Chapter 1

A Business Trip in the Not-Too-Distant Future

This is a story of a business trip in the not-too-distant future. It illustrates how a business traveler relies on service-oriented architectures. Those service-oriented architectures use Web services along with cloud computing.

The term Web services can be confusing. It is often used in different ways. Compounding this confusion is the term services, which has a different meaning than Web services.

In this book, Web services is defined as a means to connect services together. A service is software that performs some computing function and has some type of underlying computer system. Although not required, cloud computing may provide that underlying computer system.

The assembly of services—internal and external to an organization—makes up a service-oriented architecture (SOA). This is yet another confusing term, since SOA is a design and development style rather than an actual architecture. Nevertheless, the result of that development is commonly referred to as an architecture.

The Business Trip

This is the story of C. R., which is short for Connected Representative. In this story, C. R. is about to take a business trip to Europe. This trip is much like any business trip in that it will involve visiting multiple customers in different cities over three or four days and responding to routine tasks from the office. At one time, C. R. carried a cell phone and a laptop on business trips. Nowadays, C. R. carries just a smartphone. On this trip, C. R. will also wear his regular eyeglasses that are augmented with a heads-up display, an earpiece, and a camera. The eyeglasses communicate with his smartphone.

To start planning his trip, C. R. uses a smartphone application that is part of his virtual personal assistant (VPA). He asks the VPA to find all customers near each stop in his trip and to rank them based on criteria from his organization’s business intelligence (BI)/analytics system. Although there are specific customers he wants to visit, he also wants to make sure he is keeping in touch with as many customers as he can. Using the list provided by the VPA, C. R. identifies the customers he might see and makes minor changes in the ranking of customers for arranging meetings. He adds the dates for when he wants to leave and return. Then he asks the VPA to arrange meetings. The VPA sends the meeting invitations. Some invitations are by email and others use C. R.’s social network account; the VPA determines the best way to contact the customers.

Within a few minutes of sending the meeting invitations, one of C. R.’s customers confirms the invitation and asks if he is available for dinner. C. R. accepts the invitation. The VPA updates the travel itinerary and calendar. The VPA will keep C. R. informed of any changes that might occur throughout the trip.

Let’s depart from this story here for a moment. There are two components to C. R.’s VPA. One component is on his smartphone, which has already been mentioned. Another component exists in the public cloud. This means C. R. can access his VPA using other devices (e.g., someone else’s phone or a desktop) should he desire. It also allows the VPA to help manage his life even if C. R.’s smartphone is turned off or unreachable. Many of the travel arrangements described here are handled by the VPA component in the public cloud.

As the day progresses, C. R. receives additional messages. The VPA uses the messages to update C. R.’s calendar. Within a few hours, the VPA delivers information about his flights, transportation arrangements, and hotel reservations in three cities. C. R. opens his calendar on his smartphone to check his itinerary. The arrangements are fine and he confirms the plans. At this point, his manager receives an itinerary of C. R.’s trip on her calendar that includes the departure and return trips along with hotels where C. R. will be staying. Her VPA alerts her of the update along with a list of assignments C. R. is supposed to complete in the near term. This list prompts her to send a message reminding C. R. to review several documents in the documentation repository in his organization’s virtual private cloud. C. R. will browse these documents sometime during his trip. C. R.’s spouse also receives updates to her personal calendar that include the departure and return trips along with hotels where C. R. will be staying and hotel phone numbers inserted in the appropriate days. This is something she likes to have handy when C. R. is traveling. Her VPA did not alert her of the change since it knows this type of calendar update from C. R. is not something requiring a notification to C. R.’s spouse.

The itinerary created by the VPA includes links to information about the customers to be visited (including addresses). C. R.’s VPA ensures the address information is stored locally on his smartphone. The global positioning system (GPS) on his smartphone uses these addresses while C. R. is driving.

The VPA takes advantage of application programming interfaces (APIs) that use standard semantic vocabularies (the data and the names to use when describing the data). Airlines, hotel chains, car rental companies, restaurant reservation systems, calendaring systems, and many other services on the Internet have agreed to use standard semantic vocabularies. Recently, C. R.’s organization added similar APIs to the repository it maintains in its virtual private cloud so that employees’ VPAs can interact with the repository.

The morning that C. R. is to depart, his smartphone awakens him two hours early (C. R. uses the alarm clock feature of his phone and his VPA knows when he expects to get up). The reason for waking C. R. early is that there is a serious accident with a chemical spill on the direct route C. R. would normally take to the airport. The VPA recognized that C. R. is going to need more time to get to the airport. Once in his car, the VPA suggests an alternate route. This is based on the traffic information provided as a service by the local department of transportation (DOT). The DOT service tries to make the most efficient use of the routes around the airport, given that the chemical spill will take many hours to clean up. To route traffic, the DOT service uses information provided by thousands of VPAs, the clients of which will be traveling to or near the airport. The VPAs and the DOT service negotiate travel routes that the VPAs then suggest as alternate travel routes to their clients (like C. R.).

Thanks to C. R.’s VPA, he arrives at the airport, in time to check in his baggage, pass through security, and eat lunch before boarding his flight.

The first stop on his trip is Bonn, Germany. As C. R.’s plane approaches the gate at the Cologne Bonn Airport, the VPA recognizes it by the geolocation and also determines that this is C. R.’s first visit to this airport. So, the VPA prepares to provide C. R. with help to navigate through the airport. As C. R. departs the plane, the VPA uses the arrival gate information from the airline service and a map of the airport to tell C. R. via his earpiece how to walk to customs. Once through customs, the VPA guides C. R. to baggage and then to a car. On the way, VPA checks C. R. in with his car rental service and C. R.’s phone receives details about where he can pick up his rental car.

At the parking garage, C. R.’s VPA displays the stall number and car license number on the heads-up display of C. R.’s eyeglasses. When leaving the garage, the security guard scans a code on C. R.’s smartphone and his driver’s license to confirm authorization to leave with the rental car. C. R. will not have trouble navigating to his appointments because his glasses and smartphone provide a voice-activated personal navigation system with turn-by-turn guidance, voice instructions, and real-time traffic reports. C. R.’s VPA filters the traffic reports so that C. R. only hears what the VPA “knows” he will consider useful. The VPA has chosen a hotel in the heart of Bonn where C. R. will stay the evening, and it is located near a restaurant that the VPA also “knows” C. R. will like.

While driving, C. R.’s VPA reports a significant problem that a customer is having with one of the products from C. R.’s organization. This is good to know before going into his first meeting. C. R. asks his VPA to collect recent information about this customer and the problem with the product. Once C. R. is in his room, the VPA reminds him that the information he requested is now available from both the customer relationship management (CRM) service that resides in the public cloud and the organization’s repository in its virtual private cloud. C. R. also calls the representative assigned to the problem to ask for any additional information before tomorrow’s meeting.

After a day of visiting customers, C. R. forgets where he parked his car in a large parking ramp. C. R. easily finds the car because the rental company equipped the car with location tracking. C. R.’s VPA accesses the rental car service in the public cloud and provides C. R. with audio and visual instructions to where the car is parked.

From Bonn, C. R. takes an express train to Paris, France. When C. R. arrives at Gare du Nord, he is eager to get to the hotel and rest. This station is a busy metropolitan destination for travelers. Using the online taxi tracking service, the VPA determines that the crush of arrivals means there are no available taxi stands without a long waiting line in the proximity of the train station. The VPA directs C. R. to a nearby Paris Métro stop with guidance to the route to take and where to get off near his hotel. C. R. pays the Métro fare using his smartphone.

At the hotel, C. R. receives a telephone call from a customer inviting him to lunch at a bistro a short walk from the hotel. C. R. phones the customer and confirms that he would be delighted to have lunch and confirms the time. When C. R. gets outside the hotel, his glasses display the directions to the bistro.

C. R. arrives at the bistro a few minutes before the customer. Arriving early allows C. R. to review background information about the customer the VPA provides him from his organization’s repository. C. R has never met this customer before, but he is not worried about not recognizing him because his smartphone can match the telephone number with the geolocation of the customer’s cell phone. When the customer arrives, the smartphone sends a signal to C. R. and displays a recent photo of the customer from a social networking site on his glasses. C. R. stands up from his chair to greet the customer.

After an aperitif and pleasantries, the waiter brings the menus. The menu is in French and although C. R. cannot read French, his glasses allow him to read the menu in English. He places his finger under an item on the menu and hears the translation in his earpiece just loud enough that only he can hear. The VPA also checks an online allergy service and informs C. R. if there is a chance the menu item might trigger any of C. R.’s food allergies.

After a busy day of visiting customers, C. R. takes the Métro to the Louvre Museum. His VPA provides directions. From past visits to museums, the VPA has learned that C. R. particularly likes works by Impressionist painters and indicates where they can be found in the museum. At the Louvre, his glasses sense when he stops in front of a particular artwork, then his VPA works with a cloud-based service to recognize the artwork and provide commentary on the art. The VPA knows C. R. is particularly interested in the year something was painted, background on the artist, and who influenced the artist’s style. The commentary plays quietly in his earpiece at a volume no one else can hear because, based on his geolocation, the VPA “knows” C. R. is in a museum.

The next stop is London, England. From Paris, C. R. takes the Eurostar train under the English Channel to London’s St. Pancras Railway Station. In preparation for arrival, the VPA recommends that taking the Underground to the customer’s office is faster than a taxi and provides the quickest Underground lines to take and waiting times. The VPA will provide commentary and walking directions out of the Underground and through the streets of London.

C. R. receives a notification from the VPA of a scheduling change and that he should check his calendar. He opens his calendar on his smartphone and sees that the last customer he wanted to see has canceled (a link inserted by the VPA to a corresponding e-mail message explains why, and asks if he is available for a video chat instead) and that two different customers were added to the trip (based on his earlier rankings). These customers are in a city outside of London. This requires changing C. R.’s current hotel reservation, arranging a hotel in the new city, and making train reservations to the city (all arranged by the VPA). The VPA sends notifications to C. R.’s spouse and manager as well.

With the permission of his customers, C. R. records every meeting (sometimes with photos or video using his glasses). After each meeting, C. R. dictates additional observations and the VPA sends his observations and the recorded meeting to an online service that reduces it to a summary. Later in the trip, C. R. reviews the summary and makes minor changes before submitting it to his organization’s repository.

With some customers, C. R. was able to sign contracts. He scanned the contracts with his smartphone. A scanning service converted them to PDFs and added the appropriate identification details for use by his organization’s BI/analytics system. The VPA routed the scanned contracts to the CRM service, the repository, and the appropriate people in C. R.’s organization so that they could immediately start working on the agreements.

By now, you have probably noticed that C.R’s organization has very current and detailed information on every customer contact. The organization found that in its industry, this makes a big difference in how well employees can support their customers. It also identifies any need that customers might have for additional products or services. This customer information is aggregated from multiple sources, both internal and external to C. R.’s organization.

The next morning, C. R. receives a notification that his flight is canceled. The airline, however, offers him an alternate flight that will leave early the next morning. C. R. confirms the reservations. The VPA arranges a hotel room near the airport and sends a text message to C. R.’s spouse describing the changed plans. C. R. uses this free time to have a video chat with the customer he could not meet earlier in the week.

Throughout the trip, the VPA collected C. R.’s expenses. He used his smartphone to pay for everything except for small cash expenses that C. R. told his VPA to record as he went. The VPA interacted with a service that manages expense reports and used one of the expense report formats approved by C. R.’s organization. When C. R. returned to the office, he reviewed the expenses, made a few minor changes, and submitted it to the expense report service. The service submitted the necessary information to the external payroll processing service used by C. R.’s organization. C. R. will receive his expense reimbursement on his next payroll check.