Keeping Businesses Linked

Systems management software maker BMC Software Inc. and application integration company WebMethods Inc. are teaming up. The two companies this week will announce a product called Patrol for WebMethods that aims to minimize the risk of a broken system-to-system connection between business partners.

Patrol for WebMethods ensures business process availability by monitoring WebMethods installed infrastructure and the system adapters it uses to connect disparate systems within and outside an organization. Users can receive alerts and respond with the appropriate action.

"What [Patrol for WebMethods] gives us is the ability to plug right in to our operating support system, where we add the most value for customers," said Brad Clay, senior director of engineering service and support development at application service provider Quest Cyber Solutions LLC. "We now have another layer, the integration layer, in the stack that we can plug in and know exactly whats going on at any given time—whats up, whats down—and it feeds it right into our management systems.

"With the BMC tool, [monitoring] is standardized and plugs right in vs. what people generally do, which is write scripts and ping [the platform] every now and then, which is fine, but you cant measure performance," said Clay, in Denver.

Houston-based BMCs Patrol for WebMethods is slated to be available the third week of next month—about the same time as WebMethods own monitoring system will be available. This spring, WebMethods, of Fairfax, Va., is expected to finalize its OMI (Open Management Interface) specification that will enable users to better manage their WebMethods environment.

WebMethods partnered with Hewlett-Packard Co. to define the OMI standard. OMI will enable IT departments to monitor the health and progress of business processes and associate these processes with the hardware and software infrastructure to support them, according to WebMethods officials.

While BMC will support OMI, more importantly the company is supporting WebMethods current generation of software with Patrol, according to BMC officials.

Separately, WebMethods will announce this week a partnership with BroadVision Inc., as well as the availability of BroadVision Integration Services, a product designed to speed integration between BroadVisions enterprise self-service applications and backup systems.

The result of a significantly expanded licensing relationship between WebMethods and BroadVision, Integration Services will enhance the ability of users to access information in a unified manner, regardless of where it is stored throughout a business system, according to BroadVision officials in Redwood City, Calif.