Middleware competitors IBM and BEA Systems unveiled separate integration offerings last week, each aimed at reducing the complexity of systems integration projects.
Middleware competitors IBM and BEA Systems unveiled separate integration offerings last week, each aimed at reducing the complexity of systems integration projects.
IBM focused on adding business process management (BPM) features to its integration suite, so customers could model and monitor business operations. BEA set out to improve developer productivity by providing a common set of development tools for its WebLogic platform, which includes application server, portal, enterprise application integration (EAI) and workflow software.
IBM’s additions fill out its WebSphere Business Integration portfolio. New features let users model and simulate how business processes will flow across a company, then extend those processes across supplier and customer systems, and monitor their execution, IBM says.
The suite includes two new modules derived from IBM’s September acquisition of Holosofx: WebSphere Business Integration Modeler tackles business process modeling; WebSphere Business Integration Monitor keeps track of operations and includes alerting features to warn users when metrics cross certain thresholds.
Combining application integration technology and BPM features in a single platform appeals to Food Lion, says Carolyn Hager, manager of e-business at the Salisbury, N.C., grocery retailer.
“When the entire package comes from one vendor, you have a level of confidence that all components will work together in a reliable and consistent manner,” says Hager, whose company rolled out WebSphere Business Integration last summer as part of a data synchronization project.
Food Lion plans to use IBM WebSphere Business Integration Monitor to keep its business processes moving quickly through the company, Hager says. “The alerting system will help us detect and eliminate process bottlenecks,” she says.
BEA, meanwhile, released Version 8.1 of its WebLogic Platform, including new versions of its EAI, application server and portal products. Central to the upgraded platform is BEA WebLogic Workshop 8.1, a common programming framework that lets developers work on multiple projects from within the same development environment.
For example, a developer could build an application based on servlets, JavaServer Pages and Enterprise JavaBean technologies, and build a connector to an external application such as an inventory system, using the same tools. Previous versions of WebLogic required separate, unconnected tools for application server and EAI work.
BEA’s adherence to Java and open-source standards is one of the reasons Jefferson County, Colo., chose its WebLogic Integration (WLI) product, said Dave Gallaher, director of IT for the county. “What we really liked was WLI’s adherence to the [Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition] standard, particularly the [Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition Connector Architecture] standard,” he said.
Jefferson County uses the WebLogic platform to link dozens of its 160 applications. Alternative products from pure-play EAI vendors such as webMethods and Tibco were too expensive and too proprietary for Gallaher’s taste.
“To be absolutely, positively married forever to one vendor and its proprietary solution – in the era of downsizing of IT and companies going away, that’s a foolish decision,” said Gallaher, who spoke last week at BEA’s eWorld 2003 user conference in Orlando.
IBM and BEA are arch rivals in the Java-based application server market. Research firms put the two companies in a near dead heat, with each owning between 30% and 35% of the market.
In terms of integration offerings, IBM has a broader portfolio of products than BEA has. IBM’s WebSphere line includes mature messaging backbone, event brokers, workflow tools, portal software, process modelers and adapters.
However BEA, like many application server vendors, steadily has increased its EAI and portal features over the last couple of years as competition eroded the apps server market. And it’s making significant progress, says John Rymer, vice president at Giga Information Group. “BEA has pushed its application server bundle a lot harder and faster than any of the other vendors out there,” he says.
BEA also has distinguished itself by providing the common Workshop development environment for its entire platform, Rymer says. While IBM has an enormous variety of middleware, it doesn’t offer a single development model, he says.
“This is really big for BEA,” Rymer says. “It’s something that IBM has not done.”
IBM WebSphere Business Integration Modeler, WebSphere Business Integration Server 4.2 and IBM WebSphere Business Integration Monitor will be available later this month.
A beta-version release of BEA WebLogic Workshop 8.1 is available now. Pricing was not available.
