Upgrade consideration for Interface

Posted on May 03, 2010 at 06.19 PM - Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

As we have discussed in the previous blog Upgrade Options, we can do either:

1. Technical Upgrade, or

2. Reimplementation

So, how does it affect the interface if it's a reimplementation? Since it's a reimplementation, we have chance to redesign the interfaces if necessary. However, can we really streamline the number of interfaces actually by upgrade?

We can only streamline number of interfaces in these situations:

1. Change of business process where certain interfaces are not required anymore

2. Change of business application where new application combines several existing functionalities in one integrated platform

During upgrade however, in the new version, certain functionalities may now have better or standard integration, as such we don't have to build a custom integration. There is the only thing that we can hope for.

Another possibility, is to stream line the sending and receiving interfaces as much as possible so that it's easier to maintain. Over here, the number of interfaces are not going down actually, but we just try to combine several almost similar interfaces into one sending or receiving interfaces.

Now let's see how we can do to redesign the interfaces. Actually when it comes to redesign the interfaces, the same principles as in development should be applied. We will discuss these interface design principles in more detail in the next blog.

1. Data integrity
2. Guaranteed Delivery
3. Security
4. Sequencing of messages
5. Error notification
6. Monitoring Capability
7. Error Correction
8. Audit Trails
9. Future Development

The only different is that, when doing the redesign, we want to reuse as much as the previous design as possible. We don't want to change the existing objects if there is no significant improvement will be gained as a result.

Life is beautiful! Let's make it meaningful and colorful!