Live from Software AG Processworld 2012: Day 1

The day started with general keynotes from the CEO and CTO of Software AG. During these keynotes the so called “4 forces, shaping the future of IT” of Processworld 2012 were introduced:

• Big Data    
• Social/Collaboration 
• Cloud 
• Mobile

All of these 4 forces are integrated in the new ARIS 9.0 and webMethods 9.0 releases by a number of new products. The one that were addressed today are the following:

• ARIS connect: a complete new product focusing on the social and collaboration part. It is an addition to the existing ARIS product line. During the session a demo has been given showing how multiple persons can collaborate in an ARIS process. A person can invite someone else to collaborate in an ARIS process, meaning the person can put comments, can view the part he or she is responsible for and so on.
  At this moment there are different ARIS products, each of them having their own version. With ARIS 9.0 there will be only one ARIS client with version number 9.0 and extension packs in case specific features are wanted. 
• webMethods pulse: is focusing on the social and mobile part. This event-driven solution is based on the webMethods ESB and allows us to subscribe to business events and to get warned in real time on our mobile phone or tablet. 
• Cloud streams: is responsible for cloud integration. While the webMethods SalesForce adapter is only focusing on integration with SalesForce, cloud streams comes out of the box with a lot more SAAS connectors (salesforce, google, …). It has also advanced security, traffic analysis and SAAS governance on board.
  I discussed the comparison of the salesforce adapter with the cloudstream solution with a software AG expert at the cloud booth. The main advantage of cloudstreams is that it delivers a shorter time to market compared to the adapter. With cloudstreams they provide a framework that can easily adopt a new version of the API that is availaible in the cloud (cfr the updates of the salesforce partner WSDL).
  Cloudstreams can be installed as an integration server package. 
• Nirvana messaging: A java based messaging system for webMethods with the same functions as the broker + additional API's for javascript, iOS, android, ... Tests have shown that the nirvana messaging solution is up to 10 times faster than the broker (including guaranteed delivery). So there is a chance that it will replace the broker in a far future.
• Command Central allows us to administer almost all webMethods components via one central GUI. It allows administrators to: 
• Perform landscape management by stopping or starting, monitoring, perform license management, basic alerting of webmethods components. 
• Manage fixes by comparing fixes across servers and install fixes on the servers. 
• Perform central configuration across products, compare the configuration and provide access to the legacy UI. 
At this moment they are still working at the product, since the central configuration is still a work in progress. Although the GUI is one way to access command central, it also can be accessed via command line, service API and even a mobile API. For the command line you can give a command to perform a specific operation or XML scripts can be used to apply changes using the command line.

Command central provides a standard API, independent of the underlying runtime. This means you can configure for instance a JNDI connection in CC in one way, whether it needs to be applied on integration server of MWS.
In the future it also will be possible to install products using CC.
On top is this all you can define templates, manage substitution variables and apply these templates to target servers.  

Author: Dimitri Van Kerckhoven