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Press Releases
San Francisco, CA – April 28,
2004: At The Open Group’s Spring 2004 conference,
Boundaryless Information Flow™: Managing the Flow, industry
and government executives discussed the challenges of information
management and emphasized the need for pervasive interoperability
and a holistic approach. The April 19-23 event took place
at the Hilton Brussels Hotel in Brussels, Belgium.
Allen Brown, The Open Group’s President and CEO, noted
that The Open Group’s vision of the Boundaryless Information
Flow™ is becoming ubiquitous as the recognition of the
need to eliminate boundaries spreads. Major industry leaders
are now calling for end-to-end information integration and
elimination of silos and standalone islands of automation.
“With the continuous pressure on producing results,
forward looking organizations are taking a holistic approach,”
Brown noted. “They want to address the whole lifecycle
of information management – from creation to sharing
and reuse to impact on business results.”
Brown, quoting Peter Drucker, said that the next information
revolution will be based on the meaning and purpose of information,
emphasizing the importance of assuring quality of the information
itself as well as its accessibility, availability and timeliness.
So much focus to date had been on technology: it was time
to focus on the information part of information technology
- the“I” in “IT”.
Christian Devillers from the IDA Program, European Commission,
discussed the current efforts of the IDA Program for efficient,
effective and secure exchange of information between EC member
administrations and community institutions, based on establishing
operational interoperable trans-European telematic networks.
The IDA program will transition to interoperable delivery
of pan-European e-Government services to Public Administrations,
Businesses and Citizens in 2005. According to Devillers, the
underlying principles include, among others, accessibility,
multiligualism, security, personal data protection, and use
of open standards and multilateral solutions.
Joao Serras Pereira from Instituto de Soldadura e Qualidade
elaborated on the topic of interoperability and horizontal
integration with the example of the Netframe project. This
is an EC-funded research project to establish a documented
framework for online, concurrent engineering and cooperation
within the supply chain of the aeronautical and automotive
industries. Netframe delivers both an IT architecture supporting
the information exchange across the industry as well as a
consensual process around product and production information
exchange. As a foundation, Netframe selected The Open Group’s
TOGAF - an industry consensus framework and method that is
technology and tool neutral, proven in practice, publicly
available and underpinned by certification.
David Lacey, Director of Security and Risk Management, Royal
Mail, discussed the vision of deperimeterization of data.
He emphasized that enabling access anytime and anyplace, having
instant connectivity, and creating secure extended enterprises
are essential for the future. However, that also brings security
challenges that require seamless security management across
organizations. In order to realize this vision, industry standards
are needed. Lacey also presented the recently formed Jericho
Forum whose members share a common vision of a new approach
to security, and a desire for user collaboration to enable
business confidence beyond the constraint of the corporate
perimeter. The Forum is initially open only to major user
organizations.
Andy Leigh of the BBC elaborated on the deperimeterization
of data, and illustrated it with an example of a citadel with
strong walls, which prevents flexibility and mobility but
is not truly secure. Leigh noted that a change is necessary:
instead of keeping a perimeter around the whole citadel and
no security inside, individual sections should be secured
as needed.
Summaries of presentations at the conference are available
at http://www.opengroup.org/public/member/proceedings/q204/
The Open Group is a vendor-neutral and technology-neutral
consortium, which drives the creation of Boundaryless Information
Flow™ that will enable access to integrated information
within and between enterprises based on open standards and
global interoperability. The Open Group works with customers,
suppliers, consortia and other standard bodies. Its role is
to capture, understand and address current and emerging requirements,
establish policies and share best practices; to facilitate
interoperability, develop consensus, and evolve and integrate
specifications and open source technologies; to offer a comprehensive
set of services to enhance the operational efficiency of consortia;
and to operate the industry’s premier certification
service.
Note to Editors: Boundaryless Information
Flow is a trademark of The Open Group.
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