How one of France's leading companies rebuilt their Information System around an all-Internet approach so as to focus more on customer needs
Remaking France Telecom's Information System: an accountof an outstanding projectIn this exceptional book, Jean-Luc Lucas uncovers for usall aspects of France Telecom's ambitious programme@rchimedes. Initiated in 1998 and today approaching itsfinal phase, this programme involved rethinking thetechnical architecture of France Telecom's InformationSystem (hundreds of applications and 60,000 workstations)in order to rebuild it using 100% Internettechnologies.Strategic choices, project management and technicalsolutionsIn the first part, destined for decision makers,consultants and IS Directors, the author explains how themajor strategic decisions were taken and how the programmewas organized and managed. The second part, which is ofinterest to project managers, architects and systemdevelopers also, plunges into the detail of thearchitecture and the technical solutions adopted,explaining the reasons for the choices and describing themigration path from the existing system to the newarchitecture.A spotlight on the major themes of enterprise-wideITThis unprecedented feedback of experience offers thereader an overall vision of the major IT topics concerningthe enterprise IS: multi-tier architectures, Web browser asthe unique user interface, Java application servers, UMLmodelling, intranet and Internet portals, secure accesscontrol, enterprise middleware bus, EAI, access to legacyapplications, end-to-end IP networks administration andsupervision, and the integration of software products suchas GRC and CTI.A tale rarely so frankWith an approach that is unusually frank in such a book,the author does not hesitate to analyze past failures andto denounce certain technological dead-ends, to defend hisown convictions regarding Internet standards and to uncoverthe reasons that drove the key members of the @rchimedesprogramme to choose certain off-the-shelf products ratherthan others. A precious testimony for all decision makersand actors involved in the enterprise InformationSystem.
