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
webMethods has more performing, predict what might happen in the future and adjust those
than 1,250 customers processes rapidly to address the changes faced by your business. Using
worldwide, including business integration you can create new applications across your enterprise
Global 2000 leaders and realize significant increases in business process productivity.
such as Wells Fargo, A complete business integration platform will help harness your IT assets and
Apple, Eastman construct the complex business processes that drive your enterprise. Selecting
Chemical Company, and deploying the right integration solution will give your company a key
competitive differentiator, increase revenues, reduce costs, and help you
International Paper,
deliver the best service to your customers.
Office Depot, Henkel
KG&A, American In short, with business integration you can realize the full value of your IT
investments and have a direct impact on your enterprise.
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
3877 Fairfax Ridge Road Coherent product strategy
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 “We're very pleased
have to say about the vendor’s contributions to their success. Be sure to with webMethods'
determine that the reference has placed integrations into production.
solutions, and are
Methodology and best practices. Ask the direct question: “How will you equally impressed with
make me successful with your product?” Consider the answer carefully. the company's intelligent
Look for a proven methodology to help you architect your integration
solution that not only gets you into production quickly, but also enables
and innovative approach
you to stay in production as your enterprise integration needs change. to partnerships.
webMethods has been a
Strong professional services, training and technical customer support. It
is very important to select a vendor that provides you with mentoring,
strong advocate for
training, and “lighthouse” services that allow you to be self-sufficient in Motorola's success from
your implementation. Evaluate the quality of the customer support the beginning, and has
offerings and look for high customer satisfaction levels taken from been integrally involved
independent surveys. from design and
Look for how actively the vendor solicits customer feedback to the planning, down to the
future of the product. Determine how the vendor will address your flawless execution. The
future requirements and how the vendor will incorporate customer technical conversations
feedback into the future product roadmap. between our two
Why webMethods? companies have borne
innovative technology
Production events. webMethods is the only vendor to report publicly
solutions that drive value
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 for our business."
somewhere around the world is starting to get a positive return on their Toby Redshaw,
webMethods investment. Corporate Vice
President of
Customer focus. webMethods’ Global Customer Services group is Information
dedicated to helping customers achieve successful implementation of Technology Strategy
webMethods products. The GCS provides complete lifecycle support in and Business
the implementation of webMethods’ integration solutions through world-
Development,
class education, consulting and technical support services.
Motorola, Inc
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
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.
Financial strength. As the economy fluctuates, it is important that the
“The integration solution vendor has a healthy financial position and is making the right amount of
was going to be the investments in R&D to address your current and future problems.
foundation for many of Industry leadership. If you are going to partner with a vendor for the
our operations today and long haul, you want to select a vendor that is recognized by the industry
in the future. We needed as a leader and that will continue to lead future innovations to maximize
a solution that could the return on your integration investments.
support us in the long run
Why webMethods?
and webMethods was a
great fit. webMethods Product Viability. The components of the webMethods Fabric suite
was able to not only are proven, reliable, and mature. The webMethods Broker first shipped
in 1997, Integration Server in 1998, and Servicenet (a comprehensive
provide us with an Web services framework) was available in 2003, ahead of any other major
impressive vision for their integration vendor. In April of 2005, webMethods announced its latest
solutions, but also show version – webMethods Fabric 6.5, continuing the legacy of innovation
that with diverse that has been the hallmark of the company.
capabilities, their Vendor Stability and Strength. webMethods has a strong cash
solutions could scale with balance, the best customer base in the industry, is pro-forma profitable
Unisys as our company and cash positive.
continues to grow. We Corporate Commitment. The CEO and senior executives leading the
were able to see the value company in Finance, Product Development and Marketing have all been
very quickly.” with the company for more than 6 years and are committed to the
continued success of webMethods and its customers.
Neil Kevles, Application Industry Leadership. webMethods is the only pure-play integration
Integration Technologies vendor on the Web Services Interoperability (WS-I) Board of Directors
manager, Unisys. 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 “webMethods'
simplifies deployment. integration solutions
In today’s business world, the competitive advantage goes to those who have allowed Hitachi
can adapt the fastest. For sustained success, flexible processes are America to align our
mandatory, enabling an organization to adjust quickly in an ever-changing operations more closely
environment with those of our
Why webMethods? customers. In a matter
of 20 days, Hitachi
Get there faster. Many vendors claim their products require less
development effort, but few have reliable data to back up their
America was able to
arguments. We say it again: webMethods is the only vendor to report deploy webMethods
publicly the number of projects that go live, a figure that now exceeds software improving the
160 projects a quarter. efficiency and
Single, Role-Based User Interface. The “My webMethods” portal connectivity of our IT
provides task-based, personalized monitoring and management across all systems.”
webMethods Fabric products. The same role-based interface is used by
IT staff to monitor systems, services, and processes, and by business Greg Hattori,
users to monitor business processes and KPIs. Director, Electronic
Software, not services. As a software vendor and a company that is Business Solutions,
100% focused on integration, webMethods is driven to make its products Information
efficient and productive. Supplementing software sales with large Technology Group,
consulting contracts is not part of the company’s core mission. 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 mission-
critical 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.
“"webMethods Fabric
The ability to manage business processes and the integration components
has been central to our
that support those processes is key to lowering TCO over time. The true
ability to reduce the cost value of integration to your business can only be realized when it is put
of transacting business into production. And, that TCO is maximized when the information is
and streamlining our available to optimize these integrations.
purchasing process while Businesses are looking to Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) as the
also giving our suppliers best way to leverage their IT assets and to provide their organizations
optimum flexibility in with the agility needed to be competitive in today’s economy. Simply
conducting business. We making a collection of Web services available on the network does not
now have better visibility 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
into our orders across unlike the situation that companies have faced with other technologies.
locations, reduced errors
and redundancies and Why webMethods?
increased levels of Advanced SOA Infrastructure. webMethods Fabric is based on a
operational efficiency.” Service-Oriented Architecture foundation and incorporates management
capabilities that enable companies to realize the full potential of SOA on
Arwin Teschers, an enterprise scale. Through out-of-the-box Web service management
Manager, eBusiness, and registry capabilities, any integration service company can be quickly
Henkel 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.
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? “webMethods is an
important part of our
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
operations. By
independent integration vendor with no allegiance to a given technology leveraging the
or application system will always be your best hedge against the reality of webMethods solution,
heterogeneity. we have been able to
Leverage best-of-breed: An independent vendor provides you with a rapidly and reliably
true best-of-breed solution for your enterprise integration. Evaluate integrate key business
carefully the claims of vendors that claim best-of-breed but either locks processes, increase
you into their application paradigm or into their proprietary architecture. productivity and
Integration solutions from someone other than an independent operating efficiencies,
integration vendor are naturally prone to a form of bias to the non- and achieve visibility
independent vendor’s core application, hardware, or technology. Simply across our operations.
put: how committed is that vendor to building high performance With the webMethods
integrations that do not include their core product as an end-point?
integration technology,
Independent integration vendors are free from any parochial ties that Logitech has gained a
may prevent them from supporting all critical industry standards. This is centralized and forward-
critical as industry standards provide a mechanism and protocol to
communicate and exchange information with your business partners and looking infrastructure
customers. Support for these standards enables you to realize cost for our business process
savings and a reduction on the total cost of ownership. automation
requirements."
Why webMethods?
Greater agility. With a 100% focus on integration, webMethods is able Dan Poulin, CIO,
to be more responsive to changing customer and market requirements. Logitech
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
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 A service-oriented architecture has proven over time to be able to
address new technologies readily without the need for massive shifts in
building our the foundations of the integration solution. It should be noted that
infrastructure strategy because the leading industry analysts support the importance of a service-
around webMethods' oriented architecture, many vendors claim the SOA mantle without
technology, Rich merit. Look for a vendor that has a solution built from the ground up
Products will be able to with a service-oriented architecture.
achieve significant A strong, mature architectural foundation addresses the enterprise’s
operational efficiencies current integration needs, but is also the platform upon which future
and cost savings over technologies can be easily built. A mature architecture makes a solution
time. webMethods' that can bridge past, present and future possible.
solutions have enabled An integration solution with a mature architecture will allow you to
Rich Products to benefit absorb and unify new technologies as they evolve, while continuing to
from an integrated leverage applications built on older technologies. This will shield you
from the dual technology risks of obsolescence on the one hand, and the
infrastructure that can bleeding-edge of technology on the other.
support the future
development and growth Why webMethods?
of our organization and Mature foundation. The core elements of the webMethods platform
improve the services we were developed more than 8 years ago. Unlike vendors who have first or
provide for our second generation products – with limited production references – as
customers." their centerpiece, webMethods’ solution has evolved from successive
Dave Gwozdz, iterations and the experience gained from widespread deployments.
Rich Products 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.
"A single,
Process Assembly – Your business services must be able to be combined
and re-combined quickly to improve processes or even create new ones. comprehensive solution
was our vision. The
Business Optimization – Your services need to be intelligent, feeding
standards-based
back information and collecting the necessary metrics to gauge
operational performance and even predict future operational events. platform from
webMethods has
If an integration solution lacks completeness, you will be forced to
provided us with a
introduce additional tools to address your business requirements later.
This limits the reusability of the integration solution, increases complexity simple and flexible
in development and maintenance, and forces you to be the integrator. method for automating
If an integration solution is a set of disparate and overlapping offerings,
business transactions
your cost to implement this solution as part of a services engagement will and a secure
greatly increase your overall total cost of ownership. environment to facilitate
transparent
Why webMethods? communications between
Best-in-class functionality. webMethods offers best-in-class Office Depot and our
functionality in all the key areas from integration to process assembly to customers."
business optimization. The webMethods platform is the first integration James Morris,
solution to combine traditional integration, SOA and event-driven Director of
processing. Some vendors only offer capabilities in niche areas such as ECommerce
Web services or composite applications. Development,
Integrated suite. Some vendors offer integration functionality that is Office Depot
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.
©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
"Corporate Express has enterprise naturally evolve. The solution should provide the capacity you
experienced real business require today while positioning for the demands of the future.
results with webMethods
Look for an integration solution that derives scalability from an
Fabric. webMethods is architecture that was optimized from the start for business process
helping Corporate integration. Some vendors’ solutions are based on message-oriented
Express build a middleware that was designed to solve a different business problem.
reusable, scalable True system scalability involves more than just the messaging layer.
integration infrastructure An integration solution should provide you with flexible deployment
to seamlessly integrate options that maximize performance and use of integration resources. A
the interfaces between key indicator is the capability to host and distribute integration resources
our existing systems, remotely and enable a geographically distributed, yet integrated
and rapidly assemble enterprise.
new processes to add to Why webMethods?
our strategic application
Scalable tools. Integration is inherently complicated, from the need to
portfolio. We are handle complex data structures, exception conditions, and performance
leveraging the power of requirements. Products that are designed for simple departmental
webMethods business requirements are unable to scale. webMethods allows organizations to
optimization to gain meet the most demanding performance requirements through a multi-
real-time visibility into threaded infrastructure optimized for high message and data volume
our critical processes." throughput and low transaction latency.
SOA and Web Services. webMethods extends SOA beyond simple
Sandy McGregor, Web services standards by incorporating features that enable the
Director of Integration widespread deployment of Web services in an enterprise setting. These
Architecture, Corporate include advanced registry services, security, transactionality, audit,
Express Corporation 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.
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.
“We needed to integrate
Why is this important? our corporate legacy
A vendor’s roster of partners is an important indicator of the efficacy of systems with best-of-
the vendor’s product. In particular, note the number of partners that are breed applications such
using the integration vendor as part of their own product offering. This is as i2's Discovery
the ultimate endorsement of confidence and trust in the integration
vendor’s technology and ability.
Knowledge Manager.
We chose webMethods
Strategic ISV partners. Look for strong partnerships between the for three reasons: first,
integration vendor and leading ISVs whose applications are being
integrated. Again, pay particular attention in those cases where the technology excellence,
integration software is imbedded in the ISV’s product. This provides you second, it provided the
assurance that the ability to integrate to the ISV’s software is well most strategic 'on-ramp'
established. for the value added
Strong system integrator partnerships. A healthy sign for an integration services we offer our
vendor is the existence of a strong network of system integrators that customers, and, finally
have developed a practice around the vendor solution and have a large the fact that
number of trained personnel that can implement the vendor’s solutions webMethods software
was already integrated
Why webMethods?
with i2's applications."
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 Brad Hudon,
evaluations conducted by these companies this is a tremendous Director of IT
validation. Specifically, with regards to GXS, webMethods Fabric will be Development,
used to power the GXS Trading Grid, which serves over 30,000 Future Electronics
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.
©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 Why is this important?
solution we are already Look for an integration vendor that has a vision for its solution and a
close to the customer to plan to realize that vision. Interoperability between solution components
better understand their and historical success for assimilating new components should be
buying habits so we can considered as an indicator of the vendor’s ability to reach the stated
better serve them. To vision. While acquisition is a perfectly viable method for growth, acquired
components must be seamlessly integrated with the vendor’s core
take a step further in
product offering. Otherwise, the result is a more complicated solution to
this area, and to implement with higher development costs, and the prospect of future
optimize business changes to consolidate functionality.
processes, we needed a
Be on the lookout for vendors who have had to resort to extensive
solution that is prepared overhauling of their products to remain competitive. For example, the
for the future; is in line emergence of Web services forced some vendors with problematic
with our vision and can architectures to rewrite their products to address this important
help us implement technology. As a result, customers were forced to contend with migration
integrated solutions for issues and furthermore to a new, unproven product.
our stores, distribution With their limited resources, smaller vendors may be challenged to
centers, suppliers and deliver major product changes, provide ongoing support to their installed
corporate systems. With base, and adequately support any new customers.
all our stores set to Why webMethods?
migrate to webMethods
over the next six Evolutionary. webMethods was designed from the ground up on XML,
Internet standards, and a service-oriented architecture. While other
months, we'll have more vendors are trying to absorb acquisitions and establish new architectures,
relevant information at webMethods has been able to build on a proven foundation.
our fingertips than our
Completeness of vision. webMethods’ vision is to enable customers to
competition, which will leverage SOA for business integration, the assembly of composite
help us save money in applications, and the optimization of the processes supported by these
our supply chain and applications. webMethods has created the most “SOA-enabled” and
improve service to our purpose-specific product suite on the market to achieve these goals.
shoppers." webMethods’ goal is to make SOA real, make it useful, and make it
productive.
Peter van Kralingen,
Vice President of IT,
Albert Heijn.”
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.