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Keeping the U.S. Computer Industry Competitive: Systems Integration (Free Executive Summary)
http://www.nap.edu/catalog/1914.html
Free Executive Summary
ISBN: 978-0-309-04544-5, 106 pages, 6 x 9, paperback (1992)
This executive summary plus thousands more available at www.nap.edu.
Keeping the U.S. Computer Industry Competitive:
Systems Integration
Computer Science and Telecommunications Board,
Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and
Applications, National Research Council
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"It should be read and internalized by anyone who wants to understand how the industry
will evolve between now and the year 2000." Computing Reviews, June 1993
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Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
This executive summary plus thousands more available at http://www.nap.edu
Keeping the U.S. Computer Industry Competitive: Systems Integration
http://books.nap.edu/catalog/1914.html
Executive Summary
Systems integration offers an enormous opportunity for U.S. firms to
capitalize on their strengths in such areas as complex software, networking, and
management. Although no single definition of systems integration is complete, it
can be broadly considered as the "wiring" together, via hardware and frequently
very complex software, of the often already existing islands of computer
applications into a coordinated enterprise-wide distributed network system. As
this formulation suggests, the fundamental challenges raised by systems
integration are those associated with building large systems from heterogeneous
components. There is a growing demand for such systems, and a growing need to
overcome the vexing challenges inherent in their design and development. At a
January 1991 colloquium organized by the Computer Science and
Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council, industry leaders,
university researchers, and government policymakers discussed how systems
integration is taking shape today and why it is expected to define the
characteristics of computerization for decades to come.
Systems integration can be viewed as a culmination of computing and
communications research done to date. To fulfill the promise of systems
integration, a wide range of component technologies—including databases,
operating systems, architectures, networks, security mechanisms, human
interfaces, artificial intelligence, and communications—must work together.
Expertise about the many domains in which systems integration is applied
(finance, retail, transportation, and so on) must also be invoked. Thus an
interdisciplinary approach is essential to successful systems integration, as are
complementary and coordinated research and development efforts in
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1
About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original
typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained,
and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution.
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
This executive summary plus thousands more available at http://www.nap.edu
Keeping the U.S. Computer Industry Competitive: Systems Integration
http://books.nap.edu/catalog/1914.html
industry, academia, and government. Toward both ends, colloquium participants
urged that universities pay more attention to systems integration in devising
educational and research programs in computing and communications.
The technological challenges encompassed in systems integration are
formidable, but for the moment they play to U.S. strengths. For example, much
of systems integration depends on the development of sophisticated and often
highly specialized software—a difficult process but one in which the United
States is preeminent. Other key abilities essential to successful systems
integration, also abilities in which the United States excels, include creative
problem solving and management of complex, often one-of-a-kind processes.
One area in which the U.S. record is mixed is that of standards setting. The
continued development of systems integration as an industry depends
fundamentally on the compatibility of component technologies. Therefore
standards of interoperability are indispensable. Colloquium participants were
uniform in urging that more attention be paid to the standards-making process—
by government as well as by industry.
Systems integration involves more than technology: its highest-order task is
integrating people—helping them assimilate information, create, collaborate,
and, in sum, work more productively. While networks of machines and devices
are the ostensible manifestations of the trend toward distributed computing and
communications, the most significant connections, according to colloquium
participants, are those between people and organizational units using linked
devices. For this reason, systems integration technology, and in particular the
successful building and operation of networked computer applications, is
considered key to the emergence of an information infrastructure for the nation
(and the world).
Colloquium participants expressed both hope and concern for the anticipated
information infrastructure. The quality of that infrastructure, as well as its timely
development, hinges on leadership and vision; this was a principal area of
agreement among participants. It also hinges on constructive collaboration among
industry, government, and academia. The federal High Performance Computing
and Communications (HPCC) program was recognized by participants as a key
step toward developing this infrastructure and as a valuable mechanism for
fostering interactions among government, industry, and academia. Other federal
projects, including systems modernization at government agencies, could also
serve to demonstrate applications of systems integration and options for cross-
sectoral collaboration.
The United States faces a peculiar challenge in the evolution of its
computing, telecommunications, and broadcast media infrastructure. The quality
and availability of U.S. telephone service, entertainment, and business computing
are unparalleled. But because it was the first country to embrace
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2
About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original
typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained,
and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution.
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
This executive summary plus thousands more available at http://www.nap.edu
Keeping the U.S. Computer Industry Competitive: Systems Integration
http://books.nap.edu/catalog/1914.html
many of these new technologies, the United States must now build on a rapidly
aging (by the standards of information technology development today)
foundation. The huge installed technology base is both an engine for current
activities and a constraint on the development and implementation of new
technologies; obtaining the benefit of the new with minimal disruption to ongoing
activities that depend on the old is no small challenge.
One important factor in the evolution of information infrastructure is the
body of U.S. telecommunications regulations. Colloquium participants observed
that those regulations may not have kept pace with changing technologies and
industry boundaries. In particular, the proliferation of digital technology into
communications results in an effective convergence of computing,
communications, and entertainment (programming) industries that raises new
questions about fairness, competitive conduct, and other concerns long addressed
through telecommunications regulations.
As the predominantly digital technologies essential for systems integration
continue to mature, the focus of activity in systems integration may shift from
creating a solution to a problem to engineering that solution. This change in focus
may allow foreign competitors who excel in engineering and implementation but
not necessarily in devising innovative solutions an opportunity to enter the
systems integration market. U.S. systems integration firms thus should not be
content with being first to market, nor sanguine in their belief in the "American"
nature of the industry. U.S. high-technology industries are rife with instances in
which American leadership was supplanted by superior production from abroad.
Moreover, colloquium participants observed that foreign countries, most notably
Japan and countries in Western Europe, have been developing their information
infrastructures with greater levels of determination and comprehensiveness than
those exhibited thus far in the United States.
To date, systems integration has been a success story. It is time that
government, industry, and academia collectively acknowledge the value of
systems integration and act to assure the ongoing vitality and competitiveness of
U.S. technical and commercial activities in systems integration.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3
About this PDF file: This new digital representation of the original work has been recomposed from XML files created from the original paper book, not from the original
typesetting files. Page breaks are true to the original; line lengths, word breaks, heading styles, and other typesetting-specific formatting, however, cannot be retained,
and some typographic errors may have been accidentally inserted. Please use the print version of this publication as the authoritative version for attribution.
Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
This executive summary plus thousands more available at http://www.nap.edu
Keeping the U.S. Computer Industry Competitive: Systems Integration
http://books.nap.edu/catalog/1914.html
. Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
This executive summary plus thousands more available at http://www.nap.edu
Keeping the U. S. Computer Industry Competitive: . Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
This executive summary plus thousands more available at http://www.nap.edu
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