Case Study

Case Study 2: Microelectronics "Factory in a Box"
Business Context
Like most companies, IBM is no longer operating under the assumption that it will do all business functions in-house. We rely on an ecosystem of companies that help us focus on our core business competencies by assuming responsibility for some of our non-core tasks.

Our microelectronics business, for example, is moving from vertical integration to a global participant network. In 2003 IBM Microelectronics recognized the need for more flexibility in reacting to the changing manufacturing requirements associated with wafer and module manufacturing across multiple sites and vendors.

Challenges
IBM Microelectronics experienced challenges similar to the rest of the industry players:

• Technology cost and complexity continue to rise as does the demand for custom solutions (as opposed to standard products), while product unit costs fall.
• Demand volatility drives expense and investment volatility.
• Pressures to fuse advanced technology with business design to create an integrated, more flexible and responsive manufacturing environment
• To achieve flexibility with multiple manufacturing sites need to eliminate duplicate systems, build once and leverage, and improve time-to-market
• Requirements for consolidation of financial management by integrating historically separate systems

SOA-based Solution
To address these challenges, IBM developed a solution based on modularized architecture that provides efficient outsourcing by installing a factory-in-a-box on partner premises (depicted in Figure 2). One of the primary enablers of this virtual manufacturing is the Multi-Source Data Integrator (MDI), an IBM server containing a standardized suite of services that will exist at any manufacturing location to be integrated into the virtual manufacturing environment. The architectural solution uses industry standards and integrates the business partner's manufacturing processes with those of IBM, enabling the seamless outsourcing of bond, assembly, and test.

MDI is built on a foundation of proven IBM middleware: DB2, WebSphere Application Server, MQSeries, WBI, WBI Connect, TCI (includes wafer map management, data transport/translation, and tester support), and TCIServices (includes composite rules, auto-setup, and disposition).

B2B messages trigger actions and logic with the MDI in real-time. MDI internal message formats are patterned after RosettaNet standards. After WBI-C receives and delivers messages to MDI processes at the receiving location, they are the same Extensible Markup Language (XML) format as messages sent directly by the sending location.

Business Results
This solution created "virtual" manufacturing for microelectronics - a "factory in a box" enabled via SOA:

• Multiple, interchangeable, integrated partners
• Routine upgrades to deployed software are seamless (i.e., no downtime, no negative impact to production).

As an example of a business situation, an IBM Singapore facility was sold to Amkor Technologies. The facility was disconnected by IBM and reconnected by Amkor in just four hours - this was a process that could have taken as long as three days before the implementation of the new SOA-enabled architecture. IBM rules were updated, IBM manufacturing went down, and Amkor manufacturing came up.

Best Practices Used and Lessons Learned
Virtualization and isolation of business domains with related processes and data created "isolation framework" between domains that enabled "Virtual Factories."

Reuse of a SOA reference architecture and best practices, harvested from earlier SOA enterprise initiative (COATS redesign), significantly reduced the project time.

Case Study 3: IBM Intranet Password External
Business Context
As IBM internal Web applications proliferated - many of them business-critical - they all created their own authentication processes and functionality. It became clear that IBM needed a global authentication facility for Web applications - one ID/password for each employee. The IBM Intranet Password (IIP) was then developed and deployed as a common solution to enable identity management for internal applications. Unfortunately, IIP's objective of a single ID/password for each IBM employee wasn't fully realized - besides internal applications, there are numerous IBM Business Partner sites and applications that IBM employees use including outsourced HR functions (such as benefits and pension), 401K, travel booking, and others. These business partners created their own unique ID/password schemes for each of the systems.

Challenges
Rapid proliferation of IDs and passwords created huge problems for employees and application providers. For employees, this meant more time spent keeping track of numerous IDs and passwords, as well as time spent managing expiration and different rules for what constituted a valid password for each partner application.

With their unique authentication systems, IBM partners providing business solutions had to ensure adequate help center coverage for calls by IBM employees requiring credential assistance. In addition, the overhead costs related to the development and management of authentication management solutions and business rules also had to be recovered in contracted charges to IBM.

The need for individualized authentication across multiple partner applications to improve employee satisfaction and reduce costs became obvious. Several different solutions were considered to address this problem. Initially some business partners requested a copy of IBM's employee LDAP directory, along with periodic updates, to manage the authentication of IBM employee credentials themselves. To maintain the integrity of IBM's internal network at all times, IBM couldn't share its LDAP data outside the company or provide partners access to IBM's internal network to use internal LDAP instances directly.

SOA-based Solution
The resulting SOA-enabled solution, named IIPX, is depicted in Figure 3. IIPX is based on the foundation laid by the earlier deployed IIP solution that provides employee identity management for internal applications.

Externally hosted applications verify the identify of IBM employees by using an IBM Web Service that validates a digitally signed XML document indicating that an IBM employee has already been authenticated by IIP. IIPX creates the token after employees are authenticated by IBM's internal IIP, which performs native LDAP authentication using IBM's internal directory. After users are authenticated internally, their browsers are redirected to the external site.

Business results
This simple solution was quickly accepted and got positive feedback from partners and employees alike. The introduction of this new authentication functionality improved employee productivity and IT satisfaction yet was virtually transparent to employees. Through the implementation of this service, IBM achieved the business flexibility that allows new employee users to be added and IDs and passwords to be managed from within IBM's already established mechanisms. IBM business partners have achieved measurable cost-avoidance by consuming this service, because they don't have to manage IDs/passwords for all users.

Best Practices/Lessons Learned
Reusing the existing and proven IIP SOA solution in a new environment demonstrated the flexibility of SOA.

Although IBM partners quickly accepted this solution, it took time to convert their individual solutions, based on their own schedules, availability of resources, and other business constraints. Incremental rollout allowed them to define individual and non-disruptive conversion paths.

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