September 11, 2000

Printer ready

Integration Tools Suit Expanded For Exchanges

WebMethods adds business-process workflow, transaction tracking, and analysis features

By Alorie Gilbert

More on exchanges:

TechWeb E-Business Exchanges Fight For Survival Internet Week Exchange Will Trade Coffee Internet Week Exchanges Go Private

Send Us Your Feedback

s online marketplaces and private exchanges expand to support more trading partners and increasingly complex transactions, application integration vendors are offering advanced tools to handle the load. WebMethods Inc. this week will introduce enhanced business-to-business integration software that adds business-process workflow, transaction tracking, and analysis features to its core set of data mapping, translation, and routing applications.

Among the new features in WebMethods' Trading Networks software is Trading Engine, a graphical workflow tool that lets users design unique process requirements for each trading partner or type of transaction. It defines how to swap data with a particular trading partner, the type of data to exchange, and other business rules such as documentation, digital signatures, and other validation processes.

A new transaction-management tool enhances the reliability of online transactions. It reports errors and other metrics, such as the number of transactions with a given partner or of a particular type.

A Trading Partner Management component provides analytical information about transactions and trading partners to show patterns across the trading network, including the number of orders above a specific price and how long it takes to complete a transaction.

Analysts say WebMethods' newest features are already offered by other integration vendors such as NetFish Technologies Inc. and Software Technology Corp., but that doesn't make them any less necessary. "A lot of marketplaces and exchanges have been generating a lot of manual effort," says Ken Vollmer, an analyst at Giga Information Group. "You have to be able to model business processes and map to business rules in order to automate the interaction. Otherwise, you're required to do a lot of manual work."

Pricing for WebMethods Trading Networks will start at $350,000. The software will be available at the end of the month.

Back to This Week's Issue
Send Us Your Feedback
Top of the Page

---