Close
  • Latest News
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
Read Down
Sign in
Close
Welcome!Log into your account
Forgot your password?
Read Down
Password recovery
Recover your password
Close
Search
Logo
Logo
  • Latest News
  • Big Data and Analytics
  • Cloud
  • Networking
  • Cybersecurity
  • Applications
  • IT Management
  • Storage
  • Sponsored
  • Mobile
  • Small Business
  • Development
  • Database
  • Servers
  • Android
  • Apple
  • Innovation
  • Blogs
  • PC Hardware
  • Reviews
  • Search Engines
  • Virtualization
More
    Home Applications
    • Applications

    BAT Looks to Web Services

    By
    Debra Donston
    -
    August 18, 2003
    Share
    Facebook
    Twitter
    Linkedin

      When executives at British American Tobacco plc. needed a way to tap into and make sense of data in a variety of databases and enterprise applications, the IT department tapped into Web services.

      BAT, the second-largest publicly listed tobacco company in the world, employs about 90,000 people in 180 countries. The company has a widespread business systems landscape based on a number of common solutions, including applications from SAP AG, Siebel Systems Inc., PeopleSoft Corp. and i2 Technologies Inc., said Kevin Poulter, application technology manager at BAT, in London.

      At the beginning of last year, Poulter and his team decided to base their integration architecture on Web services. “We took, as the basis, what we were already doing with [IBMs] MQSeries, our experience in the team around CORBA and [Component Object Model] and what we observed in the marketplace and devised a conceptual architecture based around Web services technology,” said Poulter. “Weve spent the last nine months elaborating on that architecture from a blueprint perspective in terms of standards and products.”

      When senior management expressed interest in a method for providing increased, more meaningful feedback on how the business was performing, Poulter considered using a data warehousing strategy but determined that it would be too costly and time- consuming to set up. Instead, the decision was made to leverage and extend the Web services work already being done and implement CXO System 3.0, from CXO Systems Inc.

      An executive dashboard that provides a real-time view of information, the Web- services-based CXO System 3.0 pulls and integrates data from operational and analytical systems.

      CXO Systems worked with BAT to configure the system to the companys needs, said Poulter. “We worked with CXO to implement a dashboard application that shows metrics such as average lead time on orders, forecast accuracy and a collection of other metrics that show how manufacturing capability is meeting the demands of different sales operations around the globe,” he said. “The dashboard shows metrics derived from information in SAP R/3 and the i2 supply planning and collaboration modules.”

      Poulter declined to say how much CXO System cost to implement. “Lets just say it was significantly more cost-effective than traditional approaches we might have looked at,” he said.

      CXO Systems officials said the applications price starts at $75,000.

      A Speedy Implementation

      poulter said it took only about eight weeks to get CXO System up and running at BAT, an impressive timeframe given the complexity of the integration being performed. “The general feedback is that people are amazed at how fast weve gotten things up and running because of the complexity of extracting and combining those data sets and presenting them as the appropriate metrics using traditional technology,” he said.

      The biggest challenge, according to Poulter, was dealing with an older version of one of the back-end applications being accessed. “The SAP application being used was quite an old one,” he said. “Therefore, the integration wasnt as rapid as it might have been, but it was still quick.”

      Poulter said the application, SAPs R/3 Version 3.6, provides a restricted capability to browse its interfaces, therefore requiring more access to SAP specialists within the business than would be required with later versions of the application.

      CXO is a Microsoft Corp. .Net-based application, but for the BAT project, products based on Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition were used to enable integration with back-end business systems: Librados Inc.s Enterprise Integration Component Server deployed in BEA Systems Inc.s WebLogic Application Server and Infravio Inc.s Web Services Management System.

      “Librados has enabled us to create interfaces to SAP and i2 within the Java environment,” Poulter said. “We then used Infravio to convert those into Web services, which are then invoked from within the CXO platform.”

      Currently, about 20 to 30 people are using CXO System at BAT. The company plans to extend the use of CXO System toward the end of the year to users in different parts of the business. Once that happens, Poulter plans to overlay AmberPoint Inc.s Web services Management system to make CXO System more operationally robust. AmberPoint, said Poulter, will provide service-level management of the underlying services and failover capabilities, as well as the ability to deal with exceptions.

      Poulter said the security built into CXO System is sufficient for the moment. CXO System provides log-in security and LDAP capabilities and can interface with Microsofts Active Directory.

      If increased use of the product eventually warrants more stringent security, said Poulter, the plan is to use AmberPoint or work with an XML security vendor such as Vordel Ltd. to make Web services traffic more secure.

      Executive Editor Debra Donston is at debra_donston@ziffdavis.com.

      Debra Donston

      MOST POPULAR ARTICLES

      Big Data and Analytics

      Alteryx’s Suresh Vittal on the Democratization of...

      James Maguire - May 31, 2022 0
      I spoke with Suresh Vittal, Chief Product Officer at Alteryx, about the industry mega-shift toward making data analytics tools accessible to a company’s complete...
      Read more
      Cybersecurity

      Visa’s Michael Jabbara on Cybersecurity and Digital...

      James Maguire - May 17, 2022 0
      I spoke with Michael Jabbara, VP and Global Head of Fraud Services at Visa, about the cybersecurity technology used to ensure the safe transfer...
      Read more
      Applications

      Cisco’s Thimaya Subaiya on Customer Experience in...

      James Maguire - May 10, 2022 0
      I spoke with Thimaya Subaiya, SVP and GM of Global Customer Experience at Cisco, about the factors that create good customer experience – and...
      Read more
      Cloud

      IGEL CEO Jed Ayres on Edge and...

      James Maguire - June 14, 2022 0
      I spoke with Jed Ayres, CEO of IGEL, about the endpoint sector, and an open source OS for the cloud; we also spoke about...
      Read more
      Cloud

      Yotascale CEO Asim Razzaq on Controlling Multicloud...

      James Maguire - May 5, 2022 0
      Asim Razzaq, CEO of Yotascale, provides guidance on understanding—and containing—the complex cost structure of multicloud computing. Among the topics we covered:  As you survey the...
      Read more
      Logo

      eWeek has the latest technology news and analysis, buying guides, and product reviews for IT professionals and technology buyers. The site’s focus is on innovative solutions and covering in-depth technical content. eWeek stays on the cutting edge of technology news and IT trends through interviews and expert analysis. Gain insight from top innovators and thought leaders in the fields of IT, business, enterprise software, startups, and more.

      Facebook
      Linkedin
      RSS
      Twitter
      Youtube

      Advertisers

      Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on eWeek and our other IT-focused platforms.

      Advertise with Us

      Menu

      • About eWeek
      • Subscribe to our Newsletter
      • Latest News

      Our Brands

      • Privacy Policy
      • Terms
      • About
      • Contact
      • Advertise
      • Sitemap
      • California – Do Not Sell My Information

      Property of TechnologyAdvice.
      © 2022 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved

      Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.

      ×