PolarLake Integration Suite: Technology...

W H I T E P A P E R

PolarLake Integration Suite: Technology

Overview

An Introduction to the PolarLake™ Integration

Suite

2 of 30 PolarLake | Introduction to PolarLake™ Technology and Products

PolarLake Integration Suite: Technology Overview White Paper version 1.0 (December 2004) Copyright © 1998 - 2004 PolarLake Limited. All rights reserved. The information contained in this document is confidential and may also be proprietary and trade secret. The information contained in this document is furnished for information purposes only and is subject to change without notice. PolarLake assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors, omissions or inaccuracies that may appear in this document. Without prior written approval from PolarLake, no part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including, but not limited to, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or recording or stored in any retrieval system of whatever nature. Use of any copyright notice does not imply unrestricted public access to any part of this document. PolarLake’s trade names used in this document are trademarks of PolarLake. Other trademarks are the property of their rightful owners.

Contents

Introduction 3

XML & Web Services 4

The Enterprise Service Bus 5

The PolarLake Architecture 6

XML Circuits: XML Centric business processing 7 XML Data Circuits: component assembly based integration 8 XML Process Circuits: process orchestration definition 9

The Dynamic XML Runtime™: An enterprise strength deployment platform 10 The PolarLake Integration Suite 10

Key Issues Addressed by PolarLake 12

Performance and Scalability 12 XML Data Circuit and the Semantic Validation, Transformation & Enrichment of Messages 13 XML Process Circuit and the orchestration of complex business process 15 Intelligent Exception Handling 15 Business Activity Monitoring 16 Rich Document Routing Support 17

Integration with Key Technologies 19

J2EE™ Integration 19 Database Integration 19 Messaging Oriented Middleware Integration 20 Integration with Packaged and Mainframe based Applications 20 Integration with Non-XML formats 20 Deploying and Managing PolarLake Applications 21

Conclusions 23

Appendix A: XML & Web Services: Definition & Use 24

Extensible Markup Language (XML) 24 Web Services 25 Some Business Uses of XML & Web Services 26

PolarLake | PolarLake Integration Suite: Technology Overview White Paper 3 of 30

PolarLake - XML and Web Services based incremental integration

I n t r o d u c t i o n

Traditionally, application or data integration required the use of Enterprise

Application Integration (EAI) products or Application Servers. As a

consequence integration was seen as a lengthy and complex process involving

extensive re-engineering of the business and technology infrastructure.

The advent of XML as a means of data exchange, and web services as the basis

of new application architectures, has changed this perception. The benefits of

using XML and Web Services for this class of project include greatly reduced

development and deployment costs, and an ability to respond much more

quickly to changing business requirements. The size and scale of these benefits

are dramatic, with customers reporting savings of between 25% and 75% on

development times as well as significant reductions of deployment and on-going

maintenance costs.

Furthermore, as all integration is standards-based, organizations may focus

initially on projects delivering maximum return on investment, whilst building

an integration infrastructure that will support future projects. This incremental

integration approach enables ROI to be demonstrated at an early stage and

overcomes the difficulties associated with ‘big bang’ approaches to integration.

Areas in which these technologies can assist the business include:

� Straight Through Processing (STP), which requires multi-

system and multi-enterprise integration, coupled with real-time

decision-making.

� Real Time Risk Management, which requires similar levels of

integration as STP with an additional requirement for real-time

integration and derived decision making.

� Data-centric processing, including inter-bank communications

(relying on the SWIFT system), exchange and processing of

financial instruments (defined in the FpML standards) and

business reporting (defined in XBRL).

� E-Business Integration and B2B Portals, which require

integration of each enterprise’s systems with those of its suppliers

and customers to support the delivery of new products and

services over the Internet.

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XML and Web Services based incremental integration

� Business Process Integration, which requires integration of

each enterprise’s systems - predominantly within the enterprise.

CRM is a specific instance of this type of system.

PolarLake™, a leader in standards based incremental integration, provides a

complete suite of products for implementing XML and Web Services-based

solutions, including those based on the Enterprise Service Bus architecture.

PolarLake’s products deliver rapid Return on Investment by focusing on solving

high value business problems with a standards based approach capable of

evolving and expanding to address the longer term objectives of the

organization.

PolarLake™ products achieve the following:

� Enable the integration of applications within and between

organizations to automate new and existing business processes.

� Fit easily within the existing investment in enterprise

infrastructure, handling integration with common application

architectures (such as databases and J2EE) as well as common

infrastructure such as messaging systems, system management

platforms and transaction managers.

� Provide a “light footprint”, high performance solution: a growing

requirement given today’s need to deliver projects on time, to

budget and with a tangible and attractive return on investment.

PolarLake has a proven track record in delivering the benefits of incremental

integration, with a technology that leverages existing IT investments in

standards, skills and systems to reduce both initial investment and total cost of

ownership. Deployed customers include leading corporations in financial

services such as Pioneer Investments (Ireland), Man Financial Ltd (UK), and

Nissay Dowa (Japan), leading telecommunications organizations, such as

Midwest Wireless (USA), and government organizations.

X M L & W e b S e r v i c e s

Using XML as a common data format across all systems can significantly reduce

the costs, complexity, project risk and development timescales associated with

integration projects. Building on XML, Web Services allow applications to



provide software services to other applications in an infrastructure neutral

manner, where the sending and receiving of specific XML documents represent

each service.

For these technologies to be successfully used inside the enterprise, there are

three key requirements:

� Technology integration, with databases, messaging systems,

management systems and application servers

� Business integration, allowing complex business transactions to

be completed and changed with minimum cost and disruption

� Leveraging of existing skills available in the enterprise among

developers, business analysts and system administrators

The Enterpr ise Serv ice Bus

There are a number of architectural approaches being adopted by enterprises

that are moving to XML or Web Services. These range from hub-and-spoke to

bus-based architectures. A prominent example of the latter is the Enterprise

Service Bus (ESB), which provides a distributed, message oriented

architecture, supporting traditional EAI features such as message routing and

transformation, within the context of Web Services and Application Servers.

For organizations adopting the Enterprise Service Bus architecture, PolarLake

provides the full set of features associated with Integration Server products.

PolarLake does not require the adoption of a specific messaging oriented

middleware product. Rather it bridges between multiple protocols, including

multiple messaging products such as IBM’s MQ_series and Tibco’s

ActiveEnterprise

PolarLake can also be used in organizations moving to a Web Services based

architecture. In this instance, PolarLake automates the exposure of existing

applications as Web Services (sometimes called Web Services enablement). As

a fully-featured Integration Suite it addresses the more significant problems

associated with the orchestration of complex business processes across multiple

web services (defined in BPEL4WS), and the integration issues associated with

bridging between different technologies and different service definitions.



Futhermore, PolarLake can be deployed in a wide range of integration projects

where XML is the desired message format, and complex processes have to be

implemented within constrained budgets and timelines.

T h e P o l a r L a k e A r c h i t e c t u r e

PolarLake makes it straightforward to build and deploy systems that receive,

create, validate, enrich, transform, route and process XML and Web Services.

PolarLake’s products meet the demanding requirements associated with

enterprise integration:

� Technology integration. PolarLake's Dynamic XML Runtime™

provides a highly scalable, high performance runtime server that

integrates with enterprise infrastructure such as queuing systems,

management infrastructure and legacy applications.

� Business integration. PolarLake's XML Circuit™ approach allows

existing developers and business users to rapidly deliver new

solutions with minimum disruption of existing systems and

maximum leveraging of existing assets and skills.

� Leveraging of existing skills. PolarLake tools provide an

intuitive XML- centric environment that supports the software life

cycle. These integrate with and complement familiar tools

environments such as Sun™ ONE Studio, Borland® JBuilder™ for

Java™ or the BMC Patrol® Enterprise Manager Connect SNMP

management system.

Figure 1 PolarLake integrates a wide range of technologies



XML Circu i ts: XML Centr ic bus iness

process ing

XML Circuits™ enable XML and Web Services based business processes to be

developed, integrated and deployed with greatly reduced effort. These business

processes can be related to specific transactions, such as purchasing a stock, or

can relate to control, such as informing operational risk engines of that stock

purchase.

Each process may require services from many applications. In order to access

each service, there may be a need to reformulate the message, to add or take

away information - in a format appropriate to the destination application. There

may also be auditing and logging requirements, and qualities of service to be

provided such as transactionality or security.

An analysis of the requirements associated with automating business processes

identifies two layers of requirements within the general heading of Business

Processing.

� Integration: the task of translating between information models and

data models - manipulating the documents into the correct formats for

interaction with the existing applications and infrastructure.

� Orchestration: The task of controlling a sequence of calls to the

integration layer, ensuring that all steps that form the business process

are completed, or in case of failure, carry out appropriate recovery

processes.

Reflecting these two categories there are two types of XML Circuit, which

together provide a complete integration and orchestration solution:

� XML Data Circuits: XML Centric, component assembly of the integration

layer

� XML Process Circuits: graphic assembly of business process flows across

multiple XML Circuits, other XML or Web Service based applications, or

legacy applications. XML Process Circuits use the BPEL4WS standard to

define this orchestration.



Figure 2 PolarLake Designer environment, with XML data circuit

X M L D a t a C i r c u i t s : c o m p o n e n t a s s e m b l y b a s e d i n t e g r a t i o n

XML Data Circuits™ support the creation of solutions that generate, validate,

transform, route and process XML documents. These circuits enable such

solutions to be rapidly developed, integrated and deployed with greatly reduced

effort. Specifically, they address differences in information models between the

incoming document or application data and the required outgoing document or

application data.

Developers can rapidly develop XML Data Circuits within the PolarLake Designer

by simply identifying relevant document sections and assembling components

into circuits to process those segments of XML.

The components placed in the circuit can be existing Java, EJB or COM

components, new Java, XSLT or BeanShell-based components, or PolarLake-

supplied components (such as loggers, routers, filters, forwarders to other

systems, database integration components, and format mappers).



X M L P r o c e s s C i r c u i t s : p r o c e s s o r c h e s t r a t i o n d e f i n i t i o n

XML Process Circuits support the definition of complex business processes,

potentially spanning multiple XML Data Circuits and other applications. These

include support for long-lived transactions (where a single business process

may last for minutes, days or weeks), logical flow of processing based on the

content of the message, and ability to define exceptions and application-defined

compensating transactions. The XML Process Circuit implements the Business

Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS). Reflecting the wider

applicability of the PolarLake Integration Suite beyond Web Services, the XML

Process Circuits extends this definition to cover non-Web Service based XML

messages.

Each XML Process Circuit can interact with multiple XML Data Circuits, other

XML Process Circuits, and any other XML or Web Service enabled system. The

XML Process Circuit is assembled in a similar manner to XML Data Circuits in

the PolarLake Designer tool. The business process flow, the XML Data Circuits,

other systems invoked and the decision points are all defined within the Circuit.



The Dynamic XML Runt ime™: An

enterpr ise strength deployment p latform

At the heart of all of PolarLake’s products is an enterprise-grade software server

that hosts and manages the XML Circuits. The PolarLake server has the

following roles:

� It acts as a high-performance, scalable software server supporting

multiple deployment modes, including clusters and fail-over

� It processes large volumes of XML efficiently due to its low-latency

XML-streaming and parallel processing architecture. It is equally

efficient at handling large documents as small ones.

� It provides centralized auditing and distributed management

services, and leverages PolarLake’s Dynamic XML Runtime™ to

enable reconfiguration and upgrades without interruption to

services. It also provides centralized monitoring capabilities,

including both system and business level information monitoring

� It integrates with leading relational databases including Oracle™,

Microsoft’s SQL Server™ and IBM’s DB2® and J2EE™ compatible

Application Servers.

� It integrates with HTTP(S), SMTP, file system (ftp and log file), all

JMS based message systems (including IBM’s WebSphere®,

Tibco™ ActiveEnterprise, SonicXQ™ and SpiritWave®)

� It integrates with enterprise system management platforms, such

as HP Openview and BMC Software PATROL®

The Po larLake Integrat ion Sui te

Built on a common technology base, PolarLake’s products can be used

separately to address point problems or combined to form a complete platform

for enterprise-wide adoption of XML and Web Services. The product set consists

of:



� The PolarLake Jintegrator, the first Universal ESB, which

provides a complete platform for creating new, or extending

existing, Java and J2EE-based XML and Web Service systems,

while meeting the most demanding performance and reliability

requirements.

� The PolarLake Database Integrator enables XML and Web

Services-based integration of existing database-centric

applications: providing a zero code/zero disruption approach to

the integration of XML and native relational data, as well as other

database assets such as stored procedures.

� The PolarLake Messaging Integrator provides complete

support for XML-based integration, including routing, validation

and transformation and reformatting of messages, across Message

Oriented Middleware and other protocols such as HTTP(S), SMTP

and FTP.

� The PolarLake Process Integrator supports the integration of

the most complex business processes, spanning multiple PolarLake

servers, or other XML or Web Service enabled applications.

� The PolarLake Adapters provide rich interaction between

PolarLake solutions and the most common enterprise applications

such as SAP® R/3®, Siebel, PeopleSoft®, CICS®, IMS, J.D.

Edwards™, Oracle® and more.



K e y I s s u e s A d d r e s s e d b y

P o l a r L a k e

Per formance and Sca lab i l i ty

PolarLake overcomes the performance issues often associated with processing

XML by employing a number of innovative technologies, typically increasing

throughput by 30-50 times compared with other servers. Some of the key

factors that contribute to this performance boost include:

� XML-streaming: XML documents are processed as each element

arrives, thereby ensuring very low latency. PolarLake is equally

efficient at handling large documents as small ones.

� Multi-threading: multiple sections of the same document (and

multiple documents of multiple types) are processed in parallel.

� Single scan: PolarLake ensures a document is scanned once only

within each PolarLake server.

� Selective processing: frequently an application only requires a

subset of an XML document for its purposes. Within the XML

Circuit™, PolarLake isolates and processes just the subset – often

with dramatic performance results.

The PolarLake architecture requires less hardware to meet the scalability

requirements at each node than alternative approaches that rely on XSLT

scripts or EJB-based approaches. In addition, PolarLake supports clustered

deployment, leveraging capabilities provided by hardware, operating system

and other infrastructure components (e.g. IP clustering and operating system-

provided clustering).



XML Data C ircu i t and the Semant ic

Va l idat ion, Transformation & Enr ichment

o f Messages

It is easy to create XML that is technically correct and will pass any schema

validation but is nonetheless nonsense from an application perspective.

Similarly, transformation and enrichment need to go beyond simply

recombining or augmenting the XML document. In each case, the business

meaning and context of the XML document needs to be the basis for validation,

transformation or enrichment. This reflects differences in the information

model between the incoming document and the outgoing document and is the

primarily task of the XML Data Circuit.

� Semantic Validation: ensures the XML content makes sense,

both at the level of individual fields and between fields (simple

example: “start date” is earlier than “end date”).

� Semantic Transformation: ensures the data conforms to

internal formats and therefore can be used by internal systems

(this is likely to mean transformation into non-XML formats as well

as between XML formats).

� Semantic Enrichment: ensures the data is complete and is likely

to involve other applications (e.g. databases, Web Services, etc.)

as well as internal calculations (e.g. aggregation, derivation,

analysis, etc.).



Figure 3 Defining a transformation using the PolarLake Mapper.

All of these are accomplished within the XML Data Circuit, which defines the

way a document is processed based on XPath selection rules and sequences of

components that act on the selected fragments of XML. XSLT or BeanShell may

be used for simple transformations when performance is not an issue. For

more complex transformations, the high performance PolarLake Mapper engine

supports simple, multi-element, contextual and functional transformations, and

includes out-of-the-box functions to handle common problems such as date

format conversions.

The Integration Suite also supports multi-document processing, meaning that a

Data Circuit may involve either many-to-one or one-to-many mapping of XML

documents. In this way more complex integration projects that involve the

combining or splitting of XML documents may be managed within the PolarLake

solution



XML Process C ircu i t and the orchestrat ion

of complex bus iness process

Many transactions within organizations span multiple applications and may

require minutes, hours or even days to complete. The steps within these

business transactions may include logical decisions, such as forking of the

process, based on the data associated with the transaction. In most cases

complex business processes will span multiple applications (and even

organizations in many cases).

The XML Process Circuit performs the following tasks::

� Coordination of multiple applications based on different

technologies: Ensures that diverse applications can be included

within the business process, whether implemented in Microsoft’s

.Net, using MQ-series for communication, or hosted in another

organization.

� Logical sequences with content-based flow control: Ensures

that applications are called in the right sequence, the correct

messages are sent and that the next step is correct, potentially

based on the information returned from the last step.

� Compensating transactions when process failures occur:

Integrating into the PolarLake exception handling architecture, any

detected failures result in the appropriate corrective action.



Inte l l igent Except ion Handl ing

The Hurwitz Group has estimated that nearly 80% of time spent in building

business processes is spent in exception management. All of PolarLake’s

products provide a complete and flexible exception handling architecture, within

the definition of the XML Circuit™, that spans both system and application level

exceptions. The exception handling can be used standalone or integrated into

PolarLake’s BAM.

Within XML Process Circuits, the standard BPEL circuit provides the ability to

catch exceptions and to execute compensating transactions, which reverse the

partial completion of the process. These compensating transactions can be

complete business processes or simple alerting messages.

XML Data Circuits provides richer and more configurable exception architecture,

corresponding to their focus on complex integration tasks. An exception can be

raised at any point in the XML Data Circuit and passed to an exception-handling

segment of the circuit. This allows much more fine-grained control of the

exceptions.

Within both XML Process and XML Data Circuits, the compensating transaction

or exception handling sequence has access to the full power of the PolarLake

platform to carry out the required recovery or alerting procedures.

The combination of both types of exceptions handling provides the unique

capability to catch problems occurring within the execution of the business

process or within the data driving the business process.

Business Act iv i ty Monitor ing

As the quantity and complexity of integration within the enterprise increases,

one of the greatest challenges is to track the status and progress of each

business transaction that is occurring. The information gathered can relate to

the technology (such as the number of stalled transactions requiring manual

intervention), or to the business content (such as the total value of orders

currently being processed). BAM holds the promise of allowing optimization to

reduce failure rates and enhance control of the business.

XML and Web Services amplify this issue. More information flows through the

enterprise, and provides a significant opportunity to enhance BAM capabilities

because message formats are typically richer and more easily interpreted.



Business Activity Monitoring requires three distinct components that are

available with the PolarLake Integration Suite:

� Collection of activity milestones: providing the ability to gather the

raw information that will support the monitoring. XML Circuits gather

events and store them in a milestone database (implemented on any

relational database). Within the XML Process Circuits, such milestones

are automatically stored to ensure correct correlation of messages in

long-lived transactions. Within XML Data Circuits, milestone

components can be added at any point and any arbitrary information

stored.

� Process the activity milestones, filtering events based on

business rules: XML Circuits can be defined that monitor the

milestone Database and act as process and filters, causing alarms to

be triggered.

� Creation and delivery of activity reports: PolarLake allows both a

browser based dashboard approach, which supports dynamic querying

and monitoring, and access to the full power of the XML Circuits to

create and deliver activity reports across multiple supported transports

such as SMTP, HTTP and JMS. In this case, all the processing power

and message delivery capabilities of PolarLake are available.

By adopting a layered BAM architecture, PolarLake allows customers to adopt

the PolarLake approach entirely or to deploy specialist Business Activity

Monitors to process the activity milestones and/or to create and deliver activity

reports.

Rich Document Rout ing Support

The PolarLake architecture supports a number of document routing models

including:

� Simple Message Routing, based on the type of document, on

the origination queue or other defined parameters such as

application defined flags.

� Content-Based Routing, based on the XML content of the

document, with routing decisions made with xQuery or XPath

rules.



� Publish & Subscribe Based Routing, which allows a list of

destinations (the subscribers) interested in receiving documents

from a sender (the publisher) based on selection criterion (the

topic). If a JMS-based queuing system is used, PolarLake can

integrate with the defined topic mechanism.



I n t e g r a t i o n w i t h K e y

T e c h n o l o g i e s

J2EE™ Integrat ion

PolarLake is a 100% Java-based system that can be deployed within a J2EE

application server. PolarLake allows Java and J2EE developers to easily

XML-enable and Web Service-enable existing deployed applications without

sacrificing performance, reliability or scalability. Furthermore, a PolarLake

enabled J2EE application can be easily extended to process many different

types of XML document and participate in complex XML-based interactions or

workflows, without changing or disrupting the deployed application.

In addition to being capable of deployment within a J2EE server, PolarLake can

also be deployed as a standalone server running within its own Java Virtual

Machine. It can also be deployed within a servlet engine, such as the popular

open source Tomcat, or within a web server.

Database Integrat ion

Database centric applications are central to most enterprises’ IT infrastructure,

and integrating with them is key to any effective use of XML. PolarLake

provides a complete integration of XML with the leading relational databases

by:

� Automating the storing of XML documents in a database and the

mapping of XML directly into and out of native types in existing

rows and columns. This mapping capability uses the PolarLake

Mapper Engine, enabling the most complex transformation to be

completed within the graphical configuration environment.

� Integrating with the business logic held in databases as stored

procedures, and providing these capabilities within a complete

XML-centric environment.

� Providing the ability to detect changes in the data stored in the

database and generate XML based on those changes.



� Significantly, PolarLake achieves all of this without changes or

disruption to the deployed database, and without compromising

the database’s performance, reliability or scalability.

Messaging Or iented Midd leware

Integrat ion

Asynchronous messaging oriented middleware (MOM) products deliver better

scalability and adaptability than alternative approaches. Enterprises already

rely on (often several) messaging technologies to reliably route mission critical

information between systems.

PolarLake’s products are integrated with the leading MOM products and are

compatible with the transactions, clustering, and publish/subscribe capabilities

provided by these products. Because PolarLake supports all of these as well as

other protocols such as HTTP(S) and SMTP, PolarLake is ideally suited to the

role of bridging between multiple domains based on different protocols and

messaging systems.

Integrat ion with Packaged and Mainframe

based Appl icat ions

The PolarLake Adapters allow deployed packaged applications from leading

vendors such as Oracle®, PeopleSoft® and Siebel and mainframe applications

based on IMS and CICS, to be seamlessly integrated within PolarLake solutions.

Based on the Java Connector Architecture (JCA) standard, the PolarLake

Adapters expose the standard and custom business processes within these

applications as Web Services or as XML messages. The PolarLake Adapters

allow the full function of the applications to be exposed including support for bi-

direction synchronous and asynchronous communication.

Integrat ion with Non-XML formats

In most integration problems, there will be a mix of XML and non-XML based

formats. While the PolarLake architecture is XML-centric, it is straightforward

to integrate a wide range of non-XML formats. PolarLake does this by first

converting the information into XML and them processing it in the usual

manner. Similarly once processing is complete, PolarLake can output

documents into the required non-XML format.



The most common non-XML formats are supported as standard capabilities of

PolarLake. These include comma-separated and tab-separated files and

Microsoft Word and Excel. To handle unsupported formats, PolarLake can be

extended with easy to build Java-based components called Request Processors.

These components are customized to handle the formats required and then

deployed into the PolarLake server to automatically convert to and from the

non-XML formats when necessary.

Deploy ing and Managing Po larLake

Appl icat ions

The PolarLake platform can be deployed in a number of configuration types,

including as a stand-alone server, or within a J2EE application server.

Whichever configuration type is chosen, there are two management options:

using the PolarLake Management Console (PMC), or using a SNMP compatible

system such as HP OpenView or BMC Patrol® (shown below). In the latter case,

all the usual features of those systems can be used with PolarLake

deployments.

Figure 4 The BMC Patrol® management console showing a PolarLake

deployment under management, including alarms and load monitors.



Using the PMC, developers can start and stop applications, view system and

error messages and launch the PolarLake monitor utility to examine application

behaviour in greater detail, either locally or remotely. The PMC also supports

hot swap application and configuration updates, allowing the deployed XML

circuits or any server configurations to be modified or completely changed

without system downtime.



C o n c l u s i o n s

This white paper has provided an introduction to the technology and products

provided by PolarLake. These products address the real problems faced by an

enterprise attempting to implement XML and Web Services while leveraging

existing applications, infrastructure and staff skills.

The PolarLake product range offers a complete platform for implementing XML

and Web Services-based application integration solutions, including those based

on the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) architecture. They can be used together to

provide a complete enterprise-strength application integration platform, or

separately to solve point integration problems.

For more information on PolarLake, please contact your PolarLake sales

representative or visit:

http://www.polarlake.com/



Part o f the power o f XML is that i t is readi l y unders tandable

by people as wel l as machines. The s t ruc ture o f an XML

representat ion o f in format ion is h ierarch ica l , cons is t ing of a

ser ies o f e lements , each def ined by a s tar t tag and a match ing

end tag. For example, a famous address can be descr ibed in

XML by:

<?xml vers ion="1.0"?>

<Address>

<Number>1600</Number>

<Street>Pennsylvania Avenue NW </Street>

<Ci ty>Washington, DC</Ci ty>

</Address>

A p p e n d i x A : X M L & W e b

S e r v i c e s : D e f i n i t i o n & U s e

Extens ib le Markup Language (XML)

XML is a markup language that is similar to HTML, the standard markup

language for web pages, and is becoming commonly used to facilitate the

interchange and processing of data between computer systems. Gartner has

predicted that by 2005, XML, which was standardized by the World Wide Web

Consortium (W3C) in 1998, will have emerged as the common language of

electronic commerce.



XML-related standards are being progressed by a number of organizations.

These standards do not provide a complete architecture for encoding financial

information, but rather focus on specific sub-sections of the financial services

industry or particular vertical niches. Each of the organizations is creating

frameworks for defining XML documents in its area of focus, and in some cases

rules for how the documents should be exchanged. The frameworks are

typically described as architectures. These definitions are normally in the form

of XML DTDs or Schemas, which describe the structure and sequence of each

conversation. In most case, the definitions are not Web-Services based,

reflecting the messaging-oriented nature of much financial services interaction.

While some convergence between the standards is likely, it is probable that all

finance organizations will need to support multiple standards within their

systems, and any architecture must be flexible enough to manage the evolution

of these standards. Gartner sums this up well when it predicts that ‘Through

year-end 2005, the majority of large financial services providers will support

multiple XML-based data model standards to connect with their external

stakeholders.’ This requirement to coexist with multiple standards must be

achieved without significant performance, latency or maintenance overhead, all

of which would undermine the typical project goal of real-time response.

Web Serv ices

At its most basic level, a Web Service is a component of business processing

that may involve one or more business systems. The initial Web Services

architecture was B2B focused and this is still reflected in the standards and in

many vendors’ offerings. Web Services provide an XML-based model for

interface driven system interactions, such as previously available in CORBA, or

the EJB model using RMI mechanism. This type of Web Services is sometimes

called RPC or Synchronous Web Services.

There is a second type of interaction model that is common in financial services,

which is data and message centric. This model is typified by data dictionaries

consisting of the set of defined messages and used in systems such as IBM

WebSphere® MQ or TIBCO™ Rendezvous. This style of interaction is much more

common in enterprise systems for reasons of scalability and match to the

underlying business process. Some vendors and analysts are calling this

Messaging or Asynchronous Web Services. At the moment, the majority of

financial services industry organizations mentioned above are not using RPC-

style Web Services as the basis of their frameworks. Some will move to Web

Services over time; others who are more data and message centric will not.



To allow each component in a Web Services-based architecture to be integrated

in a useful way, two additional elements are needed:

� A standard way of sending and receiving the information required

to complete the business processing (XML, with an additional

standardized envelope called SOAP).

� A standard way of publishing descriptions of the conversations

that a Web Service can be involved in. The leading standard is

UDDI, which can provide Web Service Definition Language (WSDL)

as a way of describing actual XML document exchanges within the

conversation. When using Web Services within the enterprise,

UDDI is often not required, as simple documentation of the service

definition is often sufficient.

There has been much work on defining additional often-competing standards to

specify standard enterprise qualities of service and processing requirements

within a Web Services framework. In most cases, it is still unclear which

standard will win customer acceptance and if such a standard is even required.

One exception is the BPEL4WS standard, which is becoming generally accepted

by both users and standards bodies as the best approach to Web Services

orchestration.

Web Services provide a layer of abstraction on top of the implementation of a

business component - the service definition. This definition is not dependent on

any specific infrastructure or middleware. Hence the adoption of Web Services

will remove one of the obstacles to the integration by providing a common

language to describe the interactions.

Some Bus iness Uses of XML & Web

Serv ices

XML is beginning to play a role in a number of financial services industry

initiatives. Web Services will start to contribute to these initiatives, providing

the interface mode of interaction. These include:

� Straight Through Processing (STP), which requires multi-

system and multi-enterprise integration, coupled with real-time

decision making. A significant problem within any STP

environment is the management and synchronization of multiple

data sources representing the same underlying data. A significant



side effect of using XML is that it provides a single representation

of the data and hence a single data format, which reduces the risk

of data error and reduces the processing time.

� Real Time Risk Management, which requires similar levels of

integration as STP with an additional requirement for real-time

integration and derived decision making. Complex transactions,

with disastrous negative consequences if mishandled, must be

managed for risk exposure. As many enterprises are attempting

to reduce costs and risks through automation of financial business

operations, the ability to provide real-time statements of cash and

exposure is becoming a key requirement for Financial Service

Providers (FSPs). As with GSTP, XML can provide the framework

for FSPs within which to integrate systems and support their

customers’ business needs.

� Data-centric processing, including inter-bank communications

(relying on the SWIFT system), exchange and processing of

financial instruments (defined in the FpML standards) and

business reporting (defined in XBRL).

� E-Business Integration and B2B Portals, which require

integration of each enterprise’s systems with those of its suppliers

and customers to support the delivery of new products and

services over the Internet. XML provides the neutral format for

both the internal systems and the external systems. Passing XML

documents around the network significantly reduces integration

and translation effort within each system.

� Business Process Integration, which requires integration of

each enterprise’s systems predominantly within the enterprise.

CRM is a specific instance of this type of system. As with E-

Business integration, XML provides a neutral format for the

participating systems. In addition, it can act as a useful

abstraction of the underlying business process being implemented.

29 of 30 PolarLake | Introduction to PolarLake™ Technology and Products

PolarLake™, a leader in standards based incremental integration, is driving out the costs of

integration. PolarLake provides a complete suite of products for implementing XML and Web

Services-based solutions, including those based on the Enterprise Service Bus architecture.

PolarLake's products deliver rapid Return on Investment by focusing on solving high value business

problems with a standards based approach capable of evolving and expanding to address the longer term objectives of the organization.

PolarLake has a proven track record in delivering the benefits of incremental integration with a

technology that leverages existing IT investments in standards, skills and systems to reduce both

initial investment and total cost of ownership. Deployed customers include leading corporations in

financial services such as Pioneer Investments* (Ireland), Man Financial Ltd (UK), and Nissay Dowa

(Japan), in Government, such as CJIT (Criminal Justice IT, UK), and in telecommunications such as Midwest Wireless (USA) and KDDI (Japan).

PolarLake's solutions are provided by partners such as Hitachi Systems and Services and Sun

Microsystems. PolarLake is a private company, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, with offices in London, New York and Tokyo.

Leveraging its unique Dynamic XML Runtime™ technology and XML Circuits™ application assembly

framework, PolarLake's products allow customers to deliver solutions at a fraction of the normal time

and cost.

While addressing different requirements, each of PolarLake's products delivers:

Technology integration with PolarLake's Dynamic XML Runtime™, which provides a highly

scalable, high performance runtime server that integrates with enterprise infrastructure such as

queuing systems, management infrastructure and legacy applications.

Business integration with PolarLake's data-centric XML Circuits™ approach, which allows

developers and business users to rapidly deliver new solutions with minimum disruption to existing

systems and maximum leverage of existing assets and skills.

Unique tools that leverage existing skills to provide an intuitive XML-centric environment, and

which support the software life cycle and are based exclusively on open standards.

*Pioneer Investments is a trading name of the Pioneer Global Asset Management S.p.A. group of companies.

Contact Details

PolarLake Ireland (HQ) Block F1 East Point Business Park Dublin 3 Ireland

PolarLake Japan 13 F Ebisu Business Tower 1-19-19 Ebisu Shibuya-ku Tokyo, Japan

PolarLake USA 1001 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 1104 New York, NY 10018 USA

PolarLake UK No. 78 Cannon Street London EC4N 6NQ UK

T: +353 (1) 449-1010 T: +81-3-4360-3965 T: +1 (212) 813 2965 T: +44 (0) 20 7618-6426

F: +353 (1) 449-1011 F: +81-90-1421-6486 F: +1 (212) 790 9072 F: +44 (0) 20 7618-8001 E: [email protected] E: [email protected] E: [email protected] E: [email protected]

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