A PeopleSoft Administrator’s perspective on the PeopleTools 8.50 RVP

What to expect in the new future release of PeopleTools 8.50 for Web Services:

Probably you are already aware of this, in May 2009; Oracle released RVP for the expected release of its PeopleSoft Enterprise PeopleTools Version 8.50. RVP is short for Release Value Propositions, which is expected to provide what are the major changes or features or enhancements going to be available in the proposed future release. There are mainly four things that Oracle promised in the RVP.
They are:

-          Related Content

-          Improved Integration technology

-          Supported Platforms

-          Greater end-user productivity

Since I am being a PeopleSoft Administrator for more than 6 years, I am mainly interested in knowing the details of “Improved Integration technology” and “Supported Platforms” in the RVP. The details were already released in the Oracle Open World last year. However, the RVP places the details almost officially (They can still change it though!).  

Regarding Integration technology with PeopleSoft, Oracle introduced the much awaited Web Services starting in PeopleTools 8.48. This is one of the major steps in standardizing Integration Technology Platform for PeopleSoft. Starting with 8.48, PeopleSoft provides many integration technologies for system to system integration. They are:

-          Integration Broker

-          Component Interfaces

-          Web Services

-          File Processing

Most of them are PeopleSoft System Specific except for the “Web Services”. Web Services are part of the standard Service Oriented Architecture platform. As per World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), a web service is defined as “a software system designed to support interoperable machine to machine interaction over a network”. To understand Web Services Concept, we need to start knowing the details from Service Oriented Architecture Perspective.

Service Oriented Architecture provides a theory basis for understanding the Web Services Concept. There are mainly three components that are the basics in understanding SOA. They are:

1.       Service Requestor

2.       Service Registry

3.       Service Provider

A Service Requestor is one who needs a service to be performed (Example, a ticket reservation to be made). A Service Requestor submits the request to the Service Registry because he doesn’t know to whom he needs to execute the transaction. The Service Registry keeps the list of Service Providers and links Service Requestor to the Service Provider. This is not at all complicated. The SOA model only uses new terminology. We have seen this in our normal life. The Brokerage system that we see in our day to day life uses this.

Starting with PeopleTools Version 8.48, Oracle started using the Web Services Technology based on Service Oriented Architecture Model. Since, Web Services are based on open standards and maintained mainly by W3C and other organizations that maintains standard, this provides a lot of opportunity for PeopleSoft Systems to integrate with other PeopleSoft and non-PeopleSoft applications.  

We will talk about more about Web Services in coming days. Also, we will discuss more about the upcoming PeopleTools 8.50.

Until then – Vijay Chinnasamy

Tags: Peoplesoft 8.50, Peopletools 8.50, SOA, Web Services

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