Gartner and other analysts groups are anticipating substantial growth in the Portal, Application Integration and Business Process Management segments of the IT/IS industry. Gartner estimates these markets will exceed 10.5 billion dollars by 2006. Analysts from IDC indicate the primary drivers for these markets will be; the dominance of heterogeneous computing environments and the need for industry-specific, role-based, business process automation functionalities.

Our experience has shown there is a growing demand in the market for ‘free standing’ application servers with integrated Portal, Application Integration, and Business Process Management functionalities. Because of critical interdependencies between these three functions, savvy vendors are building Free Standing ‘Integration Suites’ that incorporate and integrate all three of these solution segment functions. ‘Integration Suites’ are the vascular system that will orchestrate the software and information systems of organizations. Novell is rapidly becoming one of the strongest contenders in the Free Standing ‘Integration Suite’ market today. Before introducing Novell’s solution, a brief description of the various components of an ‘Integration Suite’ will add context to our comments and conclusions.

Over the past few years we have advised numerous organizations from various industry sectors. Our experience validates the conclusions of Gartner, Forester, IDC and others. We have found that getting information and business processes online through Portal related initiatives will be a dominate IT/IS resource consumer over the next 4-6 years. Strategis, Canada’s Business and Consumer agency, projects line trade in 2006 to reach $12.8 trillion, yes trillion. Of this global e-Commerce number, they estimate that North America will account for 58%. As online infrastructure becomes more complex, Portals will play a crucial roll in the dissemination of the trillion dollar number, as part of the required security and organizational framework. A Portal is more than a web page or a cluster of web pages; it is a framework that houses a variety of on-line information. Portals add value by providing a singular, easy-to-manage Identity, Authentication and Authorization infrastructure. In other words, a Portal enables the use of a single ID and Password for access to any web page or on-line asset being displayed. In essence a person can see only the information they are supposed to see because they are-who-they-are. Portals empower diverse organizations, departments and agencies to leverage a single software and hardware package to manage their on-line content. They also equate to a single engineer having the ability to support an increased number of customers with better satisfaction. Novell has advanced Portal technology that is enhanced by its integration with an entire ‘Integration Suite.’

Another big initiative that will burn IT/IS resources over the next few years is Application Integration. Two primary driving forces behind Application Integration are Identity Mangement and the elimination of duplicate data entry. Identity Mangement enables granular information/asset management which is the key to on-line commerce. Despite increasingly robust do-all applications, we’ve yet to find even a mid-sized company that doesn’t have at least 30-40 applications & databases supporting their business. Organizations cannot be responsive to customer, partner and supplier demands unless their application & database suites are integrated ‘real time.’ Application Integration alone is insufficient. Data that is integrated must be available to be acted on by any number of Business Processes, data mapping, data transformation, data assignment, data aggregation, data binding and business rules. This type of functionality can only be achieved if the Application Integrator is part of a larger ‘Integration Suite.’ With the advent of standards, there are two primary methods for integrating application data and information. The oldest of these technologies is now a part of the J2EE specification and the other resides in the Microsoft arena. Since most companies organizations have multiple applications running on different platforms, any serious Application Integration solutions will have to accommodate both J2EE and Microsoft methodologies. As Web Services technologies mature, they will play an integral roll in the Application Integration space. It is possible that Web Service technologies might become the link between the J2EE and Microsoft worlds. In the Web Services space, an XML broker/bus can be beneficial; otherwise organizations will end up with a spaghetti-mess of Web Service interfaces that cannot be leveraged, monitored, managed or acted upon by a business process. As part of their ‘Integration Suite,’ Novell’s XML-Broker, JMS-Bus and MetaDirectory integration engine are integrated with a Business Process Mangement Engine.

Another serious contender for IT/IS resources is Business Process Management (BPM). According to a January 2004 CRN study, BPM is one of the technology trends to watch. Gartner advised CIOs to; re-tool their IT workforce by investing in technology-oriented business process skills development, and to set up business process competency groups to support business initiatives in process change. They further instructed that; it would ensure that internal IS staff can provide higher-level of contribution to the business, as more programming and data center operations work gets outsourced.

As stated previously, there is no single application that has the capacity to answer all the business needs of an individual organization. Therefore, there will continue to be Business Processes that span multiple applications and departments which no single application can accommodate. There is nothing more frustrating than an application purchase that does not meet business needs one quarter after its deployed. One solution that fills this void is a Business Process Mangement tool that is part of a Free Standing ‘Integration Suite.’ Such solutions can tie and stand alone applications into a unified and functional set of business process. BPM tools are more than modeling, work flow, form generation and data integration tools. Business Process Mangement solutions have the ability to manage, monitor, analyze, and improve processes based on their performance. They also include analytical and process simulation tools for illustrating and designing practical solutions.

A fascinating observation we have made in the information/data integration space is the ever increasing dependencies between Portals, Application Integration and Business Process Mangement. It is not that these interdependencies have not always existed, rather, that technology is finally maturing to a point where it can solve complex integration problems. Effective Portals cannot exist without Identity Mangement, Identity Mangement cannot be achieved without Application Integration, and Application Integration does not happen in the absence of well managed and integrated Business Processes. This is why a Stand Alone ‘Integration Suite’ is so appealing. The idea that these primary elements can be designed, simulated, created, managed and monitored within a single tool set is exciting. Another unexpected benefit we have experienced from such tool sets is their ability to bridge the gap between IT/IS and the rest of an organization. Technologists finally have a tool that assists in breaking down traditional communication barriers. Business analysts can actually see illustrations of workflows, business processes and portal extractions, and are able to make viable tactical and strategic recommendations. Within the context of a Novell deployment a high level architecture of such a solution might look something the diagram on this page. Several key components of Novell’s Stand Alone ‘Integration Suite’ are a robust Portal, Form Generation & Work/Page Flow Engine, an XML Broker/Application Integration Engine, J2EE/JMS Integration Bus, Gartner’s highest rated Integrated Meta-Directory, and a powerful toolset that make Portal, Application Integration and Business Process Management initiatives palatable.

If you are interested in exploring the topics discussed herein and how they could benefit or improve your organization, please don’t hesitate to contact us.