Well-known software developer Joel Spolsky has been writing for Inc Magazine, and one of his new articles “How Hard Could It Be?: Five Easy Ways to Fail” is now available. Using Windows Vista’s descoped WinFS as an example, it highlights ways that software projects can go off the rails. Great read.
(Happily these sorts of issues are not why we haven’t been updating this web site recently!)
MXC’s main function, of course, is to send and receive messages. It does so by a variety of methods, and one of those is email. Of course, email is not the most reliable of transmission methods, and we at eVision generally recommend using other, more reliable transmission protocols, particularly for important feeds.
But email remains important, particularly when interfacing to legacy systems… including humans, some of whom live and breathe email.
Recently I found some emails were going missing. As far as our software was concerned, they’d been sent, but they never showed up at their destination. Every night this particular installation was meant to send an attached plain text file, though it wasn’t a TXT file; it was named as a DIS file. It only seemed to go missing on weekends, when there was little activity for the client, and therefore the emailed file would contain just a header and trailer. (This varies widely according to the interfacing system, of course, with MXC configurable to send in the precise format expected at the other end.)
To troubleshoot, I did some testing of my own, replicating as far as possible the conditions in which the emails went missing. And I managed to replicate the problem.
Looking “under the hood”, I isolated the specific code which sent the email, and tried that on its own. Sure enough, the emails didn’t arrive. But more mysteriously, when changing the filename from a DIS file to a TXT file, it did get delivered. Weird.
I did some more wrangling with the code, even trying out an alternative mail library, but the same thing every time. The almost-empty DIS file didn’t get delivered, but if it had a bunch of content in it (as per a busy day on the system) or was a TXT file, it would get through.
Asking around, someone suggested what probably should have been obvious to me all along: what if Outlook (which was being used in my tests as the recipient, and the client also used) thought it was spam? Check the Junk Mail folder!
I did so, and found the missing messages. The client also found them in their Junk Mail folder. ‘Twas but a minute’s work to add the MXC Sender to the Safe Sender’s list in Outlook, and everybody was happy again.
Something to keep in mind the next time system-generated emails aren’t showing up.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Pioneering B2B integration specialist eVision Pty Ltd has released its Business Process Management (BPM) capability in the MXC product — a software solution for Integration Service Providers of hosted B2B message exchanges. MXC runs on Microsoft Windows2003 and requires Microsoft SQLServer.
eVision director Dr Michael Ross said that the new funcionality was unveiled last month, and that for the first time business analysts will be able to map their B2B processes in a browser and have them linked directly to the message exchanges between applications. “An online BPM tool is a major paradigm shift for the BPM market and it will substantially reduce investment and development time”, he said.
Dr Ross said that the web-based BPM designer of MXC had been developed according to the Business Process Management Notation Standard (BPMN), an international standard for representing business processes. And, the BPM engine of MXC had been developed according to the ebXML Business Process Specification Schema (BPSS) standard. ebXML (Electronic Business using eXtensible Markup Language) was started in 1999 as an initiative of OASIS and the United Nations/ECE agency CEFACT for the purpose of enabling enterprises of any size and in any geographical location to conduct business over the Internet.
MXC’s BPM capability has been mainly developed using Microsoft .NET and taken over two years, and Dr Ross said this product release marked a major milestone for the company. “MXC’s BPM will make the process of creating and managing B2B processes a reality for many organizations as much of the complexity has been removed and replaced with a simple drag-and-drop web interface.”
eVision has pioneered system integration as a software service. Its MXC product hosts the development life cycle as well as the on-going operational and management requirements of B2B integration projects. Integration Service Providers use MXC to provide hosted integration services for their customers.
Industry analysts have previously highlighted the value of the outsourced software model. “The total cost of ownership of Software as a Service is significantly cheaper and easier to use than running and hosting propriety integration and business process software in-house”, concluded Dr Ross.
Media contact: Dr Michael Ross - michael.ross@evision.com.au - +61 418 566 496
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About eVision Pty Ltd.
eVision Pty Ltd is a business integration services and software company, providing the MXC product, integration service www.messageXchange.com and professional services in integration, training and support. eVision delivers on the value of business integration for customers of any size around the world and across industry groups. More information on eVision’s products, integration service and professional services, is available on the Web at www.evision.com.au or by phone at +61 3 8622 0200. eVision is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia.
One of our biggest and oldest clients (I probably can’t say who) is preparing for a major deployment next weekend. They’ve been using one of the older versions of the MessageXchange software for some years, successfully linking numerous ordering and reporting systems with their warehouse operations, and are upgrading (and outsourcing) the warehouse to new operators.
Fortunately with the MessageXchange sitting there in the middle, the impact has been minimal. That’s not to say we’re not working hard on the changeover, but we have been able to hook up the new warehouse system to directly replace the old one, so that the ordering and reporting systems — many of them legacy systems that would require a lot of work to make changes — aren’t affected.
This of course is where the real benefits of abstraction can be seen. In fact in the life of this particular installation of MessageXchange, this is the third warehouse system we’ve interfaced with — the first via HTTPS, the second via a mix of FTP and their custom COM layer, and this third one by Web Services.
The result is our client benefits as they are able to switch warehouse operations without undue heartache.
We’re not just looking for a Technical Support Officer, we’re also looking for an Office Administrator. Details on both are here.
Occasionally you’ll hear horror stories about how mission-critical data is passed from system to system. Here’s an example, with financial data being passed through a set of Unix scripts, before being manually emailed onto a Windows machine, copy/pasted into WordPad, manually edited, then pasted again into Hyperterminal for transmission to a banking system.
This is precisely the sort of thing integration software should be used for. The number of points of failure on the above process is astronomical. Which might be okay if you’re passing through performance data from your local football league or something, but if you’re whole business relies directly on it to make its revenue, it’s time to take a little more care and attention on your data.
eVision are seeking a support officer to join our team. The role will involve customer service/support, working with the following TLAs: B2B, EAI, XML, EDI… as well as XSLT. Click here to see the details and apply via Seek.
Well, is it? As anyone involved in B2B message exchange will tell you BPM can unlock the significant benefits of automating business processes between organisations. If this is true, and no one is disputing it by the way, why aren’t we seeing it used today in B2B?
As with any technology, its ultimate success and take-up relies on factors often ignored or misunderstood at the time such as market readiness, cost, accessibility and ease of use.
One of the most extreme examples of slow technology take-up is the fax machine. Way back in 1843 Alexander Bain demonstrated his fax machine and received a patent. So why did it take more than 100 years for fax machines to become commonplace? Basically, present day fax machines needed “other” advancements and factors not around in 1843.
At eVision, we also believe BPM is essential to enabling the automation of business processes however we also believe the “other” factors that influence the take-up of a technology are just as important.
Therefore, as well as providing a BPM capability we have concentrated on ensuring the “other” factors of accessibility, cost, configurability and ease of use have been addressed. It is no secret that we have adopted the same principles that have made our MXC service so popular. Therefore, the BPM capability in MXC is also provided as part of the service. It includes a business process engine and business process designer and monitor.
Business Process Engine
Business Process Designer and Monitor
This capability will be released into service in the next quarter. Stay tuned for more announcements but if you want to take a peek visit our features summary.
Support for eVision’s technology and business strategy has been appearing more and more frequently in the recent IT press. While it is early days for the “Software-as-a-Service” (SaaS) model there are an increasing number of successful examples appearing and they are also reporting healthy growth rates.
Mark Jones of the Australian Financial Review, in his article “Web-based tools write a eulogy for software” (AFR, 4th April, 2006), describes a series of successful startups showing rapid growth in both the business to consumer, and business to business markets: NetSuite, Zoho, Writely, OpenOffice, RightNow, SaleForce.com, and others.
“Software-as-a-service” is a way of running traditionally client-server software directly over the internet through a browser. This is not a particularly new concept, as services such as web-based email have been around for many years. However, with rapidly increasing bandwidths, and the vastly improved capacity of the browser, many new software applications are moving away from their traditional client-server architecture to a fully web-based software architecture. Microsoft have recognized this trend:
“Today, the opportunity is to utilize the Internet to make software far more powerful by incorporating a services model which will simplify the work that IT departments and developers have to do while providing new capabilities.”
“The broad and rich foundation of the internet will unleash a ’services wave’ of applications and experiences available instantly over the internet to millions of users. Advertising has emerged as a powerful new means by which to directly and indirectly fund the creation and delivery of software and services along with subscriptions and license fees. Services designed to scale to tens or hundreds of millions will dramatically change the nature and cost of solutions deliverable to enterprises or small businesses.”
Bill Gates, Nov, 2005
eVision’s MessageXchange (MXC) is an on-demand software service for Integration. While most interest has been in ‘on-demand’ services for ERP and CRM, integration between new and old systems, between businesses and between trading community members is a fundamental requirement of an efficient eBusiness environment.
Of particular importance is the rate at which Small-Medium Businesses (SMBs) are embracing these technologies. The cost-efficiency for SMBs outsourcing the underlying infrastructure and complex technology is compelling. The MXC model allows the service provider to maintain the software application and infrastructure while the users have full access to software’s features via a Web interface.
MessageXchange enables Users to manage their B2B integrations with their customer directly. The benefit of this is that Users can focus on core business. The on-demand software model takes away the headache of complex hardware and software implementation and support, freeing the users to provide superior services to their customers.
A few Stats about SaaS:
As we found out in our last exciting chapter, MXC is designed to accept messages in varying formats from various systems, validate, route and translate them into different formats, and send them on to other systems — hence the name MessageXchange (MXC for short).
Messages come in, in whatever format (XML, EDI, flatfile etc), by whatever transmission method (FTP, email, HTTP, X400 and others). If the message coming in is not XML, the first step is to translate it into XML, as MXC deals with XML internally.
Why XML? Because the technology behind MXC’s power is XSLT, which can be easily used to translate XML documents into other XML documents. XSLT (XSL Transformations) is an extension of XSL (eXtensible Stylesheet Language), commonly used to convert XML data into HTML web pages.
(It’s actually simplicity itself, if you’re the coding type, to grab your favourite programming tool and an XML parser and write up a simple program that can translate one XML document into another. Mind you, MXC has a lot of other smarts to do with configuration, logging, validation, transmission and more, so we don’t feel like we’re giving away any huge secret here.)
Translation of incoming messages to outgoing ones is conditional, that is, once the message is in XML form, tests are run on it using XSLT to determine if the message needs to be routed, and to which system(s) and formats. If the answer for a particular message to message combination is “True” another XSLT is used to translate it into its destination form. This gives total flexibility in configuring the source and destination messages, so any little intracacies in what the interfacing systems are sending or receiving can be implemented.
The XSLT is written by those configuring the system. It’s not particularly complex, and can be done by IT staff implementing MXC at their companies.
Or of course eVision’s highly trained, very brainy and professional staff can also do it. If the destination system is expecting a flatfile or some other non-XML formatted message, the MXC then converts the message as appropriate, before transmitting it out. XSLT resources:
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