Si Siddharth V1

System Integration – By Siddharth Saini What is System Integration? System integration is the bringing together of the component subsystems into one system and ensuring that the subsystems function together as a system. In information technology, systems integration is the process of linking together different computing systems and software applications physically or functionally. The systems integrator brings together discrete systems utilizing a variety of techniques such as computer networking, enterprise application integration, business process management or manual programming. A system is an aggregation of subsystems cooperating so that the system is able to deliver the over-arching functionality. System integration involves integrating existing (often disparate) subsystems. The subsystems will have interfaces. Integration involves joining the subsystems together by “gluing” their interfaces together. If the interfaces don’t directly interlock, the “glue” between them can provide the required mappings. System integration is about determining the required “glue”. In today’s competitive and dynamic business environment, applications such as Supply Chain Management, Customer Relationship Management, Business Intelligence and Integrated Collaboration environments have become imperative for organizations that need to maintain their competitive advantage. Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) is the process of linking these applications and others in order to realize financial and operational competitive advantages. A System Integrator is a company that is capable of making diverse components work together as a system. A major employer of the system integration engineer is the defense industry; the military are driving the whole discipline of 'connectivity'.

Trends in System Integration 1. Integrating Trading and Logistics. This is a natural extension of past

integration trends that has been seen within the trading and risk realm. Interest is seen in following: • Industry players are looking to achieve a more seamless flow of information between their trading and risk group (trading, position

management, credit management, risk analysis, scheduling, accounting, etc.) and their logistics group (ISO/RTO communications, asset bidding and scheduling, shadow settlement, power purchase agreements, complex billing, etc.). • Also more interest is seen in bid support for ISO/RTO markets that includes an automated link with traditional trading functions such as position reporting and risk analysis. Interest in this type of integration spans a very broad user base: traditional utilities, merchant generators, trading firms and municipals and cooperatives, and those that have complex billing requirements and/or firms with complex power purchase agreements. 2. Integrating Planning and Operations: In the future these groups •

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will speak a common language. There is increased interest in taking planning functions into the operations world. Planners have been doing mid- to long-term forecasts of generation, demand, congestion and market prices (LMP and zonal) for years. Operations groups are now seen asking them to produce these forecasts on an ever-shorter timeframe and integrate the results into the trading, risk and logistics systems. The firms looking for this type of integration tend to be mid- to large-sized utilities, municipals or cooperatives (traditional “physical” players). Trading firms that value fundamental analysis are also candidates for this type of integration.

3. Integrating Retail Operations with Trading and Risk

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Management. This is a trend that started in late 2005, picked up speed throughout 2006 and will increase in 2007. The retailers that want to integrate their operations with their trading and risk management functions tend to be those serving multiple markets (e.g., Pennsylvania, Texas, New York, etc.) and offering electricity and natural gas to their customers. There are still a few large players that dominate the retail space (Constellation, Commerce Energy and Direct Energy, to name a few), but we are seeing many new players that are often smaller firms rapidly becoming more sophisticated and looking to integrate their retail operations systems with a credible trading and risk management system.

Spending on Consulting & SI in Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan), 2005

Source: IDC 2006 According to IDC, the spending on System Integration (SI) services in India for 2007 is expected to be around Rs 3,488 crore, growing at 19 percent and contributing to 21 percent of the total IT services market. India’s SI market grew at 29 percent from Rs 5,219 crore in 2005-06 to Rs 6,733 crore in 2006-07. The growth, as the analysts say, can be attributed to many factors like: • the broadband proliferation, • rising number of e-Governance initiatives, • common service centers initiatives and • Computerization of Government-to-Government (G2G) and Government-toCitizen (G2C) services. According to industry estimates for Indian market in 2006-07, the contributors to the System Integration businesses were the BFSI segment ( 900 crore), followed by the IT-ITES sector ( Rs 871 crore ), the Government buying (21 percent of the total market share) and telecom ( 11 percent ).

Major players in the sector: Singapore: Fujitsu Consulting, Singapore Computer Systems ("SCS"), National Computer Systems (“NCS”)

UAE : Emirates Computers, Computer Network Systems (“CNS”)

India: Cognizant, Hexaware, Infosys, Intelligroup, Satyam, IBM, HP, TCS and Wipro.

The Road Ahead: Systems Integrators are poised to move into managed database marketing services. For most players, the key to success is non-traditional programs that blend analytical and operational marketing. Today, the largest names the database marketing services industry are vendors like Acxiom, Experian, and Harte-Hanks. A large portion of these firms’ revenues come from fees associated with designing, building and managing marketing databases, usually under two or three-year contracts. Over the past 18 months, large Systems Integrators (SIs) have taken an increases interest in this business as they: •

Hunt for recurring revenue streams: In the wake of IBM’s acquisition of PwC, other large SI’s have been quick to respond with announcements about their own plans. In private conversation with Forrester, several have identified the $1 billion-plus database marketing services sector as a prime opportunity to fulfill these promises.

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Better appreciate clients’ marketing needs: Unlike customer service projects, database marketing programs require ongoing care and feeding in the form of program design and management. Many marketing departments prefer to outsource these services—but few system integrators are positioned to deliver them. As a result, project leaders have had to watch in frustration as clients underuse or misuse the expensive new apps they installed – then turn to agencies or data management vendors to fix the problem.

Please refer the document below for more basic definitions on SI.

References: http://en.wikipedia.org

www.siaonline.org www.newenergyassoc.com http://www.autonomy.com http://www.fujitsu.com/sg/services/integration/systems/ http://www.emiratescomputers.ae/content.php?content=7&item=469 http://www.cns-me.com/index.asp

http://www.channelworld.in/

http://www.dubaiinternetcity.com/by_btype_IT-Systems-Integrator_19/