Grand Central Adds Process Design Capabilities

Grand Central Communications Inc. has added a business-process designer on top of its upgraded online integration services, now called Business Services Network '05.

Its Process Designer addition means a company that uses Business Services Network as its integration hub will be able to drag a Web service or connection from a directory, also a new addition to Network '05, and place it on the application that it wants to connect to.

A user of sales-force automation services from Salesforce.com, for example, "can drag Salesforce CRM to [their[ accounting system and connect them," says CEO Halsey Minor.

Two partners making use of Grand Central's online services can build a directory of software applications and shared services and then graphically model the connections between them in Process Designer, Minor says.

Network '05 also adds single-sign-on capability, so authenticated users can access a set of services that apply to their identity or privilege level.

The Grand Central network consists of a set of Web services on top of IBM's WebSphere MQ, the former MQ Series messaging product. The combination allows Grand Central to serve as an integration hub for different companies' systems over the Internet.

The ability of WebSphere MQ to translate messages between applications lets Grand Central's network function as an Internet hub between software systems that can package messages in the Web standard Simple Object Access Protocol.