Midrange Stuff, OS/400 Edition--EAI Tools Provider CommerceQuest Integrates Product Suite

Enterprise application integration (EAI) software developer CommerceQuest is integrating its software. With TRAXION BPMS Version 7.2, CommerceQuest says, the various components of its business process management suite are now based on a common software infrastructure. This brings several benefits, the company says, including a smoother experience for companies using CommerceQuest's software to model, build, and execute new processes from pieces of old ones, as well as expanded platform support.

CommerceQuest is one of a handful of software vendors providing native OS/400 support with business process modeling and execution software, like TRAXION BPMS. The suite was designed to help users discover how their business processes (including people, computers, data, and other resources) are working, then to create a new workflow model for how those resources could be more ideally put to use. After creating the new workflow, TRAXION BPMS goes a step further and actually executes the new workflow model across the various supported servers, operating systems, applications, and databases. Unfortunately, it doesn't help "redeploy" your human assets, which is arguably a tougher job.

Users will usually put TRAXION BPMS to use to solve a specific problem or to introduce new business functionality. For example, in the healthcare industry, it could be used to help comply with new government regulations, such as HIPAA; in a retail setting, it could be used to help rollout a new gift card system or to streamline nightly polling. Distributors might use it to circulate replenishment data in support of collaborative supply chain initiatives; while a manufacturer could use it to manage WebSphereMQ message flows between two different ERP systems. The software's uses are as widespread as its customers' problems.

The TRAXION BPMS product suite includes three main modules, each of which has several components. The first module is called the Process Analysis and Design Studio, and it has three components: the Process Flow Modeler, the Process Resource Modeler, and the Process Automation Modeler. These three graphical tools let users discover existing resources, map them to new business processes, and then create code (through IBM's Eclipse development framework, which Process Automation Modeler plugs in to) for the supported platforms.

The next module of the TRAXION BPMS suite is called the Process Director, and its job is to handle the nitty-gritty details of extracting resources and executing new processes on the myriad of operating systems, applications, and databases. CommerceQuest has delivered a number of specific Process Director subcomponents to support a variety of needs, including Process Manager for CICS, Process Manager for Legacy Systems, Process Manager for Open Systems, Process Manager for Data (PM4Data), and Process Manager for Extended Enterprise. The Process Manager for Legacy Systems component houses native OS/400 and mainframe connectivity.

The third core module of the TRAXION BPMS suite includes two tools to help companies monitor and tune their new business processes. Process Monitor and Process Simulator will also integrate with components of the Process Analysis and Design Studio to close the loop on business process development. For companies that don't want to hassle with a set of tools to build customized business processes, CommerceQuest offers a set of industry-specific "out of the box" business process solutions it calls QuikTrax Process Accelerators. These Accelerators could, for example, help a retail company to implement nightly sales polling processes or help a doctor's office with patient scheduling.

CommerceQuest says it has heightened the interoperability of the TRAXION BPMS 7.2 product suite by basing all of these modules and components on "a common software infrastructure." By doing so, the company says, it's able to deliver new enhancements, including support for new target platforms.

With this release, CommerceQuest has delivered support for the Version 4 and Version 5 releases of IBM's WebSphere Application Server, as well as the Apache Tomcat Web application server. TRAXION BPMS 7.2 also has enhanced support for the DB2 and Microsoft SQL Server database management systems. Standard connectivity for WebSphere MQ (formerly IBM's MQSeries) is also a feature of this release, the company says.

The design studio components have also been enhanced with support for assigning tasks to "non-human" resources, including "periodic agents," "instant agents," and "microflow" processes in Process Manager for Legacy Systems and other platform-specific execution components. The Process Manager for Data component also features improved security, while the Process Manager for Data Client Manager now features "message routers" to support downstream Process Manager for Data installations on WebSphere MQ clients, which, CommerceQuest says, will remove the costly dependency on WebSphere MQ queue managers on distributed systems and greatly reduce the cost of deploying and operating Process Manager for Data.

CommerceQuest is based in Tampa, Florida, and has about 500 customers, including several large companies such as The Home Depot and American Express. As you would expect, the company has a number of OS/400 customers as well, such as DENTSPLY, an international manufacturer of dental supplies, which uses TRAXION BPMS to manage the MQ-based integration of its BPCS and SAP ERP applications. The Philadelphia Coca-Cola Bottling Company is another CommerceQuest customer, and it uses the vendor's WebSphere MQ software, called Data Integrator, to ensure the safe arrival of sales and delivery data from its OS/400-based route accounting system to handheld field computers. The Gartmore Group, an English investment manager, also uses Data Integrator, to ensure that its OS/400-based investment accounting system was capable of communicating with the other components of its trade generation and execution system, which included Windows NT, and Sun Microsystems' Solaris servers, as well as Sybase, Oracle, and SQL Server databases.

TRAXION BPMS Version 7.2 is available now. Go to www.commercequest.com for more information.