HBSi Launches Partner Services with IBM® WebSphere® SOA Appliance and Contivo® Joint Solution Hotel Booking Solution Incorporated’s (HBSi’s) technology and services enhance the flow of commerce between leading hotel companies and their distribution channels. Credited with introducing Demand Management to the global travel industry, HBSi brings order and simplicity to the complex distribution environment. HBSi’s robust channel management platform connects hotel companies and distribution channels, enabling them to transmit room availability, rates, and bookings data instantaneously, eliminating time-consuming and error-prone manual processes that disrupt the flow of commerce. As a result, both sides enhance their ability to increase revenues.
Challenge
In fall of 2006, HBSi implemented the IBM WebSphere DataPower Integration Appliance XI50 into their environment and migrated to a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). HBSi deployed the DataPower XI50 appliances in their network as secure web servers. In parallel, another key objective of the HBSi appliance strategy was to manage data integration services to handle trading partner requests and routing through the DataPower XI50. One of the key components driving their business success is the application of technology to enhance ways to quickly, cost effectively, and easily expand their partner networks. With an expected growth in the customer base and associated messaging traffic in the range of two orders of magnitude, HBSi could not economically replicate the existing application servers to handle the load. A large portion of the translation, transformation, authentication, and authorization needed to be moved to another layer of their architecture. HBSi looked to the combined power of the DataPower X150 and Contivo to innovatively address this need. Simplifying integration was a strategic objective. HBSi needed to replace their monolithic processing and eliminate their expensive hand coding process. By implementing data integration design with Contivo’s transformation design solution, HBSi was able to deploy a SOA architecture that provided a cost effective, componentized, and easy to deploy run-time design, bolstered by a robust and flexible design environment that allows HBSi unlimited partner expansion. Goals Cost Effective, Flexible Solution The integration solution had to match HBSi’s overall philosophy that their SOA solution would be cost effective, efficient, componentized, and a “scale as you go” solution.
Page 1 of 4 Contivo, Inc. May 2007
Legacy Integration HBSi required a data transformation solution that would include support of both binary and XML files as their partner network was comprised of messages in any type of format from XML to EDIFACT. The ability to handle flexible manipulation and mapping of rules that could easily be uploaded to the DataPower XI50 appliance was mandatory. Without this capability, the value of the DataPower XI50 appliance would be limited. Manage Extreme Complexity The handling of complex translations and transformation tasks was imperative. HBSi was impressed by the flexibility offered by Contivo in semantic translation. More than just simple mapping, Contivo allows the use of the text rule and looping editor to define complex translation of one set of semantic representations to another. HBSi found Contivo capable to handle their most complex translation and transformation tasks. Solution Implementation Before DataPower XI50 and Contivo, HBSi had limited mapping capability that was implemented entirely in C# on their application servers. In the new SOA environment, this has been simplified and offloaded to Contivo and the DataPower XI50 appliances. All new interfaces are being built and executed using the Contivo and DataPower XI50 combination. HBSi now uses Contivo to route incoming messages from the trading partners to the proper service, and within the application to divide the work into multiple units that can be handled by the discrete components. This environment does not rely on an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) for this purpose, HBSi innovatively uses Contivo’s data transformation design tool to provide intelligence to the DataPower XI50 appliance for accomplishing routing and distributed deployment of service requests. The DataPower XI50 appliance solves a major problem for HBSi in handling these types of messages and offloading this work from their application servers. Contivo solves the problem of managing the complexity of the messages. The combined product solution performance was a key factor in deciding to purchase the appliances. Within the HBSi environment, the DataPower X150 appliances bolstered by Contivo’s mapping intelligence drive a critical architectural layer that handles translation, transformation, authentication, and authorization, which increases the capacity of HBSi’s system and extends the performance of the DataPower X150 appliances. Results Flexibility and agility to incrementally scale with their evolving SOA environment were key benefits of the combined Contivo and DataPower XI50 appliance solution. Plus, HBSi was able to implement SOA without the major investment of purchasing an ESB. The enhanced
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Contivo, Inc.
May 2007
translation, transformation, authentication, and authorization layer that the combined Contivo and DataPower solution drives increases the capacity of HBSi’s system at a much lower cost than just adding more servers and increases the value of the DataPower X150 purchase to HBSi. “Key elements in our SOA initiative are the maps generated from Contivo that give the DataPower XI50 its intelligence. We can add a new service, or change the processing rules for an existing service, by using Contivo to create a new map and upload it to the DataPower XI50 appliance. This gives the SOA its flexibility, and keeps HBSi agile so we can respond to rapidly changing business requirements. Building translation, transformation, and routing rules in the Contivo graphical interface is far more efficient than doing this in custom-coded software,” said Lawrence Cram, Chief Architect at HBSi. Another key benefit that HBSi gained from their DataPower XI50 and Contivo duo was the competitive advantage of integrating new trading partners with greatly reduced technical barriers. “HBSi is always seeking new trading partners. With the implementation of Contivo, HBSi now has the capability to easily accommodate both XML and binary transformations, which provides us a clear competitive advantage,” said Cram. Future With this successful SOA deployment continuing on through 2007, HBSi expects to add additional DataPower XI50 appliances and additional Contivo licenses to support the company’s growth model and expansion of its successful partner networks. About Hotel Booking Solutions Incorporated Hotel Booking Solutions Incorporated (HBSi), credited with introducing Demand Management to the global travel industry, offers technologies and services that bring order and simplicity to travel distribution, enabling travel companies to unlock their full revenue potential. HBSi’s hotel customers include Fairmont, Harrah’s, Hyatt, InterContinental Hotels Group, Intrawest, ResortQuest Hawaii, Sandals, and Wyndham Worldwide. For more information, visit www.hotelbookingsolutions.com. About Contivo, Inc. Contivo provides solutions that enable companies to dramatically reduce time to deployment and scalability of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) integration. Contivo’s best-in-class design transformation tools automate platform independent data transforms for complex legacy data integration as well as XML-to-XML data integration projects. Contivo’s customers include AIG, Amazon, Federal Trade Commission, Fidelity National Financial, GXS, Hewlett Packard, JP Morgan Chase, MetLife, Network Appliance, Random
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Contivo, Inc.
May 2007
House, Wachovia, Wells Fargo and US Bank as well as strategic partnerships with Cisco, IBM, and Wipro. Investors include Scale Venture Partners and Voyager Capital. Contivo is privately held and headquartered in San Jose, CA. For more information, go to www.contivo.com Trademarks: Contivo is a registered trademark of Contivo, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners
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Contivo, Inc.
May 2007