Unrestricted integration delivers full enterprise framework

100% standards-based, non-proprietary and IT vendor-independent software and system connection is the new deal from application integration firm WebMethods – meaning a framework for more easily linking anything to anything, and optimising business information flow. The firm’s launch of a totally Web services-based integration suite that bridges Sun’s J2EE, Microsoft’s .Net business and system framework and legacy systems follows its announcement earlier this week that it has acquired three companies in the US to deliver additional services and functionality. WebMethods has gained a Web services platform from Mind Electric, portal technology from DataChannel and real-time BAM (business activity monitoring) and enterprise event management software from Dante Group. Details are not being released, but we understand that WebMethods has paid around $32m cash for the three. The company says that the acquisitions and the new release are the final plank in its strategy to provide an open and services-based ‘enterprise framework’, dubbed WebMethods Fabric, able to link all computing resources, including packaged applications, whatever and wherever they are. Unlike with existing proprietary integration and application server products, each enterprise resource, whatever it is, is exposed as a service accessible by any other service – the holy grail for integration. It’s built on an open ‘Enterprise Service-Orientated Architecture’ (ESOA), using the firm’s current Integration Platform, and Phillip Merrick, chairman and CEO, says practical benefits include being able to set up a true service-based architecture with, for example, security and fail-over provided by the fabric itself. All resources can participate, but also include capabilities like service registration, dynamic discovery, management, distributed security, XML message processing, monitoring, auditing, exception handling, clustering, and a real-time, browser-based graphical management console. Merrick reckons users will have more flexibility in terms of their choices of packaged applications and more capacity to link in disparate and legacy systems, with interoperability and the rest being part of the fabric functionality.