"Today, shrinking business cycles compel enterprises to adapt quickly. A sluggish economy and a history of IT mega-projects with mixed outcomes demand faster proven results from IT companies (vendors). Both of these developments point to a need for real-time adaptive solutions. Identifying future-proof IT architectures that are malleable to changing business processes is the quest of emerging and established companies in the new IT arena. These IT companies provide solutions and tools that merge Application Development, BPM, EAI, Data Integration, Enterprise Architecture, and Web services. Across software categories, successful companies adopt the SOA and leverage Rapid-Productivities to help enterprises to: 1) do more with less and 2) implement real-time business and 3) raise the bar in adaptability. This article defines Rapid-Productivities and explores a number of these companies; it provides insights for enterprises selecting pre-integrated packages versus implementing their own instantly integrated solutions."

Do More with Less in Application Integration, Business Process Management, and Software Development By Tom Tuduc January 15, 2003 Abbreviations BAM:  Business Activity Monitoring BI:  Business Intelligence BPEL4WS:  Business Process Execution Language for Web Services BPM:  Business Process Management CIM:  Common Information Model CM:  Content Management CRM:  Customer Relationship Management EAI:  Enterprise Architecture Integration EDI:  Electronic Data Interchange ebXML:  Electronic Business XML ERP:  Enterprise Resource Planning ETL:  "Extract:   Transform and Load" KM:  Knowledge Management MDA:  Model Driven Architecture MVC:  Model View Controller RDF:  Resource Description Framework REST:  Representational State Transfer SOAP:  Simple Object Access Protocol SCM:  Supply Chain Management SOA:  Service Oriented Architecture UBL:  Universal Business Language UDDI:  "Universal Description:   Discovery and Integration" UML:  Unified Modeling Language WSDL:  Web Services Description Language xCBL:  XML Common Business Library Today, shrinking business cycles compel enterprises to adapt quickly. A sluggish economy and a history of IT mega-projects with mixed outcomes demand faster proven results from IT companies (vendors).  Both of these developments point to a need for real-time adaptive solutions. Identifying future-proof IT architectures that are malleable to changing business processes is the quest of emerging and established companies in the new IT arena. These IT companies provide solutions and tools that merge Application Development, BPM, EAI, Data Integration, Enterprise Architecture, and Web services. Across software categories, successful companies adopt the SOA and leverage Rapid-Productivities to help enterprises to: 1) do more with less and 2) implement real-time business and 3) raise the bar in adaptability. This article defines Rapid-Productivities and explores a number of these companies; it provides insights for enterprises selecting pre-integrated packages versus implementing their own instantly integrated solutions. 1. Defining Rapid-Productivities Rapid-Productivities are: 1.        Acceleration tools and automations for all software categories including ERP, CRM, SCM, EAI, BPM, Sales and Marketing automation, and emerging Professional Services automation. 2.        Code generation such as wizards, tags, templates, automatic adapters, and agents, 3.        Best practices, frameworks, blueprints, patterns, reusable components, process, and use-cases. Showing the how, Rapid-Productivities leverage one or more of the following: 1.        Proven standards and frameworks such as UML, MDA, RDF, WebTop, or MVC, 2.        Proven technologies such as XML, agents, rules engines, and pi-calculus, 3.        Emerging protocols, specifications, and architectural styles such as SOA, SOAP, REST, WSDL, WS-Transaction, BPEL4WS, BMPL, ebXML, RosettaNet, UBL, Bluefin, and CIM. 4.        Maturity models such as Software Engineering Institute’ Capability Maturity Model, Interoperability Clearing House EA Maturity Model, PWC (IBM) Security Maturity Model. 5.        Vertical collaborative efforts. Rapid-Productivities originate out of the need to reduce the complexity of software development- they cover all enterprise software automation that leverage knowledge, experience, collaborative efforts, and proven frameworks. Examples include OMG’s future-proof MDA, which separates business functionality and behavior from implementation and maps new technologies to appropriate layers.  A data storage example is the Bluefin interoperability specification, which enables products to announce themselves enabling automated control of logical storage resources. Another example is UBL, which leverages xCBL and EDI to provide context for standard messages between verticals. Rapid-Productivities can be tactical providing guerrilla development or strategic by being part of an adaptive IT architecture. Automation and patterns not conforming to standards are not Rapid-Productivities as they hinder reusability and integration. Web services as Rapid-Productivities extend EAI integration capabilities as EAI packages are not known to directly integrate with each other. Further, they help standards talk to each other, i.e. ebXML and BPEL4WS. Rapid-Productivities come in many flavors. IBM has “Patterns for e-Business” which includes business patterns, integration patterns, runtime patterns etc. Microsoft has best practices and business processes for its products. SUN ONE platform has best practices for JAXR, JDBC, EJB CMP, JMS, connectors, javaMail, JAX-RPC, JAXM etc. IBM's "Autonomic" emphasizes simplified installation and reduced costs of maintenance for rolling out Express Suite including portal server, application server, and DB2 Express. Likewise, Oracle Apps 11i best practices auto configuration templates help deploying three-tier architectures with over 10 servers/components including single sign-on and backend databases. To avoid vendors’ siren songs, enterprises will do well driving the next standards wave. Choices on the business process markup language front include business-style documents ebXML, API style BPEL4WS, or BPML. John Bosak of SUN, chair of the OASIS UBL committee, emphasizes the lower cost of integration using UBL versus the proprietary and vertical b2b XMLs. Similarly, options are available in registries. Kathryn Breininger of Boeing, chair of the OASIS ebXML registries committee, urges enterprises to evaluate the pros and cons of options including UDDI and ebXML registries. Comprehensive standards adoption is the best insurance.   2. Rallying for Rapid-Productivities Rapid-Productivities are driven by business objectives to cut costs and generate revenues in increasingly shrinking business cycles. They enable the rapid development of top-down and bottom-up approaches eliminating long and costly development cycles. Main business drivers are: 1.        The commoditization of software. Open source OS, Web and Application servers, such as Linux, Apache, Jboss, Zope, and Enhydra, address much of low and mid markets. In additions, companies bundle free extras to entice customers, i.e. Microsoft SQL server 2000 include OLAP, data mining, and data transformation services. Rapid-Productivities both drive and are driven by this commoditization trend. 2.        Untapped mid-markets where fragmented information, poor collaboration, and disconnected business processes predominate. With Rapid-Productivities, enterprises that cannot afford big players’ solutions will have the means to improve their business processes.  3.        Visibility within applications and across business functions. Whether enterprises are market leaders or technology innovators, or whether business processes are outsourced or internally developed, executive dashboards are crucial to expose cause-and-effect relationships of business processes and strategies. 4.        Enable more decision makers to make decisions faster. Two problematic factors are: 1) the explosion and increasing rate of information change, and 2) the unpredictability and ever-changing business climate. Constant changes require real-time capability, strategic BPM (i.e. balanced score card) and strategic IT (i.e. automations and integration). 5.        Everything under the cost reduction banner including vendor consolidation and business process outsourcing. Cases in point: London Drugs and State of Georgia. London Drugs expands to hundreds of stores without expanding its technology staff by leveraging one vendor solution: Microsoft's emerging EAI. The state of Georgia is outsourcing a $1.8 billion telecommunications and Internet project for better telecommuting, performances, and services for constituents.   Just as Rapid-Productivities enable enterprises to adapt more quickly to the external environment, the rate of adaptation itself has become an offensive strategic capability.  Rapid-Productivities fuel the emerging SOA, which enables enterprises to create dynamic value chains by assembling services inside and outside firewalls. Here rules-based systems, systems theories, and pi-calculus are providing synergy. For example, Fair Isaac Blaze Advisor can be used as a Web service to make real-time decisions such as risk assessment, forecast, bidding, and sourcing. Further, Ken Molay of Fair Isaac emphasizes the productivity gained by using business rules management as a technology for development, deployment, and security. In addition the emerging real-time enterprise fuels the demand for Rapid-Productivities. Here integrated real-time data, process, and knowledge replace the "leaky pipes" of information flow. As enterprises want instant data and processes no matter when, where, who wants it, integrations proliferate to new tunes and constraints. At Analogic, a midsize manufacturer of medical instruments, CIO Thor Wallace credits his success to real-time access to product definition, order status, and real-time material release from suppliers. With PeopleSoft and Agile solutions, Analogic reduces product-definition administrative costs by more than 50% and reduce cycle time from 30 to 5 days.   3. The New IT Arena The IT arena shows mergers, acquisitions, and products extending their capabilities (Figure 1). New software categories emerge. The lines between software categories blur as they converge. Further, sub categories emerge. John Rymers of the Giga Group sees emerging sub BPM categories including immediate and long-running BPM each with different characteristics exhibiting different convergence tendencies, i.e. convergence with application servers/application development or packaged EAI applications. Software that Shortens Software Life Cycles Rapid-Productivities reach new heights in development productivity. Although reuse and best practice are within reach, mastering the complex J2EE or .NET is difficult. Here, a host of companies come to the rescue taking different approaches in skinning the software-development cat. While the heavyweights including BEA, IBM, Microsoft, Novell, and SUN advance in many fronts, others bring focused added values. Some of these are: AltoWeb, Codagen, Collaxa, Compuware, Kabira, M7, ObjectVenture, Rational, RealMethods, Secant Technologies, SoftWIRE, TogetherSoft (Borland), Versata, and Wakesoft (Box 1). Box 1 Software Development Highlights  1.        Rational XDE for .NET and Java include: roundtrip engineering of Java, visual basic, C#, and automatic or on demand synchronization of code and models. Collaborative development can take advantage of the multi-model support, particularly Web services development. Rational XDE can also automatically generate UML visualizations and harvest patterns from code. 2.        Bringing together BPM and application development, Collaxa provides both business analysts and software developers a common platform to specify and create business applications. The platform assembles process-centric services into collaborative web-based applications that communicate synchronously and asynchronously. Running on top of application servers, Collaxa Web services Orchestration Server 2.0 executes, logs, monitors, and debugs long transaction processes based on BPEL4WS, WS-choreography and WS-transaction specifications. 3.        Compuware OptimalJ is a J2EE MDA-based product that enables model-to-model and model-to-code transformation for rapid application change and ongoing maintenance. 4.        Codagen MDA-based Architect integrates with UML modeling tools and generates up to 100% of code for J2EE or .NET. With Codagen "white box" approach, developers can embed corporate standards, procedures, and frameworks. Integration codes that are slightly different can leverage Codagen for updates and changes. 5.        ObjectVenture ObjectAssembler offers pattern management using a proposed Pattern and Component Markup Language (PCML) to help reusability and dynamic interoperability. PCML enables components to declare the patterns they can interact with and facilitates the monitoring of pattern usages. Further, PCML distinguishes patterns and strategies. While patterns can combine patterns and frameworks and are platform independent, strategies define roles and constraints, and implement patterns for a particular platform. 6.        M7 Application Assembly Platform rapidly produces applications, integrates reusable processes, rules and objects using the rapid MVC model. Here, M7 takes the MVC to the next level by: 1) providing XML models to java objects and legacy data store, 2) extending the controller in the Workflow Editor, and 3) providing tags that automatically create Web pages through JSP. In addition, M7’s platform optimizes performance for data intensive applications using the value-object pattern. 7.        Oracle 9iAS features wizards for developers’ convenience consolidating the middleware and infrastructure technologies including BI beans. Oracle Collaboration Suite introduces programmable real-time calendar features that can schedule and coordinate calendars without even opening the messages. 8.        WakeSoft provides J2EE and Object Oriented design patterns as well as frameworks and best practices. WakeSoft raises the bar on software development and reuse by enabling developers and architects to spend more time on business logics instead of infrastructure. Wakesoft's software provides a development environment with configurable layers of abstractions that runs on top of application servers. Processes and sub processes can be combined within XML documents. Companies adopting Extreme Programming can leverage Wakesoft's architecture for better results.   Other useful software categories in enterprise software development include: EA, KM and asset management, testing, and monitoring (Box 2). Box 2 Supporting Categories Enterprise architecture tools bring order to software development complexities by giving business analysts, architects, and developers systematic approaches to align development and deployment with business objectives. Enterprises will do well following the Interoperability Clearing House EA maturity model. Some highlights are: 1.        Popkin System Architect V8.5, an enterprise modeling software suite, now integrates with Telelogic DOORS giving business analysts and software developers seamless communication between requirements and designs. Business goals, processes, entities relationships, and data can be mapped to IT systems for collaborative development. 2.        Ptech FrameWork automates the modeling of an organization's enterprise architecture while its IT Architecture Accelerator captures IT assets and performs what-if scenarios. 3.        Flashline CMEE, a complete reuse solution, features a metadata repository that integrates with source control management. KM and Asset Management Highlights 1.        Adaptive provides an automated and standard-based platform based on UML and MDA for gathering, maintaining, sharing and visualizing knowledge. The platform takes input from front-end modeling tools and transfers output to back-end workflow tools. 2.        LogicLibrary Logidex helps enterprises organize their software development assets including Web services, J2EE and .NET components, legacy applications, architectural models, XML schemas, frameworks, patterns, and building blocks. Web Services Highlights Real-time Web services increase debugging difficulty. This takes testability, performance, visibility and accountability to the forefront. Here are some highlights: 1.        RedGate ANTS, loaded with wizards, is an automated testing system written in Visual Studio .NET. It loads test .NET web services and other web applications. ANTS simulates accesses to web applications testing scalability, business logic, and performance. 2.        Mercury Interactive Optane products suite gathers information from applications, databases, servers, storage, and network devices. The data can be analyzed and translated into metrics that business managers can understand. 3.        Altaworks Panorama monitors live transaction response times and correlates to probable causes of performance problems for distributed enterprises deploying App servers. 4.        Dirig provides views of every component from Web servers, App servers, Legacy, Database and have plans to include Web services. Dirig PathFinder automates mapping of real-time transaction paths, identifies inter-relationships of components, correlates performance with business objectives, and provides reports across the Web’s ecosystem.   Integration and Integrating Integration today cannot be just front-office or back-office centric, but must cross suppliers, customers, and partners. It requires top-down business process integration and bottom-up data integration in the SOA with loosely-coupled new services as well as legacy services. Here Rapid-Productivities come in many forms and shapes including automatically generated adapters, frameworks, common XML views, and Web services. Integrating functional capabilities by merging several software categories provide similar benefits as Rapid-Productivities. Companies from different software categories all exhibit integrating tendencies. Companies merging the pair BPM/EAI include Attunity, Concentus, HP, IDS Scheer AG, Intalio, Iona, Neon Systems, Oracle, Peregine, Q-link, Staffware, and Vitria. Here are some examples:   1.        From the EAI camp, Webmethods extends its offerings with the open-source application server Jboss in addition to providing a SOA-based platform for integration and Web services transaction. Novell has taken up the Silverstream application server. 2.        From the application server camp, products such as BEA WebLogic, IBM Websphere, SUN ONE, and .Net Biztak introduce EAI and data integration capabilities. For example BEA WebLogic Platform 7 includes Liquid Data and supporting RosettaNet and ebXML. 3.        Approaching from the BPM side, Savvion BusinessManager 4.0 BPM Studio and BizComponents bring together BPM, trend reporting, collaborative design and deployment, and Web services. Supporting the Balanced Scorecard methodology, BizComponents provide real-time monitoring and modifying of process execution. MetaStorm eWork furthers integration adaptability. 4.        SeeBeyond's e*Insight Business Process Manager, a component of the Business Integration Suite, employs UML for process modeling and automatically generates integration codes. It employs wizards to analyze workflows for trends and process improvement. 5.        Fuego Self-Generating Integration Facility leverages the SOA and Web services extending EAI capabilities and flexibility.   On the legacy front, companies providing tools to speed up the integrating process include Microfocus, Forecross, InnerAccess, ClientSoft, and CipherSoft. CipherSoft provides tools for automatic conversion of Oracle Forms to Java class and EJBs. According to CipherSoft CEO Jennifer McNeill, most conversions require five to fifteen percent manual intervention.  Portal severs are merging with application and security servers to provide added features.  iManage WorkSite MP 3.0 integrates portal server, workflow, and document management functions; it bundles Autonomy's search engine and provides WebEx's online conferencing. Covigo combines Web services and visual business process modeling to enable enterprise and carriers to develop and deploy Web, wireless and portal applications. From the security sector, Netegrity TransactionMinder uses XML agents to enable content and message level authentication, payload information authorization, auditing, and reporting of Web services transactions. TransactionMinder is built on SiteMinder, which integrates identity management, single sign-on, access control, portal presentation, and integration services.  Thor technologies Xellerate automates access rights management, security, and provisioning of IT resources. Xellerate instantly connects users to resources or revokes and restricts unauthorized access to enterprise assets. Xellerate integrates process management, rule-based and role-based management, and real-time reporting with full OLAP capability. Xellerate automatically generates adapters or Web services for integration to run on Xellerate servers without requiring installed agents on target platforms. This reduces the integration process from months to days. Data integration offers complementary integration solutions based on XML. Companies include Altanova, Ascential, Callixa, CommerceQuest, Data Junction, DataMirror, Informatica, Information Builder, WebFOCUS, Xaware, XML Global (Box 3). Microsoft ADO.NET introduces enterprise-level DataSets, which can be exposed via XML Web services for access and update by Web or Windows applications. Box 3 Data Integration Highlights 1.        Informatica PowerCenterRT provides EAI capabilities through workflow and event-driven access to information from mainframe and trickle-feed processing. 2.        CommerceQuest provides a CICS Process Integrator that provides integration directly inside mainframes. 3.        Setting records, Ascential Enterprise Integration Suite spans the complete data life cycle providing automated data profiling, data quality, cleansing, and data transformation. It shields developers from parallel processing complexity by automatically partitioning data in real-time to maximize computing resources. 4.        XAware lightweight Bluefin-compliant engine provides a single and logical XML view of over 150 data sources including ERP, CRM, database, or mainframe. The XML view is accessible through .NET, SOAP, and EJB. For example, Xaware XA-Suite for .NET visually constructs .Net Datasets from disparate sources including J2EE-based ones. 5.        Information builder WebFOCUS Developer Studio gives BI applications closed-loop transaction capabilities including commit/rollback, persistence, and context management. Analysts can update databases from BI sales reports. Information Builder (iWay) XML Transformation Engine has over 200 adapters. Innovative Rapid-Productivities abound in SCM, CRM, KM, CM, and ERP solutions. In SCM, Asera leverages the SOA giving customers visibility into the supply chain process internally and externally. ATG combines its CRM, portal, and integration in ATG6. In KM, the need for vertical taxonomies, to merge structured and unstructured data, and automated categorization require innovative Rapid-Productivities. For example, Convera automates  self-organizing-pattern indexes which help customers like Belgium's Fortis Bank, United Airlines and various U.S. government departments to eliminate the need to manually define keywords.  4. Zoom out: a Wider Perspective Rapid-Productivities are necessary but not sufficient for success; other factors such as culture are at play. At Providence Health, Erik Sargent implements Web services with .Net and Infravio to provide a common method to orchestrate data access and update. This, however, is not all that Web services can do. Regulations and industry culture slow down the evolution of instant health care services to help users diagnose, locate, coordinate visits, and pay bills with Web services. At Citibank, VP Susan Andros stresses the need for embedded process training in tools. At Toyota, enterprise architect Simon Nazarian emphasizes the clear ownership of various architectures of hundreds of applications dealing with over thirty million customer records. Often, intangible benefits of products and services are key factors in choosing solutions. TradeTrans Inc., an eBusiness services exchange provider, chose Novell's Extend 4 for its intuitive and adaptable features capable of supporting EDI and XML as well as its ability to take TradeTrans from design to deployment in three months. Here Novell Chief Architect CH Hariharan stresses strategic alignment with emerging standards for future proof architectures.  Echoed in many corners are solutions that unify fragmented infrastructures. Real-time order-to-cash solutions such as those provided by Equitant, Vitria, and Asera are end-to-end and top-to-bottom solutions. PeopleSoft AppConnect offers enterprise portal, integration broker and enterprise warehouse while leveraging both Web services and legacy integration methodologies. SAP xApps are complete solutions that integrate existing back-end applications and resources within and across enterprise boundaries and automate interactions tied to business functions. SAP board member Shai Agassi envisions that small and mid-size developers will provide plug-in components for xApps platforms. Java developers can instantly leverage Bappi business processes. As commoditization moves up the software stack, content-intensive processes move into the spotlight creating new breeds of interdisciplinary Rapid-Productivities. At HP software technologies Lab, Alan Karp is building Web service agents to negotiate good deals. To start, negotiation utilities must be defined. Then advance analyses and strategies will help to make sense of instantaneous propagations of the myriad utilities and identities across value chains. Here operation research, systems theory, pi-calculus, and Petri nets come to the rescue. Coming from the BPM angle, IDS Sheer ARIS is helping Volkswagen UK to connect new CRM and SCM processes. ARIS benchmarks performance, performs simulations, and employs balanced scorecards for monitoring and optimization. 5. Conclusion The next generation enterprise is real-time and leverages Rapid-Productivities and SOA to: 1) create instant applications enabling instant businesses, and 2) integrate, unify, and simplify the complex IT states consisting of stovepipes, information islands, and proprietary packages. Meta data will be embedded in high-level dashboards as well as in drilled-down data tables. BI applications will be more intelligent by providing more automated personalization to reduce demands on IT departments.  The Software Engineering Institute’s Capability Maturity Model can bring synergy to BAM, as optimization of software processes will be more visible in real-time enterprises. The key to operational success is to adapt in real-time to both lagging and leading indicators from financial performances, customer demands, and internal and external processes. The solution to these business requirements and their constant flux lies in the right mix of packaged software and instantly created ones which, together, provide enterprises unique competitive advantages.