The CORA Model

Introduction

This is the second blog in a series about Capgemini's Technovison and the mapping onto CORA. In the first blog Technovision was explained, being in short the provisioning of a clear picture of the information technologies that are the most relevant to the organizations' business drivers and how these technologies and their evolution will impact business.

With Technovision the business drivers are mapped to innovations as an input to the IT-Strategy. With the CORA model the gap between the IT strategy and actual implementation of software is bridged because the CORA model can be used at different levels (Enterprise level, project implementation level) and has the possibility to design and implement elements with a mixture of ‘architecture styles’ on the best fitted platform available (or planned).

By mapping the 17 identified key information technology trends within Technovision onto the layers and logical elements of the CORA model the impact on the IT landscape is visualized and assessed in more detail. In this blog post the key information technology trends within the "You Experience" cluster are mapped and assessed.

The "You Experience" cluster describes a new generation of user interface technologies and devices that provide a compelling, highly individualized experience. Through these technologies, users connect freely to the network of everything to act, interact, co-create, learn and share knowledge in exactly the way that suits their needs. The "You Experience" shifts the focus of development away from solutions that are designed and built beforehand. Instead, unique, tailored systems are quickly orchestrated with fine-grained components (services) from sources both inside and outside the organization. More often, the business users and consumers themselves will create these personalized mashups, where the IT department focuses on making the enabling components available. 

The following capabilities ("Technology Trends" or "Building blocks") are part of this cluster:

• Rich Internet Applications (RIAs): highly interactive media-rich applications that are executed through a simple Internet browser.
• Role-based user portals: which morph content to the specific, context-dependent needs of an individual user
• iPodification: simple to use yet advanced featured devices that combine multiple functionalities
• Human mashup interaction: solutions quickly assembled from multiple services, potentially from many different sources inside and outside the organization.

CORA mapping

Mapping the capabilities onto CORA result in the following figure (click to enlarge).

As shown in the figure the capabilities have a clear focus on the Channel Access and Presentation Layer. The other horizontal layers are layers supporting these two depending on the architectural style used. For the sake of simplicity the capabilities are described separately, but combinations of capabilities are possible, for instance presenting RIA's and Mashups using a Portal.

A RIA is a Web application designed to deliver the same features and functions normally associated with desktop applications, such as drag and drop, menus and toolbars. Because the richness is related to functionality, RIA’s are classified as function oriented. RIA's are built as a composition of other, already existing applications as well as enriching user experience of individual applications. With the first one the Composition and Integration layers will be involved, suggesting that the SOA and/or ROA architecture style should be used. With the second one the SOA, ROA, and /or N-tier architecture style can be used, depending on the requirements. Today, many of these type of RIA's are implemented using a 4-Tier architecture style (Presentation, Webapplication, Application, Data). To reduce interfering with the display and behavior of a webpage (Presentation) the Ajax-technique* is used to retrieve data from the Webapplication asynchronously (SOA Architectural Style). This is a perfect example of mixing different architectural styles within one solution. 

Role-based user Portals

Role-based user Portals can be implemented using different architectural styles, depending on the requirements. For instance an application in the Portal is assessed directly (N-Tier) while simultaneously in another Portlet a service call for a Twitter update is shown (ROA). This example also shows the implementation of the 'User Interface Integration"-element. Because within role-based user Portals special care must be taken regarding 'Authorization' and 'Single Sign On' these are explicitly mapped onto the model. 

iPodification

Today applications can be downloaded onto smartphones ("Ipodification"). These applications contain their own Presentation, Application and sometimes even Data-Layers and are always implemented using the N-tier architecture style (to reduce complexitiy this is not mapped onto the CORA). When requesting data, mainly the SOA and/or ROA architectural styles are used.

Human mashup interaction

‘Mashups’ are where data and data streams from various sources are fused into a representation that allows for the derivation of new information or added value. Human Mashup are almost always implemented using the SOA and ROA architecture style, combining data from many different sources inside and outside the organization, thus using all CORA layers. Because of this, special care must be taken regarding 'Authentication' and 'Principal Propagation'. Both are therefore mapped explicitly onto the model.

In the next blog post the technology cluster "We Collaborate" will be mapped onto CORA.

*in reality a group of interrelated web development techniques