Sonic Software has raised the ante for tracking and managing business processes by adding three products to its lineup. As an independent unit of Progress Software Corp., it has been able to make use of Progress' acquisition of the product line of eXcelon Corp. at the end of last year to bring out XML Server, an XML message-parsing and storage application that can capture business events. Orchestration Server uses Sonic customer-integration software to track and manage business processes across multiple systems. And Integration Workbench complements other Java tools to optimize new applications to work with the Sonic infrastructure.

Jon Johnson, chief engineer of the Command, Control, and Intelligence unit of Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Mission Systems, is trying to integrate systems for the U.S. Air Force that are processing separate events--from tracking an aircraft coming into a certain sector to a Coast Guard cruiser intercepting a ship--that could affect national security. These events need to be correlated, and Johnson will use his Sonic software infrastructure to do so.

"We have to know who's moving fast, who's moving slow, who's friendly, and who's unfriendly," Johnson says. "The ultimate goal is to get the right data to the right person at the right time."