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- 1. THINKstrategies A Whitepaper for Business and IT Decision-Makers Examining the Business Value of SaaS Integration How A Cloud-Based Integration Platform Streamlines and Accelerates Workflow Processes Across Enterprises and Business Entities An Independent analysis published on behalf of Hubspan.
- 2. Whitepaper Examining the Business Value of WebSpan © THINKstrategies, Inc., 2009 www.thinkstrategies.com p.2 Introduction: The New Business Integration Challenges Companies of all sizes are facing escalating business integration challenges. While these challenges are being heightened by today‟s financial crisis and tough economic environment, they involve more fundamental competitive, organizational and technical challenges. The competitive landscape has been reshaped by globalization and eCommerce, which have lowered barriers to entry in nearly every industry, undercut customer loyalty levels, and reshaped the way businesses must operate in order to survive. The workplace is also being redefined by an increasingly dispersed and mobile workforce, which is demanding new ways to communicate and collaborate internally and externally. These market trends are making it essential that companies of all sizes automate their business processes and transmit critical information inside and outside the four walls of the organization more effectively and economically, and track the movement of this data more easily in order to build and maintain stronger relationships with their customers and business partners. This growing requirement is fueling the demand for a new generation of integration solutions delivered in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. SaaS-oriented integration solutions are available ”on-demand” via the Web in a turn-key form that enable users to accelerate their deployment and more quickly and easily generate a greater return on investment (ROI) at a lower total cost of ownership (TCO). This whitepaper will examine how Hubspan and IBM have combined to create a powerful new integration solution, called WebSpan, to address today‟s integration challenges so companies of all sizes can achieve their business objectives. The power of WebSpan to pull together the various elements of a company‟s “value-chain” is illustrated in Figure 1. Figure 1 WebSpan tightly integrates your critical business processes with your supply chain, demand chain and other integration communities.
- 3. Whitepaper The Business Value of SaaS Integration © THINKstrategies, Inc., 2009 www.thinkstrategies.com p.3 The Shortcomings of Traditional Integration Solutions Integration is the key to making business information flow effectively across and between corporate entities possible. Yet, in too many cases, the complexities and costs associated with integrating and tracking multiple data sources, especially across numerous business entities, has been an obstacle to success rather than an enabler of more effective workflows. Traditional integration tools do not fully address today‟s business integration challenges, as many were intended for highly centralized work environments with very structured information requirements. While there is still a place for these traditional solutions, it is becoming increasingly important for corporate data be able to flow throughout an organization or across various business entities in an „on-demand‟ fashion to fully support critical business processes and satisfy customer or partner requirements. Organizations with limited budgets and/or minimal internal expertise are having a difficult time keeping pace with the demands of their rapidly changing corporate operations or process workflows across multiple entities in an increasingly „on-demand‟ environment. Even larger enterprises are looking for new methods and mechanisms to meet their escalating integration needs in a more flexible and cost-effective fashion. The Benefits of a SaaS Approach to Business Integration There are many benefits of a SaaS-based approach to business integration, including: A turn-key approach for meeting enterprises‟ data integration needs that accelerates the deployment process and reduces the implementation risks. SaaS solutions leverage the ubiquity of the Internet to allow users to share data and improve common workflow processes internally and externally. SaaS integration solutions eliminate many of the up-front acquisition costs and deployment risks of traditional integration tools. SaaS solutions also shift some of the burden of success from the customers to the vendor who assumes the responsibility of making sure the solution is available, scalable and up to date. The SaaS-based approach allows additional workflows to be provisioned quickly and easily. SaaS solutions include strict access control rules to alleviate concerns regarding security threats and ensure corporate compliance. Put together, the SaaS approach can reduce the total cost of ownership, accelerate the time to value and alleviate potential problems associated with integrating complex business processes. THINKstrategies‟ most recent survey of more than 100 companies worldwide, conducted in October 2008 in conjunction with Cutter Consortium, found 63% of the companies had adopted a SaaS solution—nearly double the percentage in 2007! (See Figure 2) Not Considering 32% Currently Considering 36% Currently Using 32% 2007 Not Considering 9% Currently Considering 28% Currently Using 63% 2008 Source: THINKstrategies/Cutter Consortium. Figure 2 Research shows a growing number of companies are using and considering SaaS solutions.
- 4. Whitepaper The Business Value of SaaS Integration © THINKstrategies, Inc., 2009 www.thinkstrategies.com p.4 WebSpan – A New Approach to Integration Hubspan, Inc. and IBM have partnered to deliver a new SaaS integration platform, called WebSpan, which helps businesses reduce the complexity and costs associated with traditional integration and business process automation efforts. WebSpan is a single instance, multi-tenant SaaS integration platform, which enables organizations to more cost-effectively integrate their business processes and dataflow across internal and external communities. In essence, WebSpan represents a “middleware-in-the- cloud” solution that eliminates the need for costly hardware, software and staff resources to deploy, maintain and support cross-entity integration. Companies can utilize WebSpan‟s integration platform to connect their applications, customers or suppliers regardless of data models or existing EAI technologies, and without worrying about compromising security. WebSpan provides a single, transparent connection to link enterprises internally or externally, without forcing them to change their systems or processes, as it mediates various data formats, validation methodologies, security protocols, routing, and business rules. As a result, true business connections are created that enable a deeper level of integration between applications, business entities, or trading partners. WebSpan builds on and integrates the unique integration capabilities and proven deployments of the Hubspan platform and the middleware capabilities of IBM WebSphere, as well as IBM‟s industry experience and global reach. IBM‟s WebSphere Application Server (WAS) ND, Process Server, WTX and MQ capabilities complement the functionality in the Hubspan software solution as well as Hubspan‟s underlying infrastructure. Figure 3 illustrates how Hubspan and IBM software and hardware assets are combined to address the enterprises‟ multi-entity, business process integration. Figure 3
- 5. Whitepaper The Business Value of SaaS Integration © THINKstrategies, Inc., 2009 www.thinkstrategies.com p.5 The WebSpan integration platform is composed of a set of core services that include the following foundational components: Connectivity: This is the communication or transport layer, essential for creating and managing connections among disparate systems. WebSpan supports all transport protocols and delivers information how each integration party requires it. IBM WebSphere MQ technology provides Asynchronous message management and delivery services as part of the overall WebSpan queuing and message delivery capability. Transaction: At the transactional level, WebSpan ensures all messages are in the proper format and quality along with exception handling actions. WebSpan transforms the message, mediating the various standards and formats, to meet the needs of various applications and systems, managing multi-party routing across the many members of an integration community. As part of WebSpan‟s overall mapping capability, WebSphere TX provides an established set of tools to efficiently create and modify maps that illustrate the transactional workflow. Business Process: One of WebSpan‟s key differentiators is its focus on automating the unique business processes that exist between entities. WebSpan provides sophisticated data transformation and process choreography based on business rules that allows each system to get the exact information it needs without manual intervention. This approach not only delivers greater accuracy with information exchange, but also speeds up completion of the business processes. Security: Hubspan has maintained its focus on security with the WebSpan platform, not only at the software layer but across its data center and infrastructure layer, adhering to both SAS 70 and PCI compliance security requirements. At the solution layer, WebSpan provides data protection, identity management, security audits, and access controls based on role, organization or other filters, adhering to security policies established in the business rules. Administration: The overall administrative and management services layer includes activity monitoring, process visibility, reporting and configuration. WebSpan provides both system and business process visibility with predefined and configurable event monitoring, including summary reports as well as drill-down detailed views of connection information flows. In addition to the versatile technology platform, WebSpan leverages the Hubspan integration services organization, which provides a full suite of professional services, and leverages over 15,000 existing connections with companies in over 40 countries. Hubspan applies a best practice methodology to activities like on-boarding and change management. By bringing these pieces together, WebSpan not only reduces costs, it also provides greater interoperability and compatibility across multiple systems and connections. This permits enterprises to extend the reach of their existing application and infrastructure investments, and accelerate their service oriented architecture (SOA) initiatives. The WebSpan integration platform can handle all major enterprise applications, transports, and data formats, as well as core business processes such as e-procurement, demand/supply chain, logistics, e-payments, and e-commerce integration. WebSpan can also enable unique real-time business processes, special handling requests, bi-directional information flows, and exceptions to meet specific customer requirements.
- 6. Whitepaper The Business Value of SaaS Integration © THINKstrategies, Inc., 2009 www.thinkstrategies.com p.6 Conclusion In today‟s increasingly challenging competitive climate, it is essential for businesses to establish closer working relationships with their customers and partners externally, and across their various operating entities internally. As these parties become more dispersed, it becomes more difficult for them to satisfy their business integration requirements using legacy approaches. This is especially true as enterprises face serious financial constraints, which prevent them from making the hardware, software and staff investments of the past to satisfy their current requirements. These market forces are driving a growing number of enterprises to investigate and adopt SaaS-based alternatives that can reduce their upfront and ongoing costs, accelerate their deployment processes and time to value, and deliver additional functional capabilities which can improve the quality of their operations and give them a competitive advantage. Hubspan and IBM are delivering a joint solution to address the business process integration needs of their mutual corporate customers. By combining Hubspan‟s SaaS-based integration capabilities with IBM‟s WebSphere middleware capabilities, WebSpan gives companies a more cost-effective and scalable approach to business process integration across multiple corporate entities and partner communities. *************** This independent analysis was sponsored by Hubspan. Hubspan is the leading provider of business integration solutions, helping companies automate business processes and provide strong collaboration among internal and external communities. WebSpan is a joint solution combining the Hubspan on-demand integration platform and key components of IBM WebSphere integration software. WebSpan provides integration packages that are cost-effective, scalable and reliable. With its any-to-any integration, WebSpan ensures seamless interoperability across systems, standards, applications and protocols. For more information, go to www.hubspan.com/webspan. WebSpan provides businesses with: A scalable SaaS integration platform to meet enterprises‟ evolving needs. A unique focus on automating key business processes. Basic to complex business rules to choreograph various integration processes and properly manage how they are applied. Strict security and access controls to meet users‟ specific requirements. More economical and flexible approach to satisfying ongoing processes. About THINKstrategies, Inc. THINKstrategies is a strategic consulting services company formed specifically to address the unprecedented business challenges facing IT managers, solutions providers and investors today as the technology industry shifts toward a services orientation. The company‟s mission is to help our clients re- THINK their corporate strategies, and refocus their limited resources to achieve their business objectives. We help enterprise decision-makers with their sourcing strategies, IT solutions providers with their marketing strategies, and venture firms with their investment strategies. THINKstrategies is also the founder of the Software-as-a-Service Showplace (www.saas-showplace.com), the largest vendor-independent, online directory and information resource center with SaaS solutions in 80 application and industry categories. For more information regarding our unique services, visit www.thinkstrategies.com, or contact us at [email protected].