in-One Exam Guide" 8th Ed., 2018)

"The prevention of authorized access to resources or the delaying of time-critical operations." (William Stallings, "Effective Cybersecurity: A Guide to Using Best Practices and Standards", 2018)

"An attack shutting down running of a service or network in order to render it inaccessible to its users (whether human person or a processing device)." (Wissam Abbass et al, "Internet of Things Application for Intelligent Cities: Security Risk Assessment Challenges", 2021)

"Actions that prevent the NE from functioning in accordance with its intended purpose. A piece of equipment or entity may be rendered inoperable or forced to operate in a degraded state; operations that depend on timeliness may be delayed." (NIST SP 800-13)

"The prevention of authorized access to resources or the delaying of time-critical operations. (Time-critical may be milliseconds or it may be hours, depending upon the service provided)." (NIST SP 800-12 Rev. 1)

"The prevention of authorized access to a system resource or the delaying of system operations and functions." (NIST SP 800-82 Rev. 2)

IT: Software-as-a-Service (Definitions)

"A distribution method for software through a network interface." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

"Applications that are licensed to customers for use as a service on demand." (Gina Abudi & Brandon Toropov, "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Best Practices for Small Business", 2011)

"a software deployment model where a provider licenses an application to customers for use over the Internet, without requiring purchase and installation of the licenses." (Bill Holtsnider & Brian D Jaffe, "IT Manager's Handbook" 3rd Ed., 2012)

"The delivery of computer applications over the Internet." (Marcia Kaufman et al, "Big Data For Dummies", 2013)

"A delivery mechanism in which an application and all of the associated resources are provided to organizations by a vendor, typically through a web browser. Commonly abbreviated as SaaS." (Manish Agrawal, "Information Security and IT Risk Management", 2014)

"Abbreviation for software as a service. It is the capability provided to the consumer to use the provider’s applications running on a cloud infrastructure. The applications are accessible from various client devices through a thin client interface such as a web browser (e.g., web-based email). The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure, including network, servers, operating systems, storage, or even individual application capabilities, with the possible exception of limited user-specific application configuration settings." (James R Kalyvas & Michael R Overly, "Big Data: A Businessand Legal Guide", 2015)

"Software as a Service is the delivery of computer applications over the Internet on a per user per month charge basis." (Judith S Hurwitz, "Cognitive Computing and Big Data Analytics", 2015)

"A model of software deployment or service where customers use applications on demand." (Mike Harwood, "Internet Security: How to Defend Against Attackers on the Web" 2nd Ed., 2015)

"An approach to software licensing and delivery in which software is hosted remotely in the cloud and accessed via an Internet browser." (Jonathan Ferrar et al, "The Power of People: Learn How Successful Organizations Use Workforce Analytics To Improve Business Performance", 2017)

"Cloud application services in which applications are delivered over the Internet by the software provider, typically for a monthly fixed fee. The applications are not installed, nor do they run on the client’s computers; instead, they are accessed by a Web browser. Two important characteristics of SaaS are as follows: Network and Web-based access to commercial software computing services in which the processing is done on a third party server, rather than at each customer’s location. A tenant-based pricing model for hardware, software, administration, and consulting services." (John H Higgins & Bryan L Smith, "10 Steps to a Digital Practice in the Cloud" 2nd Ed., 2017)

"Software as a service refers to the delivery of software-based business tools via the Internet as an alternative to traditional on-premise installations." (Informatica) [source]

"Software-as-a-service (SaaS) is a model of software distribution where customers pay a monthly subscription or licensing fee and a third-party, typically the software vendor, makes the application available over the internet. SaaS is one of the primary commercial applications of cloud computing, along with infrastructure-as-a-service (Iaas) and platform-as-a-service (PaaS)." (Sumo Logic) [source]

IT: Platform as a Service (PaaS)

"PaaS is defined as a computing platform delivered as a service." (Martin Oberhofer et al, "The Art of Enterprise Information Architecture", 2010)

"Delivery of an application development platform (hardware and software) from a third party via the Internet without having to buy and manage these resources." (Bill Holtsnider & Brian D Jaffe, "IT Manager's Handbook" 3rd Ed., 2012)

"A cloud service that abstracts the computing services, including the operating software and the development and deployment and management life cycle. It sits on top of Infrastructure as a Service." (Marcia Kaufman et al, "Big Data For Dummies", 2013)

"A cloud service that abstracts the computing services, including the operating software and the development, deployment, and management life cycle. It sits on top of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)." (Judith S Hurwitz, "Cognitive Computing and Big Data Analytics", 2015)

"Delivery of a computing platform as a service." (Mike Harwood, "Internet Security: How to Defend Against Attackers on the Web" 2nd Ed., 2015)

"The capability provided to the customer to deploy onto the cloud infrastructure customer-created or acquired applications created using programming languages and tools supported by the provider. The consumer does not manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure, including network, servers, operating systems, or storage, but has control over the deployed applications and possibly application hosting environment configurations." (James R Kalyvas & Michael R Overly, "Big Data: A Businessand Legal Guide", 2015)

"A cloud-based service that typically provides a platform on which software can be developed and deployed." (H James Harrington & William S Ruggles, "Project Management for Performance Improvement Teams", 2018)

"A complete application platform for multitenant cloud environments that includes development tools, runtime, and administration and management tools and services, PaaS combines an application platform with managed cloud infrastructure services." (Forrester)

"A services providing all the necessary infrastructure for cloud computing solutions." (Analytics Insight)

IT: Standardization (Definitions)

"The imposition of standards which, in turn, are fixed ways of doing things that are widely recognized." (Roy Rada &  Heather Holden, "Online Education, Standardization, and Roles", 2009)

"Formulation, publication, and implementation of guidelines, rules, methods, procedures and specifications for common and repeated use, aimed at achieving optimum degree of order or uniformity in given context, discipline, or field; standards are most frequently developed on international level; there exist national standardization bodies cooperating with international bodies; standards can be either legally binding or de facto standards followed by informal convention or voluntary standards (recommendations)." (Lenka Lhotska et al,"Interoperability of Medical Devices and Information Systems", 2013)

"A framework of agreements to which all relevant parties in an industry or organization must adhere to ensure that all processes associated with the creation of a good or performance of a service are performed within set guideline." (Victor A Afonso & Maria de Lurdes Calisto, "Innovation in Experiential Services: Trends and Challenges", 2015)

"The development of uniform specifications for materials, products, processes, practices, measurement, or performance, usually via consultation with stakeholders and sanction by a recognized body, providing for improvements in productivity, interoperability, cooperation, and accountability." (Gregory A Smith, "Assessment in Academic Libraries", 2015)

"A process of developing and implementing technical standards based on consensus among various stakeholders in the field. Standardization can greatly assist with compatibility and interoperability of otherwise disparate software components, where consistent solutions enable mutual gains for all stakeholders." (Krzysztof Krawiec et al, "Metaheuristic Design Patterns: New Perspectives for Larger-Scale Search Architectures", 2018)

"The process through which a standard is developed." (Kai Jakobs, "ICT Standardization", 2018)

"Is a framework of agreements to which professionals in an organization must accept to ensure that all processes associated with the creation of a product or service are performed within set guidelines, achieving uniformity to certain practices or operations within the selected environment. It can be seen as a professional strategy to strengthen professional trust and provide a sense of certainty for professionals or it can be interpreted as a way to lose professionalization and as an adjustment to organizational demands." (Joana V Guerra, "Digital Professionalism: Challenges and Opportunities to Healthcare Professions", 2019)

"The process of making things of the same kind, including products and services, have the same basic features and the same requirements." (Julia Krause, "Through Harmonization of National Technical Regulations to More Sustainability in Engineering Business", 2019)

IT: Information Technology Information Library (Definitions)

"A series of documents used to aid the implementation of a framework for IT service management (ITSM). This framework defines how service management is applied in specific organizations. Being a framework, it is completely customizable for an application within any type of business or organization that has a reliance on IT infrastructure." (Tilak Mitra et al, "SOA Governance", 2008)

"A framework and set of standards for IT governance based on best practices." (Judith Hurwitz et al, "Service Oriented Architecture For Dummies" 2nd Ed., 2009)

"A framework of supplier independent best practice management procedures for delivery of high quality IT services." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

"a set of guidelines for developing and managing IT operations and services." (Bill Holtsnider & Brian D Jaffe, "IT Manager's Handbook" 3rd Ed., 2012)

"A framework and set of standards for IT governance based on best practices." (Marcia Kaufman et al, "Big Data For Dummies", 2013)

"A group of books written and released by the United Kingdom’s Office of Government and Commerce (OGC). ITIL documents best practices organizations can implement to provide consistent IT services. The library includes five books." (Darril Gibson, "Effective Help Desk Specialist Skills", 2014)

"A set of process-oriented best practices and guidance originally developed in the United Kingdom to standardize delivery of informational technology service management." (Robert F Smallwood, "Information Governance: Concepts, Strategies, and Best Practices", 2014)

"Best practices for information technology services management processes developed by the United Kingdom’s Office of Government Commerce." (Adam Gordon, "Official (ISC)2 Guide to the CISSP CBK" 4th Ed., 2015)

"The IT Infrastructure Library; a set of best practice publications for IT service management." (by Brian Johnson & Leon-Paul de Rouw, "Collaborative Business Design", 2017)

"The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) presents pre-defined processes for IT service management. The fourth edition of ITIL depicts two key elements ITIL Service-Value-System (SVS) and a four dimensions model." (Anna Wiedemann et al, "Transforming Disciplined IT Functions: Guidelines for DevOps Integration", 2021)

"set of best practices guidance" (ITIL)

IT: Quality of Service (Definitions)

"The guaranteed performance of a network connection." (Tom Petrocelli, "Data Protection and Information Lifecycle Management", 2005)

"QoS (Quality of Service) is a metric for quantifying desired or delivered degree of service reliability, priority, and other measures of interest for its quality." (Bo Leuf, "The Semantic Web: Crafting infrastructure for agency", 2006)

"a criterion of performance of a service or element, such as the worst-case execution time for an operation." (Bruce P Douglass, "Real-Time Agility: The Harmony/ESW Method for Real-Time and Embedded Systems Development", 2009)

"The QoS describes the non-functional aspects of a service such as performance." (Martin Oberhofer et al, "The Art of Enterprise Information Architecture", 2010)

"QoS (Quality of Service) Networking technology that enables network administrators to manage bandwidth and give priority to desired types of application traffic as it traverses the network." (Mark Rhodes-Ousley, "Information Security: The Complete Reference" 2nd Ed., 2013)

"A negotiated contract between a user and a network provider that renders some degree of reliable capacity in the shared network." (Gartner)

"Quality of service (QoS) is the description or measurement of the overall performance of a service, especially in terms of the user’s experience. Typically it is used in reference to telephony or computer networks, or to online and cloud-hosted services." (Barracuda) [source]

"The measurable end-to-end performance properties of a network service, which can be guaranteed in advance by a Service Level Agreement between a user and a service provider, so as to satisfy specific customer application requirements. Note: These properties may include throughput (bandwidth), transit delay (latency), error rates, priority, security, packet loss, packet jitter, etc." (CNSSI 4009-2015)

Governance: Authority (Definitions)

[formal authority:] "Explicit power granted to meet an explicit set of service expectations, such as those in job descriptions or legislative mandates." (Alexander Grashow et al, "The Practice of Adaptive Leadership", 2009)

"Formal or informal power within a system, entrusted by one party to another in exchange for a service. The basic services, or social functions, provided by authorities are: (1) direction; (2) protection; and (3) order." (Alexander Grashow et al, "The Practice of Adaptive Leadership", 2009)

[informal authority:] "Power granted implicitly to meet a set of service expectations, such as representing cultural norms like civility or being given moral authority to champion the aspirations of a movement." (Alexander Grashow et al, "The Practice of Adaptive Leadership", 2009)

[Decision-making authority:] "Refers to the decisions that agents are authorized to make on behalf of principals. (585)" (Leslie G Eldenburg & Susan K Wolcott, "Cost Management 2nd Ed", 2011)

"The right to apply project resources, expend funds, make decisions, or give approvals." (Cynthia Stackpole, "PMP Certification All-in-One For Dummies", 2011)

"The explicit or implicit delegation of power or responsibility for a particular activity." (Sally-Anne Pitt, "Internal Audit Quality", 2014)

"The power vested in a person by virtue of her role to expend resources: financial, material, technical, and human." (Fred MacKenzie, "7 Paths to Managerial Leadership", 2016)

"The ability of a role incumbent to apply resources to a task without reference to another person." (Catherine Burke et al, "Systems Leadership" 2nd Ed., 2018)

"‘The right, given by constitution, law, role description or mutual agreement for one person to require another person to act in a prescribed way (specified in the document or agreement). The likelihood of exercising authority effectively will usually depend upon good Social Process Skills’. The acceptance of the exercise of authority within a work organisation is a function of the contract of employment. Is it essential that there is a clear understanding of the difference between authority and power and that authority is not a one-way process. In a correctly functioning organisation, for example, a manager has the authority to assign tasks to a direct report and the direct report has the authority to require a task performance review by the manager." (Catherine Burke et al, "Systems Leadership" 2nd Ed., 2018)

"power to direct and exact performance from others. It includes the right to prescribe the means and methods by which work will be done. However, the authority to direct is only as good as one individual’s willingness to accept direction from another. Moreover, with authority comes responsibility and accountability." (All Business, "Dictionary of Accounting Terms")

"(1) power over others by sanctioned personnel within an organization. Managers have the authority to hire and fire personnel in an organization. With authority comes responsibility for one’s actions. (2) a government corporation or agency that administers a public enterprise." (All Business, "Dictionary of Business Terms")

Data Management: Data Strategy (Definitions)

"A business plan for leveraging an enterprise’s data assets to maximum advantage." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

[enterprise data strategy:] "A data strategy supporting the entire enterprise." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

[data management strategy:] "Selected courses of actions setting the direction for data management within the enterprise, including vision, mission, goals, principles, policies, and projects." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

"A data strategy is a plan for maintaining and improving the quality, integrity, security, and access of the enterprise data. It typically includes business plans that describe how the data will be used to support the enterprise business strategy and goals." (Dewey E Ray, "Valuing Data: An Open Framework", 2018)

"A data strategy is not an algorithm, buzzword, IT project, technology or application, collection of data in storage, department or team, or project or tactic. A data strategy is a set of organization-wide objectives leading to highly efficient processes that turn data resources into outcomes that help the organization fulfill its mission." (Harvinder Atwal, "Practical DataOps: Delivering Agile Data Science at Scale", 2019)

"A data strategy is a plan designed to improve all the ways you acquire, store, manage, share, and use data." (Evan Levy, "TDWI Data Strategy Assessment Guide", 2021)

"A data strategy is a central, integrated concept that articulates how data will enable and inspire business strategy." (MIT CISR)

"A data strategy is a common reference of methods, services, architectures, usage patterns and procedures for acquiring, integrating, storing, securing, managing, monitoring, analyzing, consuming and operationalizing data." (DXC.Technology) [source]

"A data strategy is a highly dynamic process employed to support the acquisition, organization, analysis, and delivery of data in support of business objectives." (Gartner)

Strategic Management: Churn (Definitions)

"In a subscription service, the ratio of customers lost to customers gained." (Ralph Kimball & Margy Ross, "The Data Warehouse Toolkit" 2nd Ed., 2002)

"Reflects the tendency of subscribers to switch services." (Glenn J Myatt, "Making Sense of Data: A Practical Guide to Exploratory Data Analysis and Data Mining", 2006)

"The phenomenon of customers leaving your business to go to a competitor. Churn implies the customer might or might not return. “Churn reduction” is another way of saying customer retention and is a major goal of CRM programs. Churn is most often used in conjunction with commodity businesses such as telcos, utilities, and airlines." (Evan Levy & Jill Dyché, "Customer Data Integration", 2006)

"Reflects the tendency of subscribers to switch services." (Glenn J Myatt, "Making Sense of Data: A Practical Guide to Exploratory Data Analysis and Data Mining", 2007)

"Also known as customer attrition, this is a term used by businesses to describe the loss of clients or customers." (Martin Oberhofer et al, "The Art of Enterprise Information Architecture", 2010)

"A customer switches to a competitor's service." (Linda Volonino & Efraim Turban, "Information Technology for Management 8th Ed", 2011)

[viral churn:] "A situation in which individuals cancel their services because other people in their network have canceled their service. Common reasons include being made aware of better options and pull-through by leveraging positive network externalities." (Evan Stubbs, "Delivering Business Analytics: Practical Guidelines for Best Practice", 2013)

"A term that refers to a customers going to a different provider. Depending on the context, it may refer to a total migration away from the organization in question to a reduction in consumption." (Evan Stubbs, "Delivering Business Analytics: Practical Guidelines for Best Practice", 2013)

Strategic Management: Business Impact Analysis (Definitions)

"The process of delineating the functions most critical to the survival of a business." (Yvette Ghormley, "Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Plans", 2009)

"A management-level analysis which identifies the impacts of losing company resources. The BIA measures the effect of resource loss and escalating losses over time, in order to provide senior management with reliable data on which to base decisions concerning risk mitigation and continuity planning." (Mark S Merkow & Lakshmikanth Raghavan, "Secure and Resilient Software Development", 2010)

"A method or exercise to determine the impact of losing the support or availability of a resource." (Linda Volonino & Efraim Turban, "Information Technology for Management" 8th Ed., 2011)

"Aims to (a) identify critical business processes, stakeholders, assets, resources and internal/external dependencies and (b) assesses and evaluates potential damages or losses at business level that may be caused by a threat to IT landscape." (Ulrich Winkler & Wasif Gilani, "Business Continuity Management of Business Driven IT Landscapes", 2012)

"A process used to analyze the business and identify critical functions and services. The BIA also helps the organization determine the cost impact of losing these functions and services. Organizations use the results as part of an overall business continuity plan." (Darril Gibson, "Effective Help Desk Specialist Skills", 2014)

"The identification of services and products that are critical to the organization." (Manish Agrawal, "Information Security and IT Risk Management", 2014)

"The process of analysing activities and the effect that a business disruption might have upon them." (David Sutton, "Information Risk Management: A practitioner’s guide", 2014)

"An exercise that determines the impact of losing the support of any resource to an organization, establishes the escalation of that loss over time, identifies the minimum resources needed to recover, and prioritizes the recovery of processes and supporting systems." (Adam Gordon, "Official (ISC)2 Guide to the CISSP CBK" 4th Ed., 2015)

"A functional analysis in which a team collects data, documents business functions, develops a hierarchy of business functions, and applies a classification scheme to indicate each individual function’s criticality level." (Shon Harris & Fernando Maymi, "CISSP All-in-One Exam Guide" 8th Ed., 2018)

"The analysis of an information system’s requirements, functions, and interdependencies used to characterize system contingency requirements and priorities in the event of a significant disruption." (William Stallings, "Effective Cybersecurity: A Guide to Using Best Practices and Standards", 2018)

"A business continuity management activity which is mainly intended for defining the core business functions, the recovery priorities regarding these functions and the corresponding time required for the resumption of each function." (Athanasios Podaras et al, "Regression-Based Recovery Time Predictions in Business Continuity Management: A Public College Case Study", 2021)

"Activity that identifies the VMF and their dependencies" (ITIL)

"An analysis of an information system’s requirements, functions, and interdependencies used to characterize system contingency requirements and priorities in the event of a significant disruption." (CNSSI 4009-2015)

Software Engineering: Service-Oriented Architecture (Definition)

"A technology framework to support the design, development, and deployment of diverse business applications in a loosely coupled way. The goal of SOA is to encourage reuse of both data and functionality via the use of units of work (services) that are made available to different business processes across the enterprise." (Jill Dyché & Evan Levy, "Customer Data Integration", 2006)

"SOA is an architectural paradigm for dealing with business processes distributed over a large and heterogeneous landscape of existing and new systems that are under the control of different owners." (Nicolai M Josuttis, "SOA in Practice", 2007)

"An architectural style for creating an enterprise architecture that exploits the principles of service orientation to achieve a tighter relationship between the business and the information systems that support the business." (Tilak Mitra et al, "SOA Governance", 2008)

"A method for organizing a company's entire information system functions so all information components are viewed as services that are provided to the organization." (Jan L Harrington, "Relational Database Design and Implementation" 3rd Ed., 2009)

"A way of designing software applications for reusability and flexibility. It involves designing loosely coupled software components called services." (John Goodson & Robert A Steward, "The Data Access Handbook", 2009)

"An architectural style in which software systems are modular and some components (service providers) are distributable, discoverable, substitutable, and shareable." (W Roy Schulte & K Chandy, "Event Processing: Designing IT Systems for Agile Companies", 2009)

"An architecture that enables IT resources to be made available to other participants in a network as independent services that are accessed in a standardized way without knowledge of the underlying platform implementation." (David G Hill, "Data Protection: Governance, Risk Management, and Compliance", 2009)

"An IT infrastructure that allows disparate applications to exchange data and use consistent processes as they interact with each other. SOA is the foundation architecture for data services." (Tony Fisher, "The Data Asset", 2009)

"An architectural style to enable loosely coupled systems and promote re-usable services based on open standards." (Martin Oberhofer et al, "The Art of Enterprise Information Architecture", 2010)

"Defines a development paradigm which has loosely coupled, distributed modules called 'services' as its build blocks. Services offer clear interfaces through which service consumers can discover and make use of them." (Carlos Kamienski et al, "Managing the Future Internet: Services, Policies and Peers", 2010)

"In its most general sense, an approach for architectures where the interfaces are services. In a more specific sense, it is an architectural style for dealing with business processes distributed over a large and heterogeneous landscape of existing and new systems that are under the control of different owners." (David Lyle & John G Schmidt, "Lean Integration", 2010)

"The software design and implementation architecture of loosely coupled, coarse-grained, reusable services that can be integrated with each other through a wide variety of platform-independent service interfaces." (Alex Berson & Lawrence Dubov, "Master Data Management and Data Governance", 2010)

"An architectural concept that defines the use of services to support a variety of business needs. In SOA, existing IT assets (called services) are reused and reconnected rather than the more time consuming and costly reinvention of new systems." (Linda Volonino & Efraim Turban, "Information Technology for Management" 8th Ed, 2011)

"An application architecture in which all functions, or services, are created with invokable interfaces that are called to perform business processes." (Craig S Mullins, "Database Administration", 2012)

"An approach to building applications that implements business processes or services by using a set of loosely coupled black-box components orchestrated to deliver a well-defined level of service." (Marcia Kaufman et al, "Big Data For Dummies", 2013)

"A software design and software architecture design pattern independent of any vendor, product, or technology and based on discrete pieces of software providing application functionality as services to other applications. For instance, this software design defines how two computing entities, such as programs, interact in such a way as to enable one entity to perform a unit of work on behalf of another entity." (Jim Davis & Aiman Zeid, "Business Transformation: A Roadmap for Maximizing Organizational Insights", 2014)

"An information technology architecture that separates infrastructure, applications, and data into layers." (Robert F Smallwood, "Information Governance: Concepts, Strategies, and Best Practices", 2014)

"Style of architecture based on the concept of service, designed to simplify interactions between architecture blocks while providing the system with significant flexibility." (Gilbert Raymond & Philippe Desfray, "Modeling Enterprise Architecture with TOGAF", 2014)

"A design similar to a component-based architecture except the pieces are implemented as services." (Rod Stephens, "Beginning Software Engineering", 2015)

"Service-Oriented Architecture expresses an architecture that define the use of software services." (Laura C Rodriguez-Martinez et al, "Service-Oriented Computing Applications (SOCA) Development Methodologies: A Review of Agility-Rigor Balance", 2021)

"A multitier architecture relying on services that support computer-to-computer interaction over a network." (Oracle, "Oracle Database Concepts")

"Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a design paradigm and discipline that helps IT meet business demands. Some organizations realize significant benefits using SOA including faster time to market, lower costs, better application consistency and increased agility. SOA reduces redundancy and increases usability, maintainability and value. This produces interoperable, modular systems that are easier to use and maintain." (Gartner) 

"Service‑oriented architecture (SOA) is an architectural approach to designing applications around a collection of independent services. A service can be any business functionality that completes an action and provides a specific result, such as processing a customer order or compiling an inventory report." (NGINX) [source] 

Software Engineering: Simple Object Access Protocol (Definitions)

"An XML-based protocol for invoking remote procedures. SOAP has become one of the cornerstones of Web services, and has been accepted as a standard by all major vendors including Microsoft, SUN, IBM, and others." (Atul Apte, "Java™ Connector Architecture: Building Custom Connectors and Adapters", 2002)

"A standardized protocol used to call Internet-based services (Web services) by exchanging XML messages." (Johannes Link & Peter Fröhlich, "Unit Testing in Java", 2003)

"Designed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), this transport protocol provides a standard way to send messages between applications using XML." (Sara Morganand & Tobias Thernstrom , "MCITP Self-Paced Training Kit : Designing and Optimizing Data Access by Using Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - Exam 70-442", 2007)

"is a protocol for exchange of information in a distributed environment. It is an XML based protocol consisting of three parts: an envelope (a framework for describing what is in a message and how to process it), a set of encoding rules (for expressing instances of application-defined datatypes), and a convention for representing remote procedure calls and responses." (Craig F Smith & H Peter Alesso, "Thinking on the Web: Berners-Lee, Gödel and Turing", 2008)

"A protocol for exchanging XML messages over a network. It defines the structure of the XML messages (the SOAP envelope), and a framework that defines how these messages should be processed by software." (Mark Olive, "SHARE: A European Healthgrid Roadmap", 2009)

"A wrapper specification from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for requests for web services that facilitates interoperability between a broad mixture of programs and platforms." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

"A protocol specification for exchanging structured information in a Web services implementation." (Craig S Mullins, "Database Administration", 2012)

"A protocol specification for exchanging data. Along with REST, it is used for storing and retrieving data in the Amazon storage cloud." (Marcia Kaufman et al, "Big Data For Dummies", 2013)

"A common protocol used to establish a session between a Web server and mobile app; it is stateless by design." (Mike Harwood, "Internet Security: How to Defend Against Attackers on the Web" 2nd Ed., 2015)

"A lightweight protocol for exchange of information in a decentralized, distributed environment." (Adam Gordon, "Official (ISC)2 Guide to the CISSP CBK" 4th Ed., 2015)

"A standard format in XML for sending data between a client and a Web service. The service's WSDL file specifies the format of the SOAP messages it expects and will return." (Microfocus)

Software Engineering: Service Orchestration (Definitions)

"A way of aggregating services to business processes. In contrast to choreography, orchestration composes services to a new service that has central control over the whole process." (Nicolai M Josuttis, "SOA in Practice", 2007)

"A business uses orchestration in order to define the electronic message interaction with other business partners in order to fulfill its obligations." (Christoph Bussler, "Business-to-Business (B2B) Integration", 2009)

"It is a service composition paradigm where the execution of subordinate services is coordinated in a centralized fashion. It is often referred to as a concrete service composition, which can be executed by a service engine or container." (Carlos Kamienski et al, "Managing the Future Internet: Services, Policies and Peers", 2010)

"Orchestration defines the local behavior of a component. We use UML activity diagrams to specify orchestration models." (Surya B Kathayat, "Collaboration-Based Model-Driven Approach for Business Service Composition", 2012)

The process that governs the creation, instantiation, and composition of the different elements a service consists of. It includes a coordinated set actions at several supporting infrastructures (computing, storage, network…) and layers (local and WAN network)" (Diego R López & Pedro A. Aranda, "Network Functions Virtualization: Going beyond the Carrier Cloud", 2015)

"The logic behind the cloud that provides the services. Typically broken into Brokerage or cross cloud orchestration, service orchestration (or workflow orchestration), software orchestration (which coordinates the build of software on a platform) and infrastructure orchestration (which coordinates the build of the cloud resources for compute, network and storage that provides the platform)." (Richard Ehrhardt, "Cloud Build Methodology", 2017)

"Coordination of systems and actions that permit the instantiation of functions and/or the control and allocation of resources in order to compose a network service." (Luis Contreras, "Slicing Challenges for Operators", 2019)

"It defines the service collaboration at business process level." (Laura C Rodriguez-Martinez et al, "Service-Oriented Computing Applications (SOCA) Development Methodologies: A Review of Agility-Rigor Balance", 2021)

"The action of mixing totally different technologies and connecting security tools that cowl each security-specific and non-security facet, so as to form them cable to figure along and improve response to cyber-attacks." (Heru Susanto et al, "Data Security for Connected Governments and Organisations: Managing Automation and Artificial Intelligence", 2021)

"The automation and provisioning of network services to create the best user experience." (Forrester)

Software Engineering: Service Choreography (Definitions)

"A way of aggregating services to business processes. In contrast to orchestration, choreography does not compose services to a new service that has central control over the whole process. Instead, it defines rules and policies that enable different services to collaborate to form a business process. Each service involved in the process sees and contributes only a part of it." (Nicolai M Josuttis, "SOA in Practice", 2007)

"An a priori global and public model meant to capture all the interactions taking place for a given purpose among a number of participants." (Giorgio Bruno & Marcello La Rosa, "Collaboration Based on Web Services", 2008)

"Choreography is the message exchange behavior that a business exposes in order to participate in a business relationship based on electronic message exchanges." (Christoph Bussler, "Business-to-Business (B2B) Integration", 2009)

"It is a service composition paradigm where no centralized entity is responsible for coordinating the execution of the subordinate services. It is often seen as an abstract service composition since it defines cooperation (e.g., message exchanging) rules but no actual execution flow." (Carlos Kamienski et al, "Managing the Future Internet: Services, Policies and Peers", 2010)

[Web Service Choreography:] "A particular web service composition where several peer web services collaborate in a distributed environment. In a choreography there is not a services acting as a leader and synchronizing the work of the other services, as happen in case of orchestration. This makes choreography more difficult to realize in real settings." (Liliana Ardissono et al, "An Event-Based Middleware for the Management of Choreographed Services", 2012)

"Contract between two or more systems, which establishes how they cooperate to achieve some common goal." (José C Delgado, "Frameworks for Distributed Interoperability", Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, 2015)

"Global behavior is called choreography. Choreography is specified using UML activity diagrams. We have used two levels of choreography models: flow-global and flow-localized." (Surya B Kathayat, "Collaboration-Based Model-Driven Approach for Business Service Composition", 2012)

"Define the service collaboration at service-computing level." (Laura C Rodriguez-Martinez et al, "Service-Oriented Computing Applications (SOCA) Development Methodologies: A Review of Agility-Rigor Balance", 2021)

"Defines the requirements and sequences through which multiple Web services interact." (NIST SP 800-95)