Are you a computer engineering or computer science student looking for an exciting and challenging thesis topic? Then read on!
The thesis will formulate a solution to the problem we have with integrating systems for organizations. The issue is directly related to the fact we create business systems in silos and then try to integrate them only to figure out the more systems we try to integrate the more we will struggle with integration. This approach is riddled with duplication of effort and creates inefficiencies for users that need to key the same data from one system to the next and then reconcile. Furthermore, we have a limited ability to aggregate data from many different systems for reporting and AI.
The challenges with integration are only growing worse as more vendors move their solutions to the cloud and organizations lose access to the underlying database.
Our only solution to this problem is to stuff more functionality in a single system but there is only so big these systems can get before they explode in their own complexity.
Our siloed approach to systems has hit the wall for dealing with complex problems for conglomerates. For example, we have no ability to create a fully integrated system for a government that encompassed healthcare and education entities. We cannot put all the functionality in one monolithic system and we cannot integrate a bunch of systems that are developed in siloes. It is literally impossible with our current approach to address this challenge.
Instead, we need to step back and rearchitect a new approach to systems that is designed from the ground up so that systems have an inherent capability to exchange data and aggregate it for reporting and AI.
The vision is that teams would start from an open-source core system and then extend and customize it to the unique needs of a business unit. Conglomerates would network these business unit systems together so that data was only ever entered once and securely shared with every other business unit that required it. All data from all business unit systems could be automatically aggregated into a data warehouse for reporting.
The thesis would focus on the architecture and platform to accomplish this objective.
We have developed a platform and methodology to support this vision and created a proof-of-concept environment, but there is still much more work to be done. One exciting possibility is leveraging AI to automatically transform existing database designs and source code into the new model.
According to Gartner, worldwide spending on software in 2024 will reach 1 trillion dollars, and the need for a solution to our integration challenges is urgent.
By tackling this critical issue, you could make a real impact on the IT industry and revolutionize the way we approach system integration.
Please reach out if this topic interests you for your thesis.
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