Portal Integration Strategies

1. Portal Integration Strategies Bryan Caporlette Executive Vice President, Strategic Technology Sequoia Software Corporation 5457 Twin Knolls Rd Columbia, MD 21146 http://www.sequoiasoftware.com

2. Agenda  • Housekeeping • Why Turn to Portal Software • Portal Integration Options • Implementation Methodology • Summary

3. Agenda Housekeeping

4. 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”

5. Representative Customers and Partners

6. Agenda Why Turn to Portal Software

7. Partner Employee Content Content Content Customer Portal's Role E-Business Portals Corporate Portal

8. Portal Delivery Interface

10. 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

11. 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

12. Supply Chain Management Customer Relationship Mgmt Corporate Website / Intranet(s) Enterprise Resource Planning Sales Force Automation Web-enabling Applications Customers Suppliers Media Partners Firewall Employees Company Network

13. 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 Implementation Challenges IT Staff Users

14. Legacy Apps. ERP CRM Supply E-Market Place Website/ Intranets 10K Foot Architecture Suppliers Media Customers Partners Firewall Employees Single Point of Aggregation XML Portal Server Company Network

15. Requirements • Open architecture • Standards based • Extensible • Ready for growth • Users • Data • Geographic • Application integration • Bi-directional • Multiple integration points

16. Requirements (2) • Content delivery • Filtered • Personalized • Integrated information services • Search & Retrieval • Taxonomy • Content Management • Business processing engine • Information routing • Flows

17. Agenda Integration Alternatives

18. 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

19. Integration Matrix Content Delivery Agent Data Service Data Source Adapter Application Coupling Tightly API Dependent Loosely Transactional Integrity Single Application All Services None Data Visibility None Single Application All Services Dependent on Web-enabled API Dependent on Business API Dependent on Connector Interactivity Data Freshness Must Not Applicable Latency OK Session Dependent Data Security Maximum Minimum Application Defined Business Logic Maintained Maintained Not Maintained

20. Presentation Layer

21. XML Message Integration Agent Business Logic Layer Automated Process Flow Notify Sales True ? Validate Acct. Payable False

22. XML Message Data Layer Extract Package Transmit

23. 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)

24. Building Connectors • Spiders • Home Grown • Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) Tools

25. 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

26. 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

27. 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

28. Agenda • Introduction • Requirements • Integration Points • Types of Applications • Integration Mechanisms • XML Messaging • Summary 

29. Information Flow Backend Application Portal Server Information Connector Message Layer Data Communication Data Communication XML Messages

30. 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

31. 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 Markup <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> <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> Business Data Adobe Acrobat(PDF) WordPerfect Databases Metadata Markup Interface Markup <XML> Business Data Metadata Markup Business Data Business Data Message Structure

32. Agenda • Introduction • Requirements • Integration Points • Types of Applications • Integration Mechanisms • XML Messaging • Summary 

33. 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

34. 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?