OAGi has announced it has launched a Mobile Business Initiative to improve the ability of enterprises to extend their business data interoperability all the way to the edges of their organizations. OAGi will do this by adding technology to the OAGIS standard to better support mobile business and cloud computing and to provide support for Java Script Object Notation (JSON), the most common data expression technology in this new and growing area of business solutions.

When OAGi was formed 16 years ago, the vision was to provide a business process based data exchange language for B2B, enterprise integration, and enterprise to execution systems.

With the large and accelerating adoption of mobile devices, coupled with the power of a Cloud Services Brokerage, it is now possible to provide industrial strength applications with full connectivity to all edges of the enterprise, as well as to customers and suppliers.

“Imagine if a worker communicates the receipt of goods on their mobile device and the receipt goes directly into the enterprise using the same data definitions that the enterprise currently uses for their Canonical Data Model and for doing business with their partners, with no loss of fidelity,” says David Connelly, CEO of the Open Applications Group.

“And then the cloud brokerage service notifies the supplier of the receipt, which triggers an invoice to be sent, thus enabling the enterprise to have a fully connected supply chain from end to end.”

Preventing Silos in the Cloud

Recently, David Linthicum warned in his Cloud Computing Blog that without standards, organizations are in danger of recreating the old silos that were built up inside the enterprise.

The concept of the "Canonical Model" in the enterprise has become a best practice for enterprise interoperability and now these best practices need to be brought into the cloud. If the Canonical Model is left behind when implementing in the cloud, it may diminish the value of IT by recreating the old "spaghetti diagrams" that so many organizations had.

In October 2011, OAGi announced that their Architecture Council is leading a Cloud Computing Initiative and support for JSON and now that initiative is being combed into the concept of Mobile Business, the power of Cloud Computing, and JSON technology as a single initiative.

The Architecture Council is looking at additions or revisions to the OAGIS Specification to ensure that the vision of Mobile Business harnessing Cloud Computing Brokerage Services will enable enterprises to out-innovate their competition, make employees more efficient, improve customer service and control costs.

"Devices coupled with pervasive networks are driving the need for exposing cloud-based data services to enable 'anywhere', 'any time' computing in the ecosystem," added Abhijeet Ranadive, Enterprise B2B Architect, Cisco Systems (CSCO). "APIs that enable this integration paradigm will need to have a standardized light payload format and JSON fits the requirement. Defining OAGi standard in a JSON format is a way to bring together two best in class solutions to meet the information needs."