- AFG is Australia's largest mortgage broker processing over $4 billion monthly in loans. They moved to an "cloud only" IT strategy to better meet business demands. - AFG's core home loan application process was from a third party, so they chose Oracle products like Process Cloud Service to develop a new customized process. - Two initial integration plans between the services had issues, so the best option was to use Oracle Service-Oriented Architecture Cloud Service for its support of best practices and reusability. - While Process Cloud Service can be used, more traditional on-premise architectures do not always fit cloud-based solutions, and Integration Cloud Service is better for simple "adapters." AFG plans to

1. The AFG Case
Lykle Thijssen, 01-06-2016
Business Processes in the Cloud

2. 2
About me
• Lykle Thijssen
• Working at AMIS since 2015
• SOA/BPM Specialist
• International Experience: Netherlands & Turkey
• Went to Australia for PCS/ICS project this year

3. About AFG
Australian Finance Group (AFG)
• Established in 1994
• Australia’s largest mortgage broker
• Processing more than $4 billion of mortgage finance monthly
• Substantial investments in technology required

4. IT Challenges
Challenges:
• Difficulty to implement business demands
• High maintenance costs
• Difficulty finding qualified IT staff
Solution:

5. 5
AFG Cloud
IT Strategy: “cloud only”
• More pro-active to industry, customers and business demands
• Focus on continuous improvement
• Modern application backbone
• Removed 3 out of the top 5 business risks (classified)
• Innovation/maintenance ratio up to 60% (was 24%)

6. Core process
AFG’s core process, the Home Loan Application process, is purchased from
a third party and the contract is expiring. AFG wants to develop a more
specific process and has selected Oracle products to do so:
• Oracle Process Cloud Service
• Oracle Document Cloud Service
• Oracle Integration Cloud Service
• Oracle Policy Automation Cloud Service

7. 7
Solutions A & B
Plan A: Integrate PCS directly with OPA and other services
• Cheap & easy
• Questionable, according to on-premise best practices
• Impossible, because of OPA interface (entities & attributes)
Plan B: Integrate PCS with OPA and other services through ICS
• Still cheap & easy
• Point-to-point connections: smart architecture for a growing enterprise?
• Impossible, because of WS-Addressing requirement
• Other issues:
– SOAP Fault handling questionable in ICS
– HTTP Header broken by ICS
– Lack of orchestration

8. 8
Solution C
Only one option left: replace ICS by SOA CS:
• Supports best practices (service layering)
• Supports reusability (business services)
• Supports WS-Addressing etc...
• More complex than ICS
• More expensive than ICS
• More maintenance required than ICS

9. 9
SOA & PCS Architecture
Service layering:
• Requester Service (Service Bus)
• Business Service (BPEL)
• Provider Service (Service Bus)
CDM (MDS):
• For SOA layer only
• Requester Service
and PCS separated
User interface:
• WebForms

10. 10
SOA & PCS Architecture

11. 11
SOA & PCS Architecture
Differences with on-premise architecture:
• Types directly in Requester Service wsdl
• Multiple operations in Requester Service
• Process & UI tightly coupled
• Process & Documents tightly coupled
• Service Bus with JMS needed to provide high availability for PCS
Best practices? Not for BPM Suite, but PCS requires this.

12. 12
PCS vs BPM
Process Cloud Service is BPM, but it’s not BPM Suite:
• Containered BPM vs Enterprise BPM on top of SOA
• Tightly coupled UI vs Loosely Coupled UI
• Citizen developer vs Technical specialist
• Easy-to-use Admin console vs Enterprise Manager
• Pay per named user vs License payment
• Low maintenance vs High maintenance

13. 13
Lessons learned
• Process Cloud Service must mature, but can be used
• Integration Cloud Service recommended for “adapters only”
• Web service integration still for “techies”
• Traditional on-premise architecture doesn’t always fit

14. 14
What’s next?
• Finish the Home Loan Application Process
• Possibly add other processes and re-use SOA Business Services
• Consider moving other applications to SOA
• The Cloud is The Future

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Thank you for your attention!