COMP3760/6760: Enterprise Systems Integration

Department of Computing
Semester 2, 2020
COMP3760/6760: Enterprise Systems Integration
Assignment 3 (Group Assignment): System Integration
(20% of the semester)
Prof Jian Yang
Due 11:55 pm Tuesday – 20 October 2020
COMP3760/6760 Assignment 3 Semester 2, 2020
Page 2
Business Process Modelling for improved Project Management Processes
(source: Busch, P., Amirmazaheri, A., (2012) “Workflow Knowledge Sharing through Social Networks”
Pacific-Asia Knowledge Acquisition Workshop (PKAW 2012)/Lecture Notes in Artificial
Intelligence (LNAI 7457) Kuching, Malaysia, September 5-6th pp: 343–349.
Background: LCPL, A SYDNEY-BASED COMPANY
LCPL is an actual mining and construction enterprise headquartered in Sydney with more than 5000 employees
across Australia. LCPL undertakes projects within the Asia-Pacific region, mainly in Australia and New
Zealand. The company delivers projects for clients across the infrastructure, resources, civil engineering, energy
and telecommunications sectors.
The Process: Oracle Primavera P6
The Control and Planning group of LCPL provides systems and processes to manage and control projects.
Oracle Primavera P6 is a project management tool managed by Group Operational Services (GOS) of the
Control and Planning (CP) division of LCPL. Group Operational Services supports other business units
through developing and maintaining control and planning standards and methodologies.
All divisions within LCPL should use P6 for their project planning, update and control purposes. The GOS
supports all Oracle Primavera P6 users across the company through a defined process (figure 1). To support P6
users, the GOS cooperates with LCPL’s IT group to integrate the support process with the IT service deskfor
the company. The IT service desk uses IT Service Management (ITSM) help-desk software as a support tool to
log requests, changes and incidents. The P6 support process is illustrated here for brevity (figure 1).
Figure 1: The GSO support process (source: LCPL intranet).
Project Brief (4 marks)
Provide a description on: the group meeting schedule or plan, each member’s role in the project, identifying risks
and ways to manage risks, ways to communicate between members, and a log recording each meeting,
discussion and dialogue between members in relation to the project. Note: all members need to contribute to the
project. The description and log need to be submitted together with the four tasks.
Task 1 Web Service Design (4 marks)
Suppose you are wrapping the GSO support process (figure 1) as a web service, which allows a user to create a
request for an incident raised. You are required to:
• Identify the two necessary functions of this GSO service;
• For each of the above functions, identify the input/output messages;
• Use WSDL interface definition constructs to specify the above identified functions with input/output
messages.
Task 2 XML Schema Design (4 marks)
For the above input/output messages, write their XML Schemas. You need to include the following:
• Two different ways of specifying complex types, one is defined inside the element, the other defines a
complex type first, then (re-)uses it as a complex type of an element;
• Use constraints on the values of a simple typed element, on the occurrence of elements;
• Pick up one xml schema, construct a sample xml document.
Task 3 EAI and Database Integration (4 marks)
Suppose LCPL’s head office in Sydney maintains a personnel database containing information such as Senior
Planners, Optimisation Manager, Planners, Site Engineer, Planning Manager, Scheduler, Systems Analyst and
Business Analyst along with their detailed information. Other sites have their own databases containing
information on projects undertaken, issues and incidents reported, changes made and staff in charge of issues to
be resolved etc. In order to support the need of business analysis, LCPL sees a need to integrate systems running
across Australia and New Zealand. The objective of business analysis is to allow managers to make better
decisions on the project chosen, supply management and human resource management.
For example, suppose an applicant wishes to check the frequencies of various issues reported in the system and
the information on staff assigned to those issues. This request would actually require data from multiple
disparate back-end systems and different sites. In this case, there is a need to decompose the request into
multiple requests to be sent to the different back-end database applications, gather the information sent back, and
assemble this information in the form of a single uniformed response (i.e. recompose).
• Design simple database schemas for the above scenario and explain what kind of integration technique
you would use. Assume the back-end databases are relational.
• Design and draw a tiered EAI system handling this situation whereby users gain direct access to business
applications and data.
• Explain how queries will be decomposed and replies recomposed. You may make the necessary
assumptions.
Task 4 Discussion (4 marks, @ 600 words)
“LCPL is an actual mining and construction enterprise headquartered in Sydney with more than 5000
employees across Australia. LCPL undertakes projects within the Asia-Pacific region, mainly in Australia and
New Zealand. The company delivers projects for clients across the infrastructure, resources, civil engineering,
energy and telecommunications sectors”, from this description we can image there are different systems
implemented in different sites of LCPL. Use what you have learned in the unit to discuss the following:
• The possible issues relating to integration (from different layers/aspects) using examples;
• The possible technologies potentially used to support system integration at various levels/aspects;
• The options and considerations of the technologies along with their advantages and disadvantages
Submission: one submission per group, together with the project description and log.
Zero Tolerance for Cheating:
You are required to use your own words to provide the descriptions and explanations. All submissions will be
checked for plagiarism. Any cases will be reported to the faculty for disciplinary action, and the marks of the
assignment and the unit will be withheld until the case has been resolved. See Macquarie University’s code of
conduct for the details of the process: https://students.mq.edu.au/study/getting-started/student-conduct.
Submission
Place your soft copy in your assignment 3 submission folder on iLearn.
Due 11:55 pm Tuesday – 20 October 2020 (Hard deadline)
Marking Rubric