Agresso VITA Versus SOA and Traditional ERP architectures

Industry analyst firm, Robert Frances Group (RFG) (www.experture.com), has produced a new report that takes an in-depth look at service oriented architectures (SOA) and alternatives to Agresso’s VITA capability.  RFG states that SOA as it exists today is nothing more than a set of principles and interface adapters that enable disparate, disjointed applications to work together. “SOA, therefore, is a means by which business intelligence, ERP, and other application packages communicate with one another and support business needs.”

However, RFG says that simply connecting disparate technologies via SOA frameworks will not support business change.  “The Agresso model is unique in the world of ERP systems in that it is built from the underlying business processes on down, from the results backwards, and incorporates the flexibility commonly used in relational database models.  Agresso uses a single data model for its business logic, data dictionary, information delivery, and process flow across all its applications – business process automation, field services and asset management, financial management, HR, payroll, procurement, project costing and billing, and reporting and analytics. This consistency and cohesiveness enables Agresso applications to seamlessly work with one another and adapt to change without customisation or programming modification.  Agresso also supports SOA interfaces so that external SOA-enabled application plug-ins can communicate and provide application services.”

The report concludes:  “RFG believes Agresso's VITA architecture brings a unique value proposition to businesses and corporate executives that is unmatched in the ERP world. It enables executives to become operational faster, more economically, and without a large staff of consultants and programmers. Furthermore, business people can be self-sufficient in its use and modification, allowing companies to respond almost instantaneously to changing business needs without the overhead and delay injected by programmers and other IT staff. These factors should make Agresso's ERP solution the preferred choice amongst organisations that are constantly changing to meet shifting business and environmental requirements.”