Top 10 Points to Consider in a Business Integration Vendor

TOP 10 POINTS TO CONSIDER IN A BUSINESS INTEGRATION VENDOR Business integration provides you with two primary things: real-time access to business information, and the insight needed to manage all of your critical processes. With business integration you see how business processes are performing, predict what might happen in the future and adjust those processes rapidly to address the changes faced by your business. Using business integration you can create new applications across your enterprise and realize significant increases in business process productivity. A complete business integration platform will help harness your IT assets and construct the complex business processes that drive your enterprise. Selecting and deploying the right integration solution will give your company a key competitive differentiator, increase revenues, reduce costs, and help you deliver the best service to your customers. In short, with business integration you can realize the full value of your IT investments and have a direct impact on your enterprise. webMethods has more than 1,250 customers worldwide, including Global 2000 leaders such as Wells Fargo, Apple, Eastman Chemical Company, International Paper, Office Depot, Henkel KG&A, American Electric Power (AEP) and Applied Materials. What to Look for in an Integration Vendor Selecting the right business integration vendor is a challenge. The number of vendors promising a comprehensive and unified integration solution grows daily, as does the variety of approaches to solving the integration problem. While it is essential to focus on what is critical for your company, it is also important to evaluate vendors using a common set of metrics. This document uses customer feedback taken from a broad portfolio of evaluations to offer key factors and considerations to use when selecting an integration software vendor: Track record of customer success Proven corporate strength Speed of implementation Manageability Independence Mature architecture Completeness Scalability Strong partner network Coherent product strategy 3877 Fairfax Ridge Road Fairfax, VA 22030 USA www.webmethods.com ©2005 All Rights Reserved. webMethods, Inc. 1. Customer Success The most important consideration is this: has the vendor made companies similar to yours successful? What is the vendor’s track record, how do they treat customers, and how do their customers view them? Why is this important? References. This is the biggest indicator of customer success. Talk to some of the current customers using the product and find out what they have to say about the vendor’s contributions to their success. Be sure to determine that the reference has placed integrations into production. Methodology and best practices. Ask the direct question: “How will you make me successful with your product?” Consider the answer carefully. Look for a proven methodology to help you architect your integration solution that not only gets you into production quickly, but also enables you to stay in production as your enterprise integration needs change. Strong professional services, training and technical customer support. It is very important to select a vendor that provides you with mentoring, training, and “lighthouse” services that allow you to be self-sufficient in your implementation. Evaluate the quality of the customer support offerings and look for high customer satisfaction levels taken from independent surveys. Look for how actively the vendor solicits customer feedback to the future of the product. Determine how the vendor will address your future requirements and how the vendor will incorporate customer feedback into the future product roadmap. Why webMethods? Production events. webMethods is the only vendor to report publicly the number of projects that go live, a figure that now exceeds 160 projects a quarter. This means that more than one company per day somewhere around the world is starting to get a positive return on their webMethods investment. Customer focus. webMethods’ Global Customer Services group is dedicated to helping customers achieve successful implementation of webMethods products. The GCS provides complete lifecycle support in the implementation of webMethods’ integration solutions through worldclass education, consulting and technical support services. Proven Integration Methodology. webMethods integration methodology, GEAR, represents the best practices and experiential knowledge gained from a vast portfolio of successful projects. GEAR is a proven guide for high-quality projects that are on-time, on-budget and easy to maintain. Customer Satisfaction. webMethods’ revenue from existing customers consistently averages greater than 50% - a great measure of customer satisfaction. ©2005, webMethods, Inc. 2 “We're very pleased with webMethods' solutions, and are equally impressed with the company's intelligent and innovative approach to partnerships. webMethods has been a strong advocate for Motorola's success from the beginning, and has been integrally involved from design and planning, down to the flawless execution. The technical conversations between our two companies have borne innovative technology solutions that drive value for our business." Toby Redshaw, Corporate Vice President of Information Technology Strategy and Business Development, Motorola, Inc 2. Corporate Strength Corporate strength addresses a fundamental question: Does it make good business sense to select this vendor as a partner? Why is this important? Long-term vendor and product viability. As in all maturing markets, the business integration market is consolidating. It is therefore critical to select a vendor who will be there for the long term and whose products will be there for the long term. “The integration solution was going to be the foundation for many of our operations today and in the future. We needed a solution that could support us in the long run and webMethods was a great fit. webMethods was able to not only provide us with an impressive vision for their solutions, but also show that with diverse capabilities, their solutions could scale with Unisys as our company continues to grow. We were able to see the value very quickly.” Neil Kevles, Application Integration Technologies manager, Unisys. Financial strength. As the economy fluctuates, it is important that the vendor has a healthy financial position and is making the right amount of investments in R&D to address your current and future problems. Industry leadership. If you are going to partner with a vendor for the long haul, you want to select a vendor that is recognized by the industry as a leader and that will continue to lead future innovations to maximize the return on your integration investments. Why webMethods? Product Viability. The components of the webMethods Fabric suite are proven, reliable, and mature. The webMethods Broker first shipped in 1997, Integration Server in 1998, and Servicenet (a comprehensive Web services framework) was available in 2003, ahead of any other major integration vendor. In April of 2005, webMethods announced its latest version – webMethods Fabric 6.5, continuing the legacy of innovation that has been the hallmark of the company. Vendor Stability and Strength. webMethods has a strong cash balance, the best customer base in the industry, is pro-forma profitable and cash positive. Corporate Commitment. The CEO and senior executives leading the company in Finance, Product Development and Marketing have all been with the company for more than 6 years and are committed to the continued success of webMethods and its customers. Industry Leadership. webMethods is the only pure-play integration vendor on the Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) Board of Directors and is recognized as a leader by leading industry analyst firms. 3 ©2005 webMethods, Inc. 3. Speed of Implementation Integration software doesn’t deliver a return on investment until it has been successfully implemented and deployed. The faster you move into production, the faster you can realize returns and drive real value to your business. Look for a vendor that is able to get you into production. Faster. Why is this important? An integration vendor should demonstrate a focus for getting you into production via the tools and processes that facilitate rapid implementation, not just on technology. An integration solution should have a common graphical interface that minimizes or even eliminates the need for coding. This speeds development, eliminates the need for specialty skills and resources, and simplifies deployment. In today’s business world, the competitive advantage goes to those who can adapt the fastest. For sustained success, flexible processes are mandatory, enabling an organization to adjust quickly in an ever-changing environment Why webMethods? Get there faster. Many vendors claim their products require less development effort, but few have reliable data to back up their arguments. We say it again: webMethods is the only vendor to report publicly the number of projects that go live, a figure that now exceeds 160 projects a quarter. Single, Role-Based User Interface. The “My webMethods” portal provides task-based, personalized monitoring and management across all webMethods Fabric products. The same role-based interface is used by IT staff to monitor systems, services, and processes, and by business users to monitor business processes and KPIs. Software, not services. As a software vendor and a company that is 100% focused on integration, webMethods is driven to make its products efficient and productive. Supplementing software sales with large consulting contracts is not part of the company’s core mission. “webMethods' integration solutions have allowed Hitachi America to align our operations more closely with those of our customers. In a matter of 20 days, Hitachi America was able to deploy webMethods software improving the efficiency and connectivity of our IT systems.” Greg Hattori, Director, Electronic Business Solutions, Information Technology Group, Hitachi America ©2005, webMethods, Inc. 4 4. Manageability A frequently overlooked requirement is the ability to manage, monitor and optimize the system once the integration solution has been deployed. Look for a vendor that has addressed manageability as a core capability, not an afterthought. Why is this important? It follows that if your integration solution is used to build a missioncritical business process, then the integrations and the components that support those integrations are also mission-critical. Therefore, the integration components need to be managed and monitored and refined accordingly. The ability to manage business processes and the integration components that support those processes is key to lowering TCO over time. The true value of integration to your business can only be realized when it is put into production. And, that TCO is maximized when the information is available to optimize these integrations. Businesses are looking to Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) as the best way to leverage their IT assets and to provide their organizations with the agility needed to be competitive in today’s economy. Simply making a collection of Web services available on the network does not make an SOA. In fact, the unmanaged proliferation of Web services will quickly result in a chaotic mix of systems and interfaces, which is not unlike the situation that companies have faced with other technologies. Why webMethods? Advanced SOA Infrastructure. webMethods Fabric is based on a Service-Oriented Architecture foundation and incorporates management capabilities that enable companies to realize the full potential of SOA on an enterprise scale. Through out-of-the-box Web service management and registry capabilities, any integration service company can be quickly and easily turned into a manageable service, without rework, enabling faster deployment of SOA-based applications. Beyond basic monitoring. webMethods enables true business process optimization by combining BPM and BAM, allowing business processes to become smart by virtue of being pre-instrumented to report on key performance indicators. The insight gained from business activity monitoring directs the organization’s attention to where improvements can be made. Predict what’s next. webMethods Fabric includes patent-pending fingerprinting technology to predict business, service, or other exceptions based on observed events correlated with previous problems, a unique capability amongst integration vendors. “"webMethods Fabric has been central to our ability to reduce the cost of transacting business and streamlining our purchasing process while also giving our suppliers optimum flexibility in conducting business. We now have better visibility into our orders across locations, reduced errors and redundancies and increased levels of operational efficiency.” Arwin Teschers, Manager, eBusiness, Henkel 5 ©2005 webMethods, Inc. 5. Independence There are an increasing number of entrants into the integration software space, from platform vendors to niche solution vendors. The platform vendors are in the market to support broader objectives, such as selling more development software or application user seats; or to patch up shortcomings in their offerings. Niche solution vendors provide limited offerings for a certain technology area such as Web services or composite applications. Be cautious of vendors for whom integration is just a sideline. They might not be in the market for the long term. Why is this important? The winner is…heterogeneity. It is a fact of corporate life that your IT environment was, is, and always shall be heterogeneous and disparate. An independent integration vendor with no allegiance to a given technology or application system will always be your best hedge against the reality of heterogeneity. Leverage best-of-breed: An independent vendor provides you with a true best-of-breed solution for your enterprise integration. Evaluate carefully the claims of vendors that claim best-of-breed but either locks you into their application paradigm or into their proprietary architecture. Integration solutions from someone other than an independent integration vendor are naturally prone to a form of bias to the nonindependent vendor’s core application, hardware, or technology. Simply put: how committed is that vendor to building high performance integrations that do not include their core product as an end-point? Independent integration vendors are free from any parochial ties that may prevent them from supporting all critical industry standards. This is critical as industry standards provide a mechanism and protocol to communicate and exchange information with your business partners and customers. Support for these standards enables you to realize cost savings and a reduction on the total cost of ownership. Why webMethods? Greater agility. With a 100% focus on integration, webMethods is able to be more responsive to changing customer and market requirements. Track record. webMethods has an established track record. Many of the platform vendors are late to market with key integration technologies and have few customers with enterprise-wide business integration deployments. Technology independence. It is inevitable that technology will change. Being independent of a specific technology platform allows webMethods to bridge the gaps between incompatible systems as well as to bridge the divide between legacy and future technologies. webMethods has customers integrating 30-year old mainframe systems with applications based on the latest Web services standards. ©2005, webMethods, Inc. 6 “webMethods is an important part of our operations. By leveraging the webMethods solution, we have been able to rapidly and reliably integrate key business processes, increase productivity and operating efficiencies, and achieve visibility across our operations. With the webMethods integration technology, Logitech has gained a centralized and forwardlooking infrastructure for our business process automation requirements." Dan Poulin, CIO, Logitech 6. Mature Architecture Integration software will become the critical glue between your business processes, services and the underlying applications in your environment, and the connections to your business partners. With such a central role, it is vital that the solution you choose is based on a mature and proven architecture. Why is this important? A mature architecture will manifest itself in key characteristics such as high performance, availability, and scalability that validate that the vendor’s solution is built-to-last and has been put through its paces. “We expect that by building our infrastructure strategy around webMethods' technology, Rich Products will be able to achieve significant operational efficiencies and cost savings over time. webMethods' solutions have enabled Rich Products to benefit from an integrated infrastructure that can support the future development and growth of our organization and improve the services we provide for our customers." Dave Gwozdz, Rich Products A service-oriented architecture has proven over time to be able to address new technologies readily without the need for massive shifts in the foundations of the integration solution. It should be noted that because the leading industry analysts support the importance of a serviceoriented architecture, many vendors claim the SOA mantle without merit. Look for a vendor that has a solution built from the ground up with a service-oriented architecture. A strong, mature architectural foundation addresses the enterprise’s current integration needs, but is also the platform upon which future technologies can be easily built. A mature architecture makes a solution that can bridge past, present and future possible. An integration solution with a mature architecture will allow you to absorb and unify new technologies as they evolve, while continuing to leverage applications built on older technologies. This will shield you from the dual technology risks of obsolescence on the one hand, and the bleeding-edge of technology on the other. Why webMethods? Mature foundation. The core elements of the webMethods platform were developed more than 8 years ago. Unlike vendors who have first or second generation products – with limited production references – as their centerpiece, webMethods’ solution has evolved from successive iterations and the experience gained from widespread deployments. Unified platform. Some vendors have a collection of overlapping products that customers have to integrate before they can make any progress. webMethods took the strategy early on of uniting complementary, best-of-breed capabilities into a single platform. As a result, the webMethods solution is not only the most mature, but has best-in-class functionality in all the key areas. Proven architecture. The flexibility of the webMethods platform is due to the fact that it was designed with a service-oriented architecture from its inception. All of its capabilities take advantage of service-orientation making it easier to generate reusable business services from existing application functions. 7 ©2005 webMethods, Inc. 7. Completeness Look for a solution that is able to address a set of distinct technology requirements – services integration, process assembly, and business optimization. Be aware of vendors that disguise disparate and overlapping offerings as completeness. Why is this important? Service Integration – Your application infrastructure needs to be integrated in a modular way. This creates an inventory of reusable business services from existing applications. Process Assembly – Your business services must be able to be combined and re-combined quickly to improve processes or even create new ones. Business Optimization – Your services need to be intelligent, feeding back information and collecting the necessary metrics to gauge operational performance and even predict future operational events. If an integration solution lacks completeness, you will be forced to introduce additional tools to address your business requirements later. This limits the reusability of the integration solution, increases complexity in development and maintenance, and forces you to be the integrator. If an integration solution is a set of disparate and overlapping offerings, your cost to implement this solution as part of a services engagement will greatly increase your overall total cost of ownership. Why webMethods? Best-in-class functionality. webMethods offers best-in-class functionality in all the key areas from integration to process assembly to business optimization. The webMethods platform is the first integration solution to combine traditional integration, SOA and event-driven processing. Some vendors only offer capabilities in niche areas such as Web services or composite applications. Integrated suite. Some vendors offer integration functionality that is acquired technology over many years each with its own tools, administration interfaces, and so on. Recognizing that business processes aren’t constrained by boundaries, webMethods has a single integrated suite that combines the functionality in one environment and toolset. No dependencies. Some integration vendors rely heavily on other companies for critical technologies like application adapters, Web services support or other emerging technologies. While partnerships can be an asset, they are a liability when a customer has to deal with multiple providers for support and rely on the vendors to keep product versions synchronized. "A single, comprehensive solution was our vision. The standards-based platform from webMethods has provided us with a simple and flexible method for automating business transactions and a secure environment to facilitate transparent communications between Office Depot and our customers." James Morris, Director of ECommerce Development, Office Depot ©2005, webMethods, Inc. 8 8. Scalability As integration and Web services becomes a vital element of your enterprise infrastructure, look for a provider that is able to scale with your requirements and as your business grows. Why is this important? A future-proof integration solution must be able to scale as your enterprise needs grow. You should have confidence that your integration solution will not reach a point of obsolescence as the needs of the enterprise naturally evolve. The solution should provide the capacity you require today while positioning for the demands of the future. Look for an integration solution that derives scalability from an architecture that was optimized from the start for business process integration. Some vendors’ solutions are based on message-oriented middleware that was designed to solve a different business problem. True system scalability involves more than just the messaging layer. An integration solution should provide you with flexible deployment options that maximize performance and use of integration resources. A key indicator is the capability to host and distribute integration resources remotely and enable a geographically distributed, yet integrated enterprise. Why webMethods? Scalable tools. Integration is inherently complicated, from the need to handle complex data structures, exception conditions, and performance requirements. Products that are designed for simple departmental requirements are unable to scale. webMethods allows organizations to meet the most demanding performance requirements through a multithreaded infrastructure optimized for high message and data volume throughput and low transaction latency. SOA and Web Services. webMethods extends SOA beyond simple Web services standards by incorporating features that enable the widespread deployment of Web services in an enterprise setting. These include advanced registry services, security, transactionality, audit, monitoring capabilities and so on. The webMethods platform is designed to meet data center operational requirements, including the performance and scalability to handle enterprise-level business transaction volumes, and the reliability to ensure 24x7 availability. Distributed execution. webMethods has a unique architecture that allows the execution of a business process to be distributed across multiple servers. In practice, this provides the flexibility to deploy business process logic across the network in a way that best fits a customer’s environment. With most competing solutions, a business process is constrained to a single server process. "Corporate Express has experienced real business results with webMethods Fabric. webMethods is helping Corporate Express build a reusable, scalable integration infrastructure to seamlessly integrate the interfaces between our existing systems, and rapidly assemble new processes to add to our strategic application portfolio. We are leveraging the power of webMethods business optimization to gain real-time visibility into our critical processes." Sandy McGregor, Director of Integration Architecture, Corporate Express Corporation 9 ©2005 webMethods, Inc. 9. Partner Network Look for a vendor that is supported and endorsed by the other software and consulting partners that you rely on. Why is this important? A vendor’s roster of partners is an important indicator of the efficacy of the vendor’s product. In particular, note the number of partners that are using the integration vendor as part of their own product offering. This is the ultimate endorsement of confidence and trust in the integration vendor’s technology and ability. Strategic ISV partners. Look for strong partnerships between the integration vendor and leading ISVs whose applications are being integrated. Again, pay particular attention in those cases where the integration software is imbedded in the ISV’s product. This provides you assurance that the ability to integrate to the ISV’s software is well established. Strong system integrator partnerships. A healthy sign for an integration vendor is the existence of a strong network of system integrators that have developed a practice around the vendor solution and have a large number of trained personnel that can implement the vendor’s solutions Why webMethods? The choice of enterprise software vendors. An unmatched list of enterprise software companies – including GXS, and Oracle– embed webMethods’ technology in their product offerings. Given the rigorous evaluations conducted by these companies this is a tremendous validation. Specifically, with regards to GXS, webMethods Fabric will be used to power the GXS Trading Grid, which serves over 30,000 customers worldwide. Best-of-breed strategy. webMethods has a strategy of focusing on integration as a core competency and partnering with the leaders in related industries to provide customers with choices for best-of-breed solutions. SI Partners: Leading system integrators such as BearingPoint, Deloitte and TCS rank webMethods as one of their premier integration vendor in terms of revenue or influence in the marketplace. Crowe Chizek, the #3 audit firm in North America, relies on webMethods as its only strategic integration partner. “We needed to integrate our corporate legacy systems with best-ofbreed applications such as i2's Discovery Knowledge Manager. We chose webMethods for three reasons: first, technology excellence, second, it provided the most strategic 'on-ramp' for the value added services we offer our customers, and, finally the fact that webMethods software was already integrated with i2's applications." Brad Hudon, Director of IT Development, Future Electronics ©2005, webMethods, Inc. 10 10.Coherent Product Strategy and Vision A coherent product strategy is critical to gauge how the vendor will be able to provide your integration needs over the long term. Look for a vendor with a stable product portfolio, a clear product strategy and one that is not in the midst of a technological change. “"In our current solution we are already close to the customer to better understand their buying habits so we can better serve them. To take a step further in this area, and to optimize business processes, we needed a solution that is prepared for the future; is in line with our vision and can help us implement integrated solutions for our stores, distribution centers, suppliers and corporate systems. With all our stores set to migrate to webMethods over the next six months, we'll have more relevant information at our fingertips than our competition, which will help us save money in our supply chain and improve service to our shoppers." Peter van Kralingen, Vice President of IT, Albert Heijn.” Why is this important? Look for an integration vendor that has a vision for its solution and a plan to realize that vision. Interoperability between solution components and historical success for assimilating new components should be considered as an indicator of the vendor’s ability to reach the stated vision. While acquisition is a perfectly viable method for growth, acquired components must be seamlessly integrated with the vendor’s core product offering. Otherwise, the result is a more complicated solution to implement with higher development costs, and the prospect of future changes to consolidate functionality. Be on the lookout for vendors who have had to resort to extensive overhauling of their products to remain competitive. For example, the emergence of Web services forced some vendors with problematic architectures to rewrite their products to address this important technology. As a result, customers were forced to contend with migration issues and furthermore to a new, unproven product. With their limited resources, smaller vendors may be challenged to deliver major product changes, provide ongoing support to their installed base, and adequately support any new customers. Why webMethods? Evolutionary. webMethods was designed from the ground up on XML, Internet standards, and a service-oriented architecture. While other vendors are trying to absorb acquisitions and establish new architectures, webMethods has been able to build on a proven foundation. Completeness of vision. webMethods’ vision is to enable customers to leverage SOA for business integration, the assembly of composite applications, and the optimization of the processes supported by these applications. webMethods has created the most “SOA-enabled” and purpose-specific product suite on the market to achieve these goals. webMethods’ goal is to make SOA real, make it useful, and make it productive. 11 ©2005 webMethods, Inc. Conclusion Selecting a business integration solution may be one of the most important decisions your company makes. Choosing the right platform from a vendor that is committed to making that solution a success in your enterprise will result in a strategic corporate asset that will yield returns for the long term. Not only will you get a return on your integration investment, you will also see maximized returns from your entire IT portfolio. As the leading independent integration vendor, webMethods has considerable experience in helping people select an integration solution and then take that solution to production, where the true returns on investment are realized. This document was designed to capture some of that experience as you consider your options. We would be happy to speak with you directly about the specific needs of your business. If you would like to contact webMethods directly, visit our website at www.webmethods.com . 3877 Fairfax Ridge Rd Fairfax, VA 22030 USA 1-703-460-2500 www.webmethods.com ©2005, webMethods, Inc. All Rights Reserved.