Midrange Stuff, OS/400 Edition--Magic Addresses Business Processes with New iBOLT Release

Magic Software has given more teeth to its iBOLT suite of enterprise application integration (EAI) tools. In November, Magic issued Version 1.5 of the iBOLT Integration Suite, with enhanced testing capabilities and support for Business Process Execution Language for Web Services, a promising new specification expected to enable transaction processing with Web services. The company also describes how iBOLT is being used to streamline the procurement system of a Dutch OS/400 shop.

After seeing many of its customers use its eDeveloper application development toolset primarily for integration IT projects, Magic Software earlier this year launched its first pure-play EAI offering, the iBOLT Integration Suite. This collection of software basically lets companies map existing business processes on iSeries, Unix, and Windows servers; define new business process flows; create composite applications; and execute the resulting capabilities on all supported platforms, along the lines of a service-oriented architecture.

The Irvine, California, company has improved several aspects of iBOLT with this release. For instance, there's a new metadata layer in its business process flow editor that assists in reviewing current and past business goals. The business activity and flow monitors also get new custom log messages, and there's an alerting capability that can be tied to service level agreements.

iBOLT also has new debugging capabilities with this release. Magic has delivered a new integration flow emulator that lets developers run realistic tests of integration flows while they're designing them, instead of having to fully deploy the flow components. There is also a new integration flow checker that developers can use in this release that helps them to ensure consistent and executable logic. Magic has also enhanced iBOLT's handling of errors with new mechanisms that support user-defined save points, fault-tolerance levels, and back-up capabilities.

On the development side, one of the promising new enhancements Magic delivered with iBOLT 1.5 is full support for the Business Process Execution Language for Web Services specification. The BPEL4WS spec holds promise for automating the integration of Web services. It provides a language for the formal description of business processes and business-interaction protocols, and it extends the Web Services model to support business transactions.

BPEL4WS was written and has been sanctioned by a consortium of prominent software companies that include SAP, Siebel, BEA, IBM, and Microsoft. The consortium submitted Version 1.1 of the BPEL4WS spec to the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards this May. The organization has yet to ratify BPEL4WS as a standard, but its committees continue to work on it. In fact, an OASIS committee is meeting today and tomorrow in Florida to discuss it.

Avigdor Luttinger, head of Magic's iBOLT program, says the new release consolidates the company's position at the leading edge of second-generation vendors of business process management and enterprise application integration tools. "iBOLT Version 1.5 provides the tools needed for transforming traditional IT systems into a service-oriented architecture to facilitate business change through the implementation of best practices, and to keep integration costs within budget," he says.

Magic has years of experience in making development tools for OS/400 shops, and it expects iBOLT to be used to help integrate applications running on AS/400 and iSeries servers. One of the latest OS/400 shops to adopt iBOLT is B&C International, a Dutch company that assembles, sells, and distributes window blinds to 7,000 dealers worldwide.

B&C's operations are complex, as the company sells blinds in both made-to-order and standard sizes, and its first iBOLT project is to streamline the business processes involved in the procurement of materials. iBOLT will be used as the glue that bonds vendor procurement information, output by an Alchemy document imaging system, and data from its OS/400-based financial application from IBS's Dutch subsidiary, IBS/Consist. B&C plans to use iBOLT to create a system that automatically compares the invoices it receives from suppliers with the original procurement data, and then forwards these verified invoices to accounts payable upon approval.

Licenses for iBOLT start at around $65,000. Fully deployed solutions involving professional services from Magic Software run more than $100,000. For more information, go to www.magicsoftware.com.