Project Phases

When you integrate a cloud application for the first time, you will naturally try to understand the sequence of steps to succeed in creation of an APS application that will integrate your cloud application with the platform. Here, you will find the process with recommended common steps outlined for the beginners. Later in your practice, you will probably use a bit different sequence as well as miss some of the depicted steps.

Integration Workflow

Generally, an integration process consists of the learning, design, development, and testing (with debugging) phases each split into several steps as presented in the following diagram:

digraph {
    graph [compound=true size="6!" nodesep=0.5 ranksep="0.2 equally" bgcolor="gray95" fontname="times-bold" fontsize="18"];
    node [shape="box" width = "1.7" style="filled" fillcolor="cornsilk" color="blue" fontsize="16" fontcolor="blue"];

    subgraph cluster_0 {
        label = "Learning";
        bgcolor="cadetblue1";
        L1 [label="OSS resource\n management" href="../../platform/oss"];
        L2 [label="Sales\nmanagement" href="../../platform/bss"];
        L3 [label="APS essentials" href="../../model"];
        L1 -> L2;
        L2 -> L3;
    }

    subgraph cluster_1 {
        label = "Design";
        style=filled;
        bgcolor="powderblue";
        D1 [label="Sales model" href="../design/#design-sales-model"];
        D2 [label="APS resource\nmodel" href="../design/aps-model"];
        D3 [label="Integration points\n and user scenarios" href="../design/scenarios"];
        D4 [label="Information\narchitecture" href="../design/ia"];
        D5 [label="Wireframes" href="../design/wireframes"];
        D1 -> D2;
        D2 -> D3;
        D3 -> D4;
        D4 -> D5;
    }

    subgraph cluster_2 {
        label = "Development";
        style=filled;
        bgcolor="powderblue";
        Dev1 [label= "Meta definition" href="../develop/meta"];
        Dev2 [label= "APS types" href="../develop/types"];
        Dev3 [label= "Backend\nexecutables" href="../develop/backend"];
        Dev4 [label= "User interface" href="../develop/frontend"];
        Dev1 -> Dev2;
        Dev2 -> Dev3;
        Dev3 -> Dev4;
    }

    subgraph cluster_3 {
        node [style=filled];
        label = "Testing";
        style=filled;
        bgcolor="powderblue";
        T1 [label= "Deployment" href="../deployment"];
        T2 [label= "Sales" href="../bss"];
        T3 [label= "Provistioning" href="../../../apps/proc/generic/provisioning/#test-generic-operations"];
        T4 [label= "Management\nand use" href="../../../apps/proc/generic/provisioning/#test-custom-operations"];
        T1 -> T2;
        T2 -> T3;
        T3 -> T4;
    }

    // Edges that directly connect one cluster to another
        L1 -> D2 [ltail=cluster_0 lhead=cluster_1];
        D1 -> Dev2 [ltail=cluster_1 lhead=cluster_2];
        Dev1 -> T2 [ltail=cluster_2 lhead=cluster_3];
}

Role based Activity

The following table contains the integration activity and involvement of staff into this process.


ACTIVITY


Outcome

Product Manager
Solution Architect
Integration Developer

Learn: Operations Support System

- Knowledge and skills in managing fundamental service and business components of the platform
- Deployed and provisioned APS demo application

Yes

Yes

Yes

Learn: Business Support System

- Knowledge and skills in creating basic platform products for sale
- Product based on an APS demo application and configured for sale

Yes

Depends on resource model

Depends on resource model

Learn: Prerequisites

- Knowledge and skills in development, deployment, and testing of an APS integration package
- Completed APS demo projects

Yes

Yes

Yes

Design: Sales Model

Sales model for own application

Yes

Depends on sales model

Depends on sales model

Design: Requirements for Solution Architect

Design requirements for a solution architect (Roger)

Yes

Design: APS Resource Model

APS resource model for the application

Yes

Design: Customer Scenarios

Customer and user scenarios

Yes

Design: Information Architecture

Documents in the form of tables:
- UI contents
- APS types - required relations, properties, structures, and operations

Yes

Design: Wireframes

Graphical layout of screens and pop-up windows

Yes

Design: Requirements for Integration Developer

Requirements for the developer (Kevin):
- Integration points
- User scenarios
- Information architecture
- Wireframes

Yes

Develop: Meta Definition

- Meta description of integration components
- List of backend executables

Yes

Develop: Provisioning Logic

- APS types
- PHP scripts

Yes

Develop: Presentation Logic

HTML, JavaScript, and JSON files implementing application UI

Yes

Test: Testing and Debugging

Prototype of the integration package

Yes

The outlined process includes four certification overview steps that ISV needs if they are going to make the application package publicly available through the APS catalog. Otherwise, they can plan similar internal reviews using the recommended certification documents linked from the above table.