Cloud Computing and Interoperable Components

Dr. Vishal Sikka, the CTO of SAP, talks about timeless software which has four major thrusts, two of which are:

• Cloud-based consumption of computing
• Interoperable components: lessons learned from SOA

The challenge of the two isn't building the cloud and building the services, but integrating the services of the service provider and service consumer. In other industries, such as oil and gas, SAP has sufficient critical mass to be a defacto standard. In banking this simply isn't the case. There are few commonly agreed upon data structures, messaging standards, etc. SWIFT and IFX are exceptions to prove the rule. Banks don't have plug and play interoperable components. That makes cloud based services more of a challenge. I think SAP understands the challenge and therefore spun out its business process for banking into the non-profit BIAN. From www.bian.org: The target of BIAN is to enable faster strategic and operational changes of the banking business by providing systematically defined banking functional IT services based on a broad consensus in the banking industry. Other technology vendors have signed up such as SunGard, Callataÿ and Wouters, Temenos, and Microsoft. Banks such as Deutsche Postbank, ING, and Credit Suisse have also joined. BIAN has a long road ahead to becoming a defacto standard, but with a few (more than one or two) years, could become one, not universally, but widely, adopted. That would be a huge accomplishment for BIAN. Best of luck.