Taking a suite approach to integration, InterSystems on Tuesday rolled out an integration platform that melds functions from
integration and application servers, an object database, and a development and management environment.
Called Ensemble, one of the goals of the new product is to help enterprise users more rapidly implement business solutions
that can draw more value out of existing applications, better direct new business processes, and integrate silos of information
across a company.
"We think there is an opportunity in this market by taking an integrated approach to application integration. And with delivery
of this product we think we can make some headway by speeding up the entire process of integration," said Paul Grabscheid,
the vice president of strategic planning at InterSystems.
The technical strength of the product, according to Grabscheid, is its ability to quickly create composite applications that
can intuitively integrate the functions of existing applications with those of newly created business logic and data from
all parts of an enterprise.
To better accommodate both integration and development, the product includes an XML-based graphical interface intended to
help quicken modeling and automating business processes. The suite is built around a universal service architecture, which
helps offer a more consistent object representation of disparate programming, models, and data formats. The architecture allows
developers to access legacy data as reusable J2EE and .Net components and Web services, a company spokesman said.
The suite also contains a persistent object engine that has the job of managing and storing all metadata, messages, and process
state information. With the engine users gain real-time access to both live and previously processed messages for auditing
and business activity monitoring.
Ensemble's built-in management and monitoring capabilities, which can be customized, are designed to rapidly diagnose and
debug problems. This better enables users to optimize service levels and cut down on staff workloads by automatically monitoring
important resources and generating alerts. Company officials said this can help cut down on operating expenses.
The Florida Department of Children and Families is using Ensemble to tie together repositories of information spread across
five different systems. Before they implemented Ensemble, information could not be shared across all of the department's programs,
including those for mental health, substance abuse, developmental disabilities, and family safety.
"What we realized is that in order to provide more of a holistic treatment, you must be able to view all the information relative
to the client regardless of where the service was offered or the service location," said Glenn Palmiere, the IT director for
the Department of Children and Families for the State of Florida. "We chose Ensemble because it was able to connect things
for us at three different layers including the applications layer, the data layer, and Web service data exchange layer."
Palmiere said the department was able to prototype a composite application in 93 days that successfully integrated data from
all five host systems, each of which employs a different database. With this pilot program completed, the department is now
working on a statewide Web rollout of the composite application that will integrate data contained in all 59 systems.
Available immediately, Ensemble works with Microsoft's Windows, Linux, Hewlett-Packard's Alpha Open VMS Tru64, HP-UX environments,
IBM's AIX, and Sun's Solaris environments. Enterprise licensing pricing begins at $125,000, company officials said.
More information about Ensemble can be seen at http://www.InterSystems.com.
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