Portal Integration Strategies

Bryan CaporletteExecutive Vice President, Strategic Technology

Sequoia Software Corporation5457 Twin Knolls RdColumbia, MD 21146

http://www.sequoiasoftware.com

Agenda

Housekeeping

Why Turn to Portal Software

Portal Integration Options

Implementation Methodology

Summary

Agenda

Housekeeping

Sequoia Software

Established in 1992

Headquartered in Columbia, MD with International operations: North America, Europe, Asia

Utilized SGML in late 1995; XML in 1996

Sequoia XPS 3.0 June 2000

200+ employees

Deloitte & Touche’s Fast 500 for 1997, 1998, 1999

Publicly held company “SQSW”

Representative Customers and Partners

Agenda

Why Turn to Portal Software

Partner

Customer

Corporate Portal

Portal's Role

Content

Employee

E-Business Portals

Content

Content

Portal Delivery Interface

Address What Problem?

“Single point of access to enterprise information assets”

First generation Portals - Next generation Intranets

Next Generation Portals

Aggregate People

Information

Applications

Business Processes

Focusing on New Problems

Knowledge management (traditional “Corporate Portal”) Save time

Gain efficiencies

Improve productivity

Customer acquisition or retention E-enable your business

Transition to Web interactions

I.e. Online Ordering, E-Marketplace Integration

Fixing a mission critical problem that’s broken

Timely data

Combining multiple business processes

Company NetworkE

nterp

riseR

esource P

lann

ing

Cu

stomer

Relation

ship

Mgm

t

Su

pp

ly Ch

ainM

anagem

ent

Sales F

orceA

utom

ation

Corp

orate Web

site/ In

tranet(s)

Web-enabling Applications

Employees

Firewall

Customers Suppliers PartnersMedia

Implementation Challenges

Incompatible technology

Duplication of effort

Inability to define enterprise business processes

Difficult deployment

Administration nightmare

Inconsistent user interfaces

Multiple Log-on procedures

Conflicting data

Information “overload”

Difficulty locating correct information or functions

IT Staff Users

Customers

Suppliers Media

Partners

Employees

Company NetworkE

RP

CR

M

Su

pp

ly

E-M

arket

Place

Web

site/In

tranets

Legacy

Ap

ps.

XML Portal Server

Firewall

Single Point of Aggregation

10K Foot Architecture

Requirements

Open architecture Standards based

Extensible

Ready for growth Users

Data

Geographic

Application integration Bi-directional

Multiple integration points

Requirements (2)

Content delivery Filtered

Personalized

Integrated information services Search & Retrieval

Taxonomy

Content Management

Business processing engine Information routing

Flows

Agenda

Integration Alternatives

Three Integration Layers

Presentation Provide one-way streets that communicate directly

with an application

Tunnels through the portal

Business Logic Communicate with applications through application

programmable interfaces (API)

Interact through function calls

Data Pull or push packaged information into the portal

Allows integrated portal services to act on the information

Integration Matrix

Content Delivery Agent

DataService

Data Source Adapter

Application Coupling

Transactional Integrity

Data Visibility

Interactivity

Application Defined Business Logic

Tightly LooselyAPI Dependent

Single Application

Data Freshness

None Single Application All Services

All Services None

Dependent on Web-enabled API

Dependent on Business API

Dependent on Connector

Data Security MaximumSession Dependent Minimum

Must Not Applicable Latency OK

Maintained Maintained Not Maintained

Presentation Layer

Business Logic Layer

Automated Process Flow

Validate

NotifySales

Acct.Payable

??

True

False

XML Message

Integration Agent

Data Layer

Data Source Adapters

Message Builder

Transport Adapters

XML Messages

EDI SAPLotusNotes Oracle Ariba

SMTP FTP HTTP File MSMQ

XML Message

Extract

Package

Transmit

Communication Models

Synchronous Direct processing (open a dialogue)

HTTP, D/COM, EJB, Corba

Asynchronous Indirect processing (when you get to it)

Directory polling, SMTP, HTTP, Queuing

Timeliness of data Scheduled

Triggered (event driven)

Building Connectors

Spiders

Home Grown

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) Tools

Spiders

Easiest – “Point and Crawl”

Good for discovering unstructured data

Typically within Document/Content Management systems

LAN/WAN, Internet

Challenges

Don’t do much

Limited to schedule based operation

Home Grown

Built from scratch

Usually one-off applications

Myriad of languages and architectures Perl, C/C++, VB, Python, TCL

Challenges Difficult to add new applications

Need internal development staff

Configuration management issues

Deploy new versions of 3rd party applications

Technology incompatibilities

EAI Software

Provide mapping GUI and transformation engine

Jump start kits

Build connectors using business analysts versus developers

Map reuse

Challenges

Expensive

Proprietary scripting environments

Still a lot of work, not “out-of-the-box”

Poor debug facilities

Lack of XML support

Agenda

Introduction

Requirements

Integration Points

Types of Applications

Integration Mechanisms

XML Messaging

Summary

Information Flow

BackendApplication

Information Connector

DataCommunication

Portal Server

Message Layer

DataCommunication

XML Messages

XML Provides…

Data neutral packaging Microsoft BizTalk

Information Content Exchange (ICE)

RosettaNet

Protocol neutral transmission HTTP/s

SMTP

FTP

D/COM

Validation DTD

XML Schema

Message Structure

Business Data

<XML<XML>>

DatabasesDatabases

Adobe Adobe AcrobatAcrobat(PDF)(PDF)

WordPerfectWordPerfect

Metadata Markup

Business Data

<data name="metadata">

<data name="doc_type">HomeProject</data>

<data name="author">RA_tc1</data>

<data name="file_type">XML</data>

<data name="room">Master Bedroom</data>

<data name="cost">1500.05</data>

<data name="paintcannum">15</data>

<data name="startdate">01/01/1980</data>

<data name="starttime">6:00</data>

<data name="enddatetime">01/04/1980 17:00</data>

<data name="color">Pale Green</data>

</data>

Interface Markup

Metadata MarkupBusiness Data

<request type="checkin">

<data name="metadata">

<data name="doc_id">25F1830C-F3B3-11D3-969F-00C04F607F1E </data>

<data name="paintcannum">16</data>

</data>

<data name="servername">dogz</data>

</request>

Routing Markup

Interface Markup

<biztalk_1 xmlns="x-schema:D:\Program Files\Sequoia XPS\extra\Biztalk.xdr">

<header>

<delivery>

<message>

<messageID>22F923CC-FB8A-11D3-BA7F-00C04F791123</messageID>

<sent>2000-03-16T17:33:19</sent>

</message>

<to><address></address></to>

<from><address></address></from>

</delivery>

<manifest>

<document><name>message</name></document>

</manifest>

</header>

<body>…</body>

</biztalk_1>

Metadata MarkupBusiness Data

Agenda

Introduction

Requirements

Integration Points

Types of Applications

Integration Mechanisms

XML Messaging

Summary

XML Advantages

If you use XML to represent the content… Standard transformation language (XSLT)

Reuse

Across different delivery devices (Web, Wireless, Print)

Across different integrated services

Greater personalization

Improved Search and Indexing

Summary

Portals aggregate information, processes, applications and people

Applications can be integrated within 3 layers Presentation

Business Logic

Data

Types of applications vary depending on how you apply the technology

When building connectors, understand the capabilities of IT, and know risk involved with using different EAI tools

XML can be leveraged at various stages of information processing

Questions?