* An integration tool called JuggerNET from Codemesh
The other day I spoke to Bert Young, the vice president of IT at South Carolina Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company (SCFBMIC). His company recently adopted a new way of integrating its software applications to make them work better together. The integration is yielding increased functionality of the existing applications, as well as providing productivity gains for the company’s underwriters and claims adjusters.
Let’s start with a little bit of background on the technology environment at SCFBMIC. The company is transitioning from a mainframe-based environment comprised of mostly legacy COBOL applications to a set of Microsoft .Net server-based applications for policy and claim administration. Digital content is stored on a server platform and a mainframe-based Direct Access Storage Device.
The process of underwriting and processing claims as well as providing customer service requires that data and images be retrieved from both systems and merged together quickly and seamlessly. At the same time, the company wants to integrate useful Java-based third-party applications and web services into their proprietary applications to add functionality that was not possible before.
Young’s development team came across an integration tool called JuggerNET from Codemesh. JuggerNET uses in-process integration technology to take Java programming code and generate .Net bridge components, making it possible for the .Net applications to pull documents and images from the Java-based content management system and present integrated data on the fly.
Young says the Codemesh technology has helped his department roll out new applications faster than it could have done by writing all the integration hooks themselves. It also allows them to add third-party “pop-up” utilities such as mapping to increase the usefulness of the applications.
With only a small staff of coders, Young admits he probably would have had to hire a team of consultants to do the integration work if they hadn’t found Codemesh. He cites other benefits as well, such as a quicker turnaround on the applications due to decreased coding time. On the business side, the benefits include reducing the time it takes to issue a new insurance policy and improved customer service as a result of service agents having access to more and better information.
Codemesh’s JuggerNET is a development tool aimed at solving complex .Net/Java integration problems. There are two major components to the product: a code generator and a runtime library. The code generator creates a bridge that allows your .Net application to internally delegate processes to Java. The runtime library is what makes your application actually work when you execute it.
While most middleware integration solutions rely on some type of communications protocol between different applications to provide this bridging functionality, JuggerNET’s in-process approach combines the Java and .Net parts within one unified application. Consequently, the integrated application does not require any additional servers, networking or other facilities to work.
.Net developers typically find they are proficient with JuggerNET within a week. Codemesh helps the learning and development process by including a lot of code examples with their product, many of which can be easily modified and used as needed.
Young has been impressed with the results, and especially with the performance of the integrated applications his group has developed. His team has many more projects on the schedule for 2007, and he’s confident they can deliver the kinds of applications that will improve the business processes for SCFBMIC.
