Invenso Overhauls iSeries Integration Engine

Published: October 3, 2006

by Alex Woodie

Invenso unveiled an overhauled version of its core iSeries application and data integration engine at the recent COMMON conference in Miami Beach. With the delivery of XBintegrator version 4.0, the Belgian software company has delivered a single Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) product that comes with all of the basic technological plumbing customers need, although they must purchase add-on modules for specific tasks. The company also reports headway in attracting North American customers.

Over the last few years, Invenso's range of OS/400 products has grown considerably. In 2003, the company introduced XB/400 and XBScript, its XML scripting language and development environment for iSeries-XML applications. This core XB/400 engine was transformed in April 2005, when the company unveiled its XBSuite, which included XBintegrator, XBwebServices, XBoffice, and XBconverter.

That range of applications has changed with the introduction of XBintegrator 4.0, which introduces a more modular product architecture, as well as increased depth of functionality in the XBintegrator product itself.

At the heart of Invenso's product suite is XBintegrator and the XBadmin repository, which run on either Windows or Java application servers. Users can get access to the XBintegrator engine and the XBadmin repository via a series of entrance points that Invenso calls "interfaces." This is where the big changes have been made with XBintegrator 4.0. With previous releases, users had to license these interfaces separately. Now, they get all four when they license XBintegrator. Available interfaces include: System i, which provides access to RPG and COBOL applications; a socket interface for low-level TCP/IP socket programming; a polling interface for asynchronous Internet connections; and a Web services interface for XSLT processing.

Once back-end applications are accessed via one of these interfaces, users can perform actions through a series of add-on modules, which Invenso calls "processors." Available processors include XBoffice; which provides XML-based integration with Microsoft Office 2003 products, including creating Word or Excel documents, extracting data from Excel spreadsheets, or performing some action on them; XBconverter, which enables users to extract data or metadata from an incoming stream, such as a spool file, and expose it in some other way, such as XML or PDF documents; and XBconnect, which enables a range of activities, including FTP, e-mail, HTTP, Web service calls, program functions, SQL functions, and message queue functions.

Within each of these three processors, there are also a range of "services" available for that processor, and this is where the bulk of the useful work is accomplished. In its printed product materials and on its Web site, Invenso is not entirely consistent with this architectural naming convention (for example, System i is listed as both a processor and an interface; there are interfaces and services for Web services; and there doesn't appear to be any type of named service for the ZIP compression functionality that Invenso also offers), but it does give you an idea how Invenso is trying to innovate and simplify the complex world of integration software, and make it easier for users to purchase what is needed. Needless to say, the suite is in a constant state of development, and Invenso is always looking to add more modules, says Vincent Van der Linden, a managing partner with the company.

The software is entirely platform independent, Van der Linden says, and can help applications or data running on any environment. In fact, the product is so flexible that, while XBintegrator is the heart of the product, users don't need to use XBintegrator as their ESB, and can utilize Invenso's processors and service connections with ESBs developed by other vendors, such as IBM's WebSphere.

At the press conference in Miami Beach, Invenso also shared some of the real world success it is having in the North American market, where it is represented by its partner, eCube Systems of Montgomery, Texas. Some of the companies using Invenso's software in production include DHL, Mitsubishi, and National City Mortgage, the software developer says.

It can be extremely difficult for European software vendors to gain traction in the U.S. iSeries market. Language barriers, currency issues, and differences in culture have shut the door on many an OS/400 developer attempting to jump the pond (and there are currently quite a few, especially in the crowded Web enablement and integration market). But at this point, it appears that Invenso may be one of the successful ones.

XBintegrator 4.0 is available now. Pricing starts at $10,000. For more information, visit www.invenso.com.

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