Information Technology Map and IT Road Map - · PDF fileInformation Technology Map and IT Road Map ... we have been creating the information technology map and the IT road map as part

NRI Information Technology Report 2005 vol. 6

Copyright © 2005 Nomura Research Institute, Ltd. All rights reserved.

1

Information Technology Mapand IT Road Map

(First Half of Fiscal 2005)

1 Information Technology Map2 IT Road Map

1 Road Map for Smart Cards2 Road Map for Information Search Technology

3 Conclusion

Masatoshi KOMEICHI is a senior researcher in the Information Technology ResearchDepartment of the Advanced Information Technology Division of NRI. He is an IT analyst andengaged in researching and analyzing IT trends. His specialties include technologies relating toservers and the ubiquitous network. He is a member of the Ubiquitous Networking ForumPlanning Committee.

Eiji FUJIYOSHI is an assistant chief researcher in the Information Technology ResearchDepartment of NRI. He is an IT analyst whose specialties include wireless and mobile technolo-gies. He has recently been engaged in research on the overall technologies supporting the ubiqui-tous network society, such as RFID (IC tags), smart cards, mobile phones and sensors.

Atsushi KAMETSU is an assistant chief researcher in the Information Technology ResearchDepartment of NRI. He is an IT analyst and engaged in researching and analyzing IT trends. Hisspecialties include the analysis of technological trends of information systems in general (mainlyEIP and knowledge management), and research relating to the application of ubiquitous networktechnology in the knowledge field.

In the midst of rapid development of information technology (IT), the environment surrounding IT,which includes broadband networks, mobile terminal devices and information devices, has also beenincreasingly changing. In order for a business enterprise to make a suitable IT investment, it is neces-sary to understand the objective positioning of the technology that is usable at present. At the sametime, it must map out a technical strategy that predicts the trend of the important technology availablein the future. Nomura Research Institute, Ltd. (NRI) names such activity “IT navigation.” Since 2001,we have been creating the information technology map and the IT road map as part of this activity.

Keywords: Information technology map, IT road map, smart card, SAM



2

The information technology map is designed to pro-vide guidelines for activities in making the best use ofeach type of information technology. This map pro-vides a bird’s-eye view of numerous information tech-nologies that are currently available and objectivelypositions these technologies.

Figure 1 defines the fields used in the informationtechnology map. The horizontal axis of the map cate-gorizes the technologies according to purpose anduser. Specifically, it is roughly divided into threefields: “development technology” such as develop-ment tools; “infrastructure technology” that is used asinfrastructure without relying on applications; and“user technology” that is used as functions at the levelof user applications. The vertical axis shows the matu-rity of the technology. It is divided into three fields:the “advanced field,” which includes technologiesthat are used in projects requiring state-of-the-art tech-nology; the “core field,” which includes technologiescommonly used in many projects; and the “legacy

field,” which includes matured technologies with fewtechnological changes. Generally, a technologyappears from the advanced field in the upper portionof the map and gradually moves down to the legacyfield in the lower portion.

Figure 2 is an information technology map that wascreated in the first half of fiscal year 2005. Each pointindicated on the map corresponds to a single technol-ogy. Names of some of the technologies that haverecently seen some changes are plotted on the map asrepresentative technologies. Technologies marked withan arrow are those that have greatly advanced in matu-rity in the past six months. They are “open source devel-opment environments,” “open source DBMS,” “XMLdatabases,” “blade servers,” “Linux servers,” and “sin-gle sign-on.” The arrows indicate the extent of changesin maturity; the starting point of an arrow represents thematurity of a technology six months ago, and its endingpoint represents the current maturity. Because these tech-nologies, which have greatly advanced in maturity in

1 Information Technology Map

State-of-the-art technology

Matured technologies

X

Y

Z

I II III

Advanced developmenttechnology field

Development technology User technologyInfrastructure technology

X-I X-IIIX-II

Y-I

Z-I

Y-II

Z-II

Y-III

Z-III

Figure 1. Field Definition for Information Technology Map

Field in which the most advanced elements are applied as development technology

Advanced infrastructuretechnology field

Core IT field

Field in which the latest IT is applied in terms of infrastructure technology without relying on applications

Core IT that is shared as organizational knowledge without falling under either the development side or the user side, and is used by a number of people

Legacy field

Matured technologies with few technological changes

Advanced usertechnology field

Field of technologies applied to user systems, such as those within a company, between companies, consumers and social systems



3

the past six months, are already widely distributed andcan be used on a stable basis, they can also be activelyemployed in mission critical fields. ITIL (InformationTechnology Infrastructure Library), legacy migrationtools, JSF, BPM/BAM, ESB, SOA, open source middle-ware and virtual machine technology are technologiesthat have seen substantial growth in the number of hitsin keyword searches of magazines such as those pub-lished by Nikkei BP and are receiving increased atten-tion. As for those technologies, a constant monitoring of

trends or acquisitions through in-house R&D activitiesand/or verification tests must be considered accordingto the maturity of technologies.

This information technology map is not a mereframework proposed by NRI. The fact that the JapanInformation Technology Services Industry Association(JISA) adopted the map last year as a methodologyfor technology evaluation and its research resultappeared in Nikkei Computer illustrates its wide-spread use and increasingly heightened recognition.

The IT road map is designed to support clientcompanies and NRI Group companies in makingdecisions on IT strategies by establishing a highlyprecise view of each technology field up to fiveyears in the future. NRI is continuously creatingroad maps for technology fields that are expectedto play important roles in the future. This paperintroduces the trends of smart cards and informa-

tion search technology from among those tech-nologies.

Road Map for Smart Cards

Figure 3 is a road map for smart cards. This paperexamines smart cards with a view to outlining theirtechnology, current services and future development.

Y: Core technology

X: Advanced technology

Z: Legacy technology

Management

Investmentmanagement

Developmentmethods

System collaboration/middleware Server OSs Networks

Security

Businessapplications

Terminaltechnologies

Contentknowledge

Provisioning

LegacyMigration tools

ITIL JSF

BPM/BAM

SOA

ESB

Open source middleware

Virtual machine technology

Windows Server 2003

Web servicesXML database

Linux servers

Visual Basic

COBOL Mainframes

Technologies that have greatly advanced in maturityTechnologies with substantial growth in the number of keyword search hits

Single sign-on

Instant messaging

Enterprise information portal (EIP)

Biometrics

RFID

Smart cards

Handy terminals

Open source DBMS

Blade servers

Windows 2000 Server

Internet VPNSAN

Enterprisearchitecture

Developmentlanguages Databases

Serverhardware

Figure 2. Information Technology Map

Open source developmentenvironments

2 IT Road Map

1



4

(1) What is a Smart Card?

Smart cards are cards approximately the same sizeas cash cards with IC chips embedded to record vari-ous kinds of information.

Smart cards can be categorized into two types:contact smart cards and contactless smart cards,depending on the communications system. Contactsmart cards have a metal terminal on the card sur-face; the supply of electric power to the IC chip andcommunication with the card reader are carried outthrough this terminal. Contactless smart cards havea built-in antenna; the electric power for driving theIC chip is generated by electromagnetic inductionwith radio frequencies from the card reader. Aftercalculations are performed in the card, informationis transmitted to the card reader via radio frequen-cies. EMV credit cards and ETC (electric toll collec-tion: a system to collect tolls automatically frompassing cars) adopt contact smart cards, and the JREast’s Suica adopts a contactless smart card.Contactless smart cards are further divided intothree types depending on the communications proto-col and transmission speed. Figure 4 shows the

types and examples of smart cards being distributedin the current market.

Producing a counterfeit smart card is technicallydifficult as information is recorded on an IC chip. Asmart card has various merits owing to its ability toperform communication utilizing the calculation func-tion of the IC chip, such as being able to performhigh security encrypted transmissions and to recordmore information than a magnetic card.

(2) Market Driven by the Financial andTransportation Sectors

The use of smart cards is increasingly widespread inthe financial sector (i.e., EMV credit cards) and trans-portation sector (i.e., boarding passes).

In the financial sector, industry groups havebeen exploring a shift to EMV credit cards sincethe 1990s as a technology to prevent the unautho-rized use of credit cards. EMV credit cards havebeen widely distributed in Japan since 2003.Other representative examples of smart cardsincludes the Edy, electronic money, which startedservice in 2001, and cash cards issued by theBank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and Mizuho Bank that

FY2004 FY2005 FY2006 FY2007 FY2008FY2003

Memory: 8k/16k

Memory: 4k Memory: 8k Memory: 20k Memory: 32k

Memory: 32k(Contact type)

(Contactless type)

Smart card local authentication (Edy payments, bank ATMs (still in progress))

Static single application management (registration before issue)

Static multiapplication management (registration before issue)

Smart card center authentication(mobile phones equipped with a second chip, bank ATMs)

Dynamic application management (registration/cancellation after issue)Interconnectivity among different platforms

Widespread development of dual I/F (contact, contactless) cards

Integration of mobile phones with smart cards

Global Platform ver2

Memory: 64k

(single application smart cards)High costs

Decrease in barriers to introduction

Response to security needs

(multi-application Smart cards)

Expansion of business applications (B2B, B2C)

• Multiple service collaboration (multiple application smart cards. Platform interconnectivity becomes easily realized.)

• Decrease in costs

Services(consumer- related)

(Financial) (Financial)

(Railways)

(Mobile phones) SIM (UIM) use (Mobile phones) (Mobile phones)

(Railways)

Transition period for EMV credit and cash cards

Independent development of railway-related smart cards

incorporation of second IC chip

Mobile Suica PassnetSpread of terminals incorporated with second IC chip

Interconnectivity, expansion of use outside stations

Widespread development of financial-related smart cards

PitapaICOCA

Osaifu-Keitai au : Osaifu-Keitai

UFJ Tokyo-MitsubishiShinGinko Tokyo

Mizuho

Technology(IC chips and others)

Business impact

Figure 3. Road Map for Smart Cards

are equipped with a biometrics function as a mea-sure against skimming losses.

In the transportation sector, major railway compa-nies have begun to use contactless smart cards, suchas JR East’s Suica, JR West’s ICOCA, and SuruttoKANSAI’s PiTaPa.

In addition, in the government sector, the resident regis-tration card that municipal governments began issuing toapplicants in August 2003 uses smart card technology.

(3) Trends in the Smart Card Industry

Industry movement has accelerated along with theexpansion of smart card services. For example, with atarget set at regional banks, NTT Data offers a servicefor issuing smart cards while Dai Nippon Printing pro-vides outsourcing services related to the managementof issuing smart cards, such as changing the settings ofsmart card contents via the Internet. In addition, board-ing passes and the Edy, electronic money, use FeliCa,which is a contactless smart card technology systemdeveloped by Sony. With regard to FeliCa, Sony, JREast and NTT DoCoMo have invested in the foundingof a FeliCa Network to promote incorporation ofFeliCa into mobile phones.

(4) Changes in Smart Card-RelatedTechnologies

As seen above, various applications that were previ-ously offered independently are now beginning to be

incorporated into a single card along with the spreadof smart cards used in the financial and transporta-tion sectors. The technology of platforms supportingsmart cards and services is changing.

a. Changes in Smart Cards

Suica is capable of incorporating multiple functions,such as electronic money information, seat reservationinformation, and credit card information, in additionto commuter pass information. The Edy can also incor-porate ID information (or employee certificate informa-tion) for entering and exiting office buildings, inaddition to electronic money information, in a singlecard. As for smart cards themselves, dual interfacecards, combination cards and others supporting thedifferent communications systems of contact and con-tactless smart cards have emerged for accomplishingthe services of different companies in a single card.The Super IC Card offered by the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, which includes the Edy and the JAL ICCard offered by Japan Airlines, are examples.

In addition, smart cards are making new advancesas a result of integration with mobile phones. NTTDoCoMo has already offered its terminal under thename “Osaifu-Keitai.” “Osaifu-Keitai” refers to mobilephones equipped with a contactless smart card for use-ful online functions/services such as electronic money,credit card payments, electronic ticketing, member-ships, and more. Other major communications carriers


5


Figure 4. Various IC Cards

Smart cards

Contact typeISO/IEC 7816

Close-coupled typeISO/IEC 10536

Type A

Type B

FeliCa

Proximity typeISO/IEC 14443

Vicinity typeISO/IEC 15693

Remote-coupledtype

Contactless type

up to 2mm

up to 10cm

up to 70cm

70cm and over

Hybrid smart cards

Credit and cash cardsPoint cardsTelephone cards in EuropeEmployee certificates, etc.

South Korean Maibi cards (Type A)IT City (Type B)Resident registration cards (Type B)

Bus cards in EuropeNTT IC telephone cards

Transportation cards in Europe

Subway cards in Hong KongJR East SuicaEdy

such as au and Vodafone have begun to releasemobile phones with smart card functions using FeliCa,too. With regard to the services to be incorporated, ithas been decided that the Suica, a transportationboarding pass, will also be incorporated into mobilephones by the end of fiscal 2005, following the Edy,electronic money. Thus, it is predicted that the integra-tion of smart cards with mobile phones will steadilyaccelerate over the next several years.

The integration of smart cards with mobile phonesmakes possible new services that use functions ofmobile phones such as “showing information bymeans of a display” and “Internet connection bymeans of packet communications.” Representativeexamples include browsing information stored on asmart card and downloading applications via mobilephone Internet. Besides these, the integration will makeit possible to exchange smart card contents betweenterminals using infrared line communications functionsor placing an order via the Internet after reading in abar code recorded in a mail order catalog with amobile phone camera and paying with electronicmoney on a smart card upon receiving a parcel.

b. Changes in Platform Technology

The requirements for platforms supporting these ser-vices are also becoming important. While a guar-

antee of interconnectivity between services of busi-nesses to use various services is a matter of course,it will be necessary to establish an infrastructure forcertification of a smart card as a previous step touse a service. In particular, a high security system isrequired when information relating to financialproducts such as credit and electronic money isrecorded in a card and used. Specifically, it will benecessary to add security functions such as therecording of electronic certificates in smart cards toconduct mutual authentication with the smart cardreader, or encrypted communications betweencards and card readers. For example, EMV creditcards and EMV cash cards have already adopted acard authentication system (see Figure 5) by mount-ing electronic certificates encrypted using secretkeys in cards and decoding the encrypted elec-tronic certificate information with am open keyrecorded at a storefront terminal (e.g., CAT termi-nals, ATM terminals, etc.). This is also called localauthentication.

However, a local authentication system thatrecords key information in a storefront terminal can-not exactly be considered an ideal system in light ofmaintenance costs such as the periodic changing ofkeys and the addition and deletion of negativeinformation (information on the suspension of card


6


• Distribution of key information• Distribution of negative information

Smart card authentication


Store (point-of-sales terminal, etc.)

Transaction data

Key management entity

Head office Head office

Note: This figure represents a simplified version of infrastructure with reference to specifications (still in progress) of bank EMV cash cards.

User information transaction

Store (point-of-sales terminal, etc.)

User information transaction

• Distribution of key information• Distribution of negative information

Store (storefront terminal, etc.)

Transaction data

Key management entity

Store (storefront terminal, etc.)

• User information• Transaction information

• User information• Transaction information


Smart card Smart cardLocal authentication Central authentication

Figure 5. Change in the Smart Card Authentication Infrastructure

use, etc.) as well as the risk of theft. Meanwhile,transmission costs have decreased and the shift tobroadband service has been progressing in recentyears. Against this backdrop, it will likely be possi-ble to perform smart card authentication in an inte-grated manner at head offices or data centers inthe near future. Therefore, such a perspective ashow to establish an infrastructure for card authenti-cation will become important when considering theincorporation of smart cards in customer services inthe future.

Road Map for InformationSearch Technology

Figure 6 is a road map for information search tech-nology. Information search technology is an alreadyexisting technological field. The popularization ofweb searches by keyword through Google andYahoo! may well illustrate that fact. A period ofgrowth is beginning, however, as a result of newtechnological innovations against the backdrop ofincreasingly intensifying activity of major search soft-ware vendors since the latter half of 2004.

Advances in search technology are taking place inthree broadly classified fields. The first field isadvancement in the direction of cross searches thatare not confined by the location of the data that is theobject of information searches (information on theInternet; information on the internal servers of compa-nies; or the contents of the local hard drive of aclient’s PC) and the types of objects to be searched(structured data and files consisting mainly of numeri-cal values such as databases; data consisting mainlyof text such as web pages; or multimedia imagessuch as movies).

The second direction of advancement is theimprovement of search quality. There are severaltechniques for improving search quality: traditionalconcept searches exploiting natural language pro-cessing technology and the narrowing of searchesaccording to the meaning of the search results. Arecently emerged technique that should be noted isthe “personalization” of searches. This method,after identifying a user, presumes informationsought based on the user identity and history ofinformation access, enabling one to arrive closer toexpected search results. For example, an engineer


7


FY2004 FY2005 FY2006 FY2007 FY2008 FY2009

Collaboration of IBM II Omnifind and Portal

IBM II IBM II Omnifind

Cross search of structured data

Expansion of search objects (location/type)

Unstructured data search

Categorization

Improvement of search quality

Blinkx (personalized desktop search)

Emergence of automatically classified search (English edition)Vivísimo, Endeca, etc.

English version ontological structure dictionary (Intellisophic)

Content search tools Applications for EC sitesContent analysis

From simple search tools to business process improvement tools

High speed indexing

Japanese version of automatically classified search (strengthening of functions such as Verify and FAST)

Interpreting/extraction technology for document structures

Realization of personalized search (support of query creation)

Standardization of search functions at the OS level (Microsoft Longhorn + WinFS)

FAST Data Search

Visual categories(Inxight, Microclub)

Autocategorization at the level of meaning

Emergence of desktop search

Google desktop

Shift to high-speed searches

Impact on applications

Spread of technology

Apple MacOS“Spotlight”

Desktop/search middleware collaboration

Ontology exploitation

Figure 6. Road Map for Information Search Technology

Cross search of structured and unstructured data (shift to search middleware)

Cross searches not confined by data location or type

2

and a salesperson would expect different searchresults in performing a keyword search of companyproducts. Personalization for searchers makes itpossible to present useful search results through cus-tomized searches focusing on information on thetechnical specifications for and the fixing of theproducts for the engineer on the one hand, and onsales promotion tools and market information forthe salesperson on the other.

The third direction of advancement is the shift tohigh-speed searches. This is a technical advancementthat reduces the lead time between the time informa-tion is renewed and the time at which that informa-tion is reflected in the search results, making itpossible to use information searches as businessprocesses. Information searches have traditionallybeen confined to a structure separate from businessapplications. If a search engine can detect changesin information with a speed close to real time, how-ever, it will become possible to use search engines tolist necessary business information from businessapplications, and to use search systems as a meansfor accessing transactions handled by online systems.

Among the above three directions of advancement,topics relating to the expansion of search objects andthe realization of cross searches, both of which willhave significant impacts as new technological trendsof information search technology, will be discussedbelow.

(1) The Emergence of Desktop SearchTechnology

In the search technology-related market of 2004,Google’s application for a stock listing on the NAS-DAQ in April attracted a great deal of attention. Newtechnologies and services emerged in the Internetsearch service market apparently driven by varioussteps taken by Google. The field of “desktop search,”such as the Google Desktop Search function, whichGoogle pioneered and announced in advance ofother companies, is probably the most significant.

A desktop search installs a search engine itself in aclient PC, enabling a search for information in thelocal drive of the client PC. It is a standalone applica-

tion. In the past, searches of data kept in client PCswere limited to file names and the times and dates offile creation. As a result, searches for necessary infor-mation from groups of files stored on the hard driveof a personal PC were not performed very frequently.

Meanwhile, desktop search technology searchesvarious files existing in the local hard drive of a clientPC (office documents, PDFs, e-mails) and meta-dataof sound and movie files such as creator names, thetimes and dates of file creation, and genre. Desktopsearch expands search objects to include the localhard drive, which were previously not included, andeven further to include various types of unstructureddata.

Following the beta edition release of Google’sdesktop search tools, many search services and soft-ware vendors such as Yahoo!, MSN, Autonomy UKand Justsystem of Japan also followed suit and oneafter another began to release desktop search prod-ucts. In addition, a movement to integrate desktopsearch functions into operating systems can beobserved. The desktop search technology “Spot light”was incorporated in the Mac OS X 10.4 in April2005, and Microsoft plans to incorporate similartechnology in its next-generation Windows OS,“Windows Vista,” in the latter half of 2006. As such,the style of search technology employed by the enduser is expected to change after 2007.

(2) “Shift to Middleware” for Searches

The expansion of search objects is advancing in thefield of server products for enterprises, too. Regardingsearch server products used inside companies, thisadvancement is being directed toward the expansionof databases that are the search objects.

In the past, the in-house search objects of compa-nies were classified broadly into two types of data-bases. The first type was a search for text data keptin web pages and file servers in an intranet. The sec-ond type was a search of structured data saved indatabases and business applications. In conven-tional searches, only statically generated web pagesand files could be used as search objects, and infor-mation on pages dynamically generated by DBMS


8


and business applications and on-screen informationcould not be searched simultaneously. As a result,users needed to log into individual business applica-tions and separately search for the necessary data.

Among search server products, the question of howto identify necessary information from databases cov-ering various systems in one keyboard instruction isbecoming an issue. As a result, many products arebeginning to include a function in which DBMS, ERP,CRM systems, etc., are turned over to the user andaccessed, and multiple internal system searches arecarried out concurrently with searches of the web andfile servers.

User authentication and security becomes a problemwhen multiple different systems are included in searchobjects. Because authentication by ID and a passwordis required when accessing a business system, thesearch server must authenticate a user. With regard tothe display of search results as well, search results forbusiness applications cannot be shown in the same wayto all employees. In such cases, it is also necessary toacquire information relating to user access privileges inaddition to the search results from business applications.

Recently beginning to emerge are search serverproducts that perform searches safely in collabora-

tion with business applications by exchangingauthentication information through directory ser-vices such as LDAP and Active Directory, or singlesign-on products. Products like these are not justone application of an information-related system;rather, they will assume the role of “search middle-ware” available for multiple purposes when a useraccesses various databases. Conversely, it is alsopossible for business applications to acquire anduse the search results of other business applicationsand text data from search middleware. Figure 7shows the role that search middleware playsbetween other information-related systems and busi-ness applications.

A shift to search system middleware can alreadybe seen at the product level. It is expected that searchmiddleware will emerge in 2005 and attain a certaindegree of maturity by 2006. Cross searches not con-fined to the locations of data or data source types areexpected to be realized after 2006.

(3) What Search Object Expansion andCross Search Bring to Companies

The achievement of the expansion of searchobjects and cross search is expected to exhibit an


9


Figure 7. Example of a System Structure Using Search Middleware

Client PC

Portal

Supply of user information/search keywords

Display the search results of multiple databases collectively

Searchmiddleware

Individualindex files

Integrated index files

Login/change of query

Search results

External web/database service

Search objects within a companyData crawl (nonsynchronous) login/representative of a query (synchronous)

Database/business applications

Search results ofstructured data

Search object crawlContent management

Search results from stored documents

Search object crawlGroupware

Search results from groupware mail, bulletin boards, etc.

Information relating to user ID/access privileges

Directory services (LDAP, Active Directory, NDIS, etc.)Single sign-on servers

effect on the acceleration of information sharingwithin companies. It is inefficient for employees toscour the various systems within a company forpictures, movies and database information. Searchservices that search in-house systems horizontallyand provide necessary information to the necessarypeople at the necessary time would lead toincreased business efficiency and an improvementin productivity.

In addition, collaboration between search functionsand business systems of search results by means ofsearch middleware will change the role of searchengines, which until now have been seen as informa-tion access tools for end users, to tools for collabora-tion between business applications. After 2007, it willlikely be necessary to reexamine the use of informationsearches in company systems resulting from the searchsystem shift to middleware.

This paper introduced the information technologymap and the IT road map as part of NRI’s IT naviga-tion activities. NRI hopes to contribute to the formula-tion of IT strategies by our client companies as well

as by NRI Group companies by carefully monitoringany future environmental changes involving informa-tion technology.


10


3 Conclusion

Documents

Information Technology Map and IT Road Map - · PDF fileInformation Technology Map and IT Road Map ... we have been creating the information technology map and the IT road map as part