Displaying items by tag: sparx systems

A “Business Analysis Survey “was conducted by Sparx Systems (India), in collaboration  with BA Convention and IIBA™  at Bangalore , India.

The outcome of the survey revealed some interesting insights about the Business Analysis in India, which is garnering increasing importance in the realms of the Indian IT industry.

Though it was an elaborate survey which covered various aspects of business analysis in India, the below responses are more relevant to this EA user community

• Requirements gathering and Use Cases writing are still the primary tasks assigned to Business Analysts

• 75 % of the participants agree that one third of the project efforts are spent on corrections or repetitions

• 80 % of the participants advocated the usage of Requirements Management and Business Modelling tools improve the quality of projects

• 62 % of the respondents felt that initial upfront cost involved in procuring and training of modelling tools act as a deterrent

This is a strong indicator that the Business Analysts and organizations are looking for a Cost effective , Easy to Learn and Comprehensive tool to address their needs.

Enterprise Architect is the potential tool to address the above demands with

Rich Feature Set

Enterprise Architect’s Requirements Management, Use Case Modelling, Business Process Modelling, End to End Traceability and Project Management capabilities helps organizations to eliminate usage of multiple tools.

Enterprise Architect 11 provides a number of features including the Specification Manager, Charts and Dashboards, Enhanced Docx documentation, OSLC support and much, much more.  Each of these features will address the needs of the Business Analysts.

Easy to use:

The intuitive IDE of Enterprise Architect enables ease of Use and quick learning, even for the non-technical associates.

Cost Effective:

Compared to other traditional Business Modelling tools, Enterprise Architect is less expensive and can address the cost concerns of Business Analysts.

With its rich feature set, ease of use and cost effective advantage, Enterprise Architect is the right choice for the Global Organizations who have their extended presence in India through outsourcing or subsidiaries.

Please click here for the details of the survey.

According to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in 2013, there are almost as many mobile-cellular subscriptions as people in the world and in 2014 the number of mobile phones in use will exceed the number of people on the planet.

The mobile revolution is providing equity of access to education, health, government, banking, environment and business for many sectors of the global community while challenging enterprise business models in every sector. It is a platform that is here to stay and a disruptive influence on business that cannot be ignored.

Mobile devices form the platform that will deliver work models that are very different from the past and facilitate social networking. This force will inform the enterprise architecture that will deliver strategic support for mobile devices owned by employees and provide open, secure environments to allow these devices to connect to enterprise systems including the cloud.

By defining an envisioned future state that can be shared and discussed, enterprise architecture will assist organizations to navigate change in an agile manner while enabling milestones to be achieved within agreed time-frames. A key standard for enterprise architecture is the use of UML for creating design models: http://www.sparxsystems.com.au/platforms/soa.html

Enterprise architecture is about ensuring that an organization has the right integration/alignment between IT and the business (including people, processes, investments, information and technology) in order to better support the business's capabilities and to enable the business to evolve toward a future state, according to Gartner - “It is not just about technology. Enterprise Architecture is the key to driving digital strategy": http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2586115

Using the metaphor of a jigsaw puzzle from the previous blog, we inferred the necessity of technology to tame the complexity of a system that is in a state of constant change but which nevertheless must be managed and guided such that it meets key objectives at the individual and enterprise level. The major problem is that jigsaws never come with instructions on how to build order out of chaos – and the individual approach is usually random, based on trial and error!

With any project, be it building a house or fixing a washing machine, a manual is essential. To have any chance of arriving at a destination when setting out into unknown territory, it is wise to have a plan or a map. Without these instructions one can lose track or get completely lost. In the enterprise, when teams lose the focus of project objectives, this translates as financial loss or project failure.

Similarly, a Use Case is a documented record that describes a procedure for interaction with a system and when these records are collectively available they stimulate discussion, which generates ideas for improvements and efficiencies. A Use Case approach forces the consideration of users and customers, which can help elicit feedback and create a dialog to help build better systems. The interaction or cooperation generated creates added value. These records provide transparency, agreement and shared awareness, acting as way markers in a broad landscape of procedures that are foreign to many, as individual knowledge is often siloed.

Although Use Cases are valuable and provide a positive return on investment in time and resources, their development is also takes time. For many different teams however, they lay a foundation for future reference. Enterprise Architect is an indispensable, time saving tool in the Use Case development process.

In mid 2013 Sparx Systems conducted a webinar showcasing model driven development of Use Cases. This informative session reviewed the rich features of Enterprise Architect that can assist in the key processes of analysis, development and testing, saving time while replacing random processes with best practice and creating consensus and clarity between stakeholders.

The webinar can be viewed at:

http://www.sparxsystems.com.au/resources/demos/use-case-analysis/model-driven-use-case-analysis-with-structured-scenarios.html

Mr Ben Constable, Senior Analyst at Sparx Systems, explores Enterprise Architect's Structured Scenario Editor for model-driven use case analysis.

In this webinar, you'll learn how to:

To suit users in different time zones, we will hold two sessions - each 30 minutes in duration.

To register for this webinar, please visit www.sparxsystems.com/webinars.

Metadata Management

At the recent meeting of the G8 in Northern Ireland, the members released the Open Data Charter. The Charter recognizes the central role open data can play in improving government and governance and in stimulating growth through innovation in data-driven products and services. On the principle of quality, the goal of the charter is to ensure that releases of “high-quality open data that are timely, comprehensive, and accurate. To the extent possible, data will be in their original, unmodified form and at the finest level of granularity available.”

High levels of granularity support more structured information and allow more technical manipulation while metadata with levels of low granularity can be created for much less cost but provide less detailed information. Granularity impacts creation and capture.  However, the greatest impact of granularity is in maintenance. As the metadata structures become outdated, access to the referred data will become much harder to manage.  To enable continued access to the reference data, Enterprise Architect helps to manage the structure and transformation of the metadata, from one structure to another as new systems get developed.

A metadata repository enables collection, storage, maintenance, and dissemination of metadata information and Enterprise Architect is a powerful and inexpensive repository tool that can be used with a variety of databases including:

• SQL Server 2000, 2005 or 2008
• MySQL 4 or 5
• PostgreSQL 7 or 8
• Adaptive Server Anywhere 8 or 9, or SQL Anywhere 10 or 11
• Access 2007
• Progress OpenEdge
• MSDE or
• Oracle 9i, 10g or 11g

By default, Enterprise Architect stores its repository data in a .eap file. 

July, 2013

Mr Ben Constable, Senior Analyst at Sparx Systems, shares helpful tips on preparing Enterprise Architect diagrams for presentation in your specification documents, technical standards, reports or other publications. In this webinar, you'll learn:

• Great tips on rapid visual modeling and creation of diagrams
• An effective approach to tidying diagrams - whether imported from other tools or even machine-generated
• How to choose the best diagram options and image formats to suit your needs

Register Today to be part of this exciting event.

If you missed any of our previous webinars, please visit:

http://www.sparxsystems.com/resources/webinar/webinar-series.html

The Sparx Systems website was temporarily offline due to issues experienced by the hosting provider.  We believe this issue has now been resolved.

Sparx Systems would like to apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Through the use of Enterprise Architect, NRF-ARTS and Sparx Systems are collaborating on development of retail standards to foster opportunity and growth through innovation in the retail sector.

Technology and global retail business is generating an industry wave that will bring new markets into being and enable savvy retailers to discover opportunities and growth. The more open and standard the network is, the greater is the variety of services that can be provided to the customer and more point of service (POS) data can be captured for integration with other business critical applications.

UnifiedPOS

The Association for Retail Standards (ARTS) UnifiedPOS standard was created to define a common architecture for describing POS peripherals.  The latest version (V1.13) defines the model for accessing and controlling 36 distinct types of retail peripherals and these models are documented using the widely accepted Unified Modeling Language (UML).

NRF-ARTS

The Association for Retail Technology Standards (ARTS), a division of the National Retail Federation, is a retailer-driven international membership organization. 

ARTS develops best practices, technology standards and educational programs through collaboration and partnerships that enable retailers, their vendors and suppliers to conduct business globally.  These standards, products and programs are dedicated to fostering innovation and increasing retailer efficiency.

The Geospatial World Forum, run out of Rotterdam in The Netherlands is a premier international event showcasing the latest geospatial technology and its value to the world economy. Sparx Systems has been invited to speak at this event, because of its involvement and support for the sector and its relationship with the INSPIRE community, specifically smeSPIRE.

Ken Harkin, Sparx Systems' Business Development Manager will be discussing the ways that Sparx Systems, as a global SME, engages with this community through the provision of Enterprise Architect, accepted as one the most popular UML modelling and design tools within the sector.

For more about the Geospatial World Forum visit www.geospatialworldforum.org