integration approaches to billing systems

Billing Systems Integration Enabling Best-of-Breed Solutions for the Communications Industry

August 2002

Copyright

© 2002 webMethods, Inc. All rights reserved.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................. 4

OSS/BSS INTEGRATION STRATEGIES .......................................................................... 6 APPLICATION-LEVEL INTEGRATION...................................................................................... 6

Packaged Adapters ..................................................................................................... 6 Custom Adapters ......................................................................................................... 7 Third-Party Solutions ................................................................................................... 7 OEM Partnerships........................................................................................................ 7

DATABASE-LEVEL INTEGRATION ......................................................................................... 8 OBJECT- AND MESSAGE-BASED INTEGRATION..................................................................... 9 FILE-BASED INTEGRATION................................................................................................ 11

BILLING SYSTEMS INTEGRATION................................................................................ 12 AMDOCS....................................................................................................................... 12 CONVERGYS GENEVA ...................................................................................................... 12 CSG KENAN ARBOR/BP.................................................................................................. 13 PORTAL INFRANET ........................................................................................................... 14 SEMA BSCS.................................................................................................................. 16 MAINFRAME IDMS....................................................................................................... 17

CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................. 20

ABOUT WEBMETHODS INC........................................................................................... 21

©2002 webMethods, Inc. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION

No one would dispute the extreme challenges and unforgiving nature of the telecommunications industry today. It remains extremely competitive, is under continuing pressure to reduce operational costs, and faces unrelenting subscriber demands for improved customer service and new and innovative services for both voice and data.

Hence, telecommunications companies seek technology and business solutions that can increase business agility while decreasing costs and lowering operational risk. Enterprise application integration (EAI) – automating the processes across the mission-critical applications that run the business – has proven successful in addressing these needs.

In the market for business integration software, webMethods has established global leadership status.

With the aim of enabling business visibility across the extended enterprise, webMethods and its ecosystem partners develop, maintain and support integration solutions to accommodate the widest range of OSS/BSS applications in the telecommunications industry.

The foundation for this capability is the webMethods integration platform. With its powerful business process management features and best-in-class integration capabilities, the webMethods solution allows companies to optimize every aspect of their operations.


The webMethods integration platform allows companies to interconnect:

Billing systems (traditional and convergent platforms)

CRM and Call Centers

Fraud Management

Provisioning Systems

Settlement Systems

Relational databases

Messaging technologies

And other enterprise system resources

Every business day, the rapid deployability of the webMethods solution allows another customer to put a project into production and start to improve efficiency, cut operating costs, and realize a competitive advantage.

About this Document The objective of this white paper is to provide the reader with an overview of how webMethods deals with the problem of integrating core billing systems with various other applications in telecommunications service provider environment.

This paper addresses webMethods’ general integration capabilities as well as specific support for the following billing applications: Amdocs, Convergys Geneva, CSG Kenan Arbor, IDMS, Portal Infranet, Sema BSCS.

For More Information To learn more about other billing integration options available from webMethods, including support for custom-built applications, please contact:

Mr. Michiel Verhoeven Director, Communications Industry [email protected]

Mr. Raman Flawn Director, Strategic Solutions [email protected]

For more information about the webMethods integration platform, please contact your local webMethods sales office or send an e-mail to [email protected]. You can also find information on the webMethods web site at http://www.webMethods.com.


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OSS/BSS INTEGRATION STRATEGIES

The extensive capabilities of the webMethods integration platform allow for an operator’s core OSS/BSS applications to be integrated in a variety of different ways depending on the company’s functional and technical requirements.

At a broad level, the various approaches can be categorized as follows:

Application-level integration, utilizing adapters that integrate through an API

Database-level integration, going directly to the application’s database

Message-level integration, through intermediate messaging technologies

File-level integration, using intermediate flat files between applications

In general, API-level integration is desirable for real-time interfaces that conform to the business and data-integrity rules of the application. Database-level integration may be necessary if the application does not offer a well-defined interface (which might be the case for a two-tier client/server application), or might be used in query-only situations. Message- and file-level integration are options for loosely-coupled interfaces.

Application-Level Integration

The webMethods integration platform provides a complete solution for integrating disparate application and system resources at the application level. This capability is provided through several options, including packaged adapters from webMethods, custom-developed adapters, and solutions developed by third-parties. In addition, a number of leading enterprise software companies OEM webMethods technology, providing direct links between their applications and the webMethods integration platform.

Packaged Adapters

A key component of the webMethods solution is ability to connect to specific applications through adapters. An adapter interfaces to an application’s publicly exposed Application Programming Interface (API). webMethods’ adapters not only accelerate implementation by handling the low-level application interface details, but they also provide customers with a highly productive graphical environment for configuring the business logic, data mappings, and other operations to support their business integration requirements.

webMethods offers packaged adapters for the common enterprise applications and system resources, including the following (note that this is a partial list only):

ERP: SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft, JDE

CRM: Siebel, PeopleSoft, Oracle, SAP, Amdocs Clarify

Billing: MetaSolv, Portal

Messaging: CORBA, COM, EJB, JMS, Tuxedo, MQ Series, MSMQ

Databases: JDBC, ODBC, Oracle, DB2, Informix, Sybase, SQL Server


For widely-used applications such as SAP, Oracle, and Siebel, the size of the installed customer base warrants the development of productized adapters. However, in the telecommunications industry, many operators have highly customized billing platforms and the commonality of application integration requirements for a specific billing system is therefore lower. Therefore, it is important to operators that full integration functionality can be obtained in alternative ways – besides an “out-the-box” adapter – for instance, through database-level integration or the rapid development of a custom adapter using the webMethods Adapter Development Kit.

Custom Adapters

In situations where an operator has an application that is not supported out-the-box by a webMethods adapter, one option is to develop a custom adapter for the application using the webMethods Adapter Development Kit (ADK).

webMethods’ Professional Services organization has a “field adapter” program to develop such one-off adapters rapidly and cost effectively. These adapters are fully functional integration components – based on the same ADK that webMethods uses for its internally-developed adapters – although they are not sold or marketed as certified products. Adapters developed under the program are available in source-code form to any customers with similar application integration needs, allowing these customers to get the benefit of re-use and reduced time to implement.

The benefits of ADK-based adapters are that they operate and can be used in exactly the same way as webMethods’ product adapters. The integration task is made simpler by applying these components, versus attempting to develop the integration by hand.

Examples of custom-developed billing platform adapters include: Amdocs, Sema BSCS, ADC Saville, Ericsson, and Kenan Arbor.

(Note that although webMethods has expertise in building adapters with the ADK, customers also have the option of using the ADK independently if they have appropriately skilled resources).

Third-Party Solutions

Besides the adapters offered by webMethods, a number of telecommunications industry application vendors develop, market and support integration capabilities for the webMethods platform.

Examples of partners offering webMethods solutions include MobileSys, Comptel, Convergys Geneva, and Sema BSCS.

OEM Partnerships

webMethods is unmatched amongst integration software vendors with the number of leading enterprise application providers that embed webMethods technology into their offerings, either to address internal application integration needs, or as a strategic solution for facilitating integration between the application and other systems in the customers environment.


Specifically:

Siebel Systems embeds webMethods in Siebel Partner Connect, enabling brand owners to connect in real-time. Siebel is also collaborating with webMethods to develop the Siebel Universal Application Network.

SAP chose webMethods to power and provide the underlying technology for the SAP Business Connector, which allows SAP customers to participate in collaborative business scenarios and marketplaces using XML and the Internet.

i2 Technologies uses the webMethods platform as the underlying integration infrastructure for the i2 Five.Two solution. webMethods links the i2 applications internally as enables connectivity between i2 and other enterprise and legacy applications, as well as in relationships with business partners.

J.D. Edwards uses webMethods as the foundation for its eXtended Process Integration (XPI) engine, which allows customers to address integration across both internal enterprise application portfolios and external interoperability with customers' and trading partners' business systems.

BroadVision embeds webMethods integration technology in BroadVision 7, expanding a relationship that started when BroadVision selected webMethods for their B2B Gateway capability.

Lawson Software incorporates webMethods into their industry-vertical applications. With webMethods, Lawson customers can connect their Lawson applications directly to those of their trading partners across the Internet.

These companies have uniquely endorsed webMethods as their integration solution provider and business partner. These relationships are highly beneficial for operators running any of the applications listed above because:

webMethods technology is already in the information systems infrastructure

Compatibility between webMethods and these vendors’ products is assured

The value of existing application software investments is maximized

Ultimately, for these vendors’ customers, the entry cost and risk of integration is lowered for companies who standardize on webMethods.

Database-Level Integration

The use of webMethods’ relational database adapters allows direct access to all the common relational database products and technologies. These include:

JDBC

ODBC

Oracle

SQL Server


DB2 (version 6 and above)

Informix

Sybase

Within the scope of billing integration there are circumstances where integration with the billing platform’s back-end relational database repository may be considered an integration option. Although webMethods would not advise selecting this option in most cases, it may be permissible where alternatives are limited and the impact of direct relational database access is known and can be compensated for.

There are two primary reasons webMethods does not advocate integrating directly with any billing platforms’ database. These are:

Business logic in the billing platform is by-passed with this style of integration

The impact of subsequent, post-integration upgrades to the billing platform

The initial case of bypassing business logic can lead to downstream data integrity problems. Often these can be subtle enough to go unnoticed for some time only to be caught during an end of period process or reconciliation.

In the second case, it is common for a billing platform upgrade process to alter the schema of the platform’s relational database repository. Often, this renders the initial integration inoperable after the schema change. In this case the integration and any dependant applications no longer function as they were originally deployed.

However, direct access to the billing platform’s relational database can be considered where the platform vendor has provided instructions for this type of integration, or where the platform provides “interface tables” specifically for integration purposes.

Object- and Message-based Integration

Besides application and database adapters, webMethods supports a variety of object- and message-based infrastructures common in the telecommunications arena. These include:

CORBA (Common Object Request Broker Architecture)

COM (Component Object Model)

EJB (Enterprise Java Beans)

Tuxedo

MQ Series

MSMQ

Many applications, including billing platforms, provide message-based interfaces. In the telecommunications industry, CORBA was previously considered the answer to universal interoperability. Many telecommunications applications, particularly in the network management arena, were constructed with a CORBA integration point. To some extent


the billing platforms followed and offered CORBA as an interfacing option as well, although not exclusively.

In actuality, the widespread adoption of CORBA for integration within the telecommunications sector was met with limited acceptance. This was largely due to its overly complex nature and the need for specialist skills. There was also the dependence upon licenses for third party ORBs (Object Request Brokers) that needed to be procured in order to implement the CORBA interfaces. These factors combined to limit the pervasive adoption of CORBA as a generally accepted integration mechanism. It is important to note however, that the CORBA legacy has been maintained and can still provide a useful integration facility either in the absence of other options or where the billing platform vendor recommends this approach.

To a lesser degree, COM paralleled CORBA under the influence of developers promoting Microsoft as the development tool of choice. While COM was far simpler to use, the fundamental limitation for it as a generally accepted interfacing technology was its dependence on the Win32 operating system as a host. At the time of COM’s popularity, Win32 environments did not fare well when scrutinized for reliability and scalability. There was – and continues to be – almost universal adoption of Sun Solaris, HP-UX and other Unix variants as the preferred host platforms for performance-oriented telecommunication software deployments.

Today, having evolved past CORBA and COM, a number of billing platforms are built upon application server technologies, with the most pervasive platform being the BEA WebLogic Application Server (and IBM’s WebSphere as the next most common). For example, the Amdocs product is based on WebLogic.

Application servers encapsulate business logic into Enterprise Java Beans (EJBs). This raises the possibility of EJBs as an integration option for application server-based billing platforms. However, the feasibility of this approach depends to a large degree on the EJB implementation itself. Although based on the J2EE standard, application server vendors have adopted proprietary extensions in their products to address the lack of completeness and functionality required for true enterprise-class applications. As a result, EJBs developed for WebLogic may not offer full functionality when operating on another application server platform. This means that the question of whether EJBs can be used for integration has to take into consideration the compatibility of the EJBs and the deployed application server environment.

Prior to object-oriented technologies, transaction processors such as Tuxedo were popular as a middle-tier interface technology. Both the Amdocs and Kenan Arbor/BP billing platforms support Tuxedo interfaces. However, this does not mean that Tuxedo should be assumed to be the default integration approach for these applications.

Historically, Tuxedo was used primarily as a mechanism to configure the slave customer listing in the billing platform from the master customer listing held within a CRM application. Generally, no facility was provided for richer integration capabilities, such as bi-directional information exchange between the two or more disparate platforms. On top of this, the need to deploy, support and maintain a Tuxedo server just to execute this


simple one-way interface imposed a high operations overhead. As a consequence, Tuxedo never became a pervasive telecommunications integration technology.

Lastly, IBM’s message-based MQSeries product has some popularity with mainframe-based deployments such as the IDMS billing platform, but tends to be limited to these types of environments.

Whatever the nature of the operator’s environment, the webMethods integration platform, with its broad range of integration capabilities, allows customers to balance technology constraints with time-to-market needs.

File-Based Integration

Although not as pervasive in the telecommunications industry, file-based integration remains a common approach, especially where applications provide batch import/export capabilities. Typical to this approach, flat files are routed between applications using a home-brewed combination of scripts, FTP processes, batch programs, and custom programs to do data conversion and transformation.

webMethods supports flat-file integration in a variety of ways, including: built in FTP service support; ability to process EDI, XML, and custom-defined flat-file formats; ability to invoke command line programs; compatibility with batch scheduling programs; full file i/o functionality; powerful data mapping and transformation capabilities.


BILLING SYSTEMS INTEGRATION

In this section we examine some of the internal workings of several of the most well known telecommunications billing platforms and explain how each of these can be integrated using webMethods’ integration solutions.

AMDOCS

Amdocs offers several billing products and platforms. They are generally sold as separate offerings, but are in essence just different combinations of the same core products pre-integrated and packaged for different service provider types.

The Amdocs Billing platform is built upon BEA WebLogic. Enterprise Java Beans as well as Tuxedo are supported as integration options.

The selected integration approach depends upon what is intended as a standard for the site in question. There are circumstances where the site may have standardized on Tuxedo as its messaging transport. Under these circumstances Tuxedo may be the only option available to the integration developer.

Where Tuxedo is not a generally accepted option for the site, it is preferable to use the Amdocs Open API interfaces. The Amdocs Open API interfaces are based upon EJBs, which can be accessed by the webMethods EJB adapter. Using this mechanism is preferred due to their lower deployment complexity and the elimination of the need to deploy additional Tuxedo components that would be used for no other purpose than supporting interfaces. In addition, the webMethods EJB adapter provides a higher degree of functionality compared to the Tuxedo approach, and aligns with Amdocs’ strategic focus on their Open API Interfaces.

The clear benefit of this solution is in the single contained interface between the webMethods EJB adapter and the Open API Interface exposed by Amdocs. Under the Tuxedo integration approach the customer has the disadvantage of having to maintain a Tuxedo instance. In cases where the Amdocs integration is the only required implementation of any Tuxedo interface, the configuration and maintenance overhead required for the Tuxedo software would be unwarranted.

Convergys Geneva

The Convergys Geneva billing platform has a very well developed set of Oracle-based APIs and views that have been used as the basis of a number of successful direct integrations. In this instance, no special adapter is required to integrate the Geneva billing platform with the webMethods solution since the standard webMethods Database Adapter can be used.

All information within Geneva can be accessed by executing SQL queries against the public views within the Geneva relational database model. These can be mapped and integrated using the webMethods adapter.


There are three basic operations that are performed when integrating with the Geneva billing platform. These are:

Simple Data Export

Data Export for Synchronisation

Data Import

Simple Data Export is essentially a batch-oriented operation where billing data is accessed from the special public view within the Geneva relational database repository using a single, select-based SQL query. Geneva exposes this view specifically for data export purposes.

Data Export for Synchronisation is more fine-grained in nature and is focused more towards real-time integration requirements. The webMethods Database Adapter can be used to implement triggers and shadow tables to monitor for changes in Geneva. These triggers and shadow tables are created on the schema of the user through which the database adapter is connecting to the database.

Data Import is performed using the same database adapter by instructing it to invoke a standard stored procedure library contained within the Geneva database. It is this stored procedure library that performs updates to information stored within Geneva. The database adapter should not be used to update the tables directly within Geneva. All updates should be initiated using the stored procedure libraries as they maintain the business integrity of the data update process.

CSG Kenan Arbor/BP

Kenan Arbor/BP supports billing and customer care for both usage-based and non-usage-based products and services in voice, data, and multimedia. Arbor/BP provides comprehensive billing and customer care functions, including:

Account establishment and maintenance

Invoice formatting and dispatching

Order management

Payments processing

Message processing

Accounts receivable processing

Advanced rating

Journaling

Flexible invoice calculation

Comprehensive reporting

Discounts, promotions, unit credits


The recommended approach for integrating with the Kenan Arbor/BP billing system is to use the webMethods Arbor/BP Adapter. This adapter accesses the Arbor/BP database tables in the same way as the Arbor/BP client GUI tools. The operations themselves are generic and can be configured to any related Arbor/BP object type, regardless of the degree of customization that has been done with these object types at the client site.

The Arbor/BP adapter also supports operation templates that can be used to rapidly deploy integration solutions. The templates offered by the Arbor/BP adapter are:

Insert: Copies object information into data rows

Update: Updates values in a set of existing database records based on the corresponding field values in an object

Cease: Deactivates an active database entity

List: Insert copies object information into new database rows

List Active: List Active is like List, but operates only on active rows (what constitutes an “active” row depends on the object)

Select: Copies database information into an object

Select Active: Select Active is like Select, but operates only on active rows (what constitutes an “active” row depends on the object)

It is possible to directly access the Arbor relational database repository, as these tables are reasonably transparent. Under limited circumstances this may be permissible where the requirement is read-only. Direct updates to the tables should be avoided.

Portal Infranet

Portal Software’s Infranet product is a convergent billing and customer management application for service operators and content providers. It enables service providers to deliver voice, data and content over wireless, wire line, cable and satellite networks.

Portal Infranet is based on a four-tier architecture. These tiers are described below.

Application Tier. This consists of Infranet client applications and other applications that capture data from customer service usage.

Connection Manager Tier. This consists of Connection Managers (CMs), Facilities Modules (FMs) and External Modules (EMs). CMs provide an interface between infranet clients and the rest of the infranet system. CMs include FMs that process data captured by the infranet client. EMs serve similar functions to FMs, but must be started separately as a service or process.

Data Manager Tier. This consists of Data Managers (DMs) that translate requests from Connection Managers into a language the database can understand. For the Infranet database the language is SQL.

Data Tier. This consists of the Infranet database and other data access systems. The Infranet database stores customer account data as well as business data


such as price lists, general ledger data, and records of all events that occur in the Infranet system.

The advised mechanism for integrating with Portal Infranet is through the use of the webMethods Portal Infranet Adapter, which interfaces to Infranet’s application tier.

The Infranet architecture is shown in the figure below:

Portal Infranet Architecture

The Infranet Adapter provides an operation template called Portal Opcodes. The Opcodes represent an interface into the Portal Infranet server instance. Using these Opcodes, customers can define configured operations for the various Portal Infranet operations through the Portal Infranet API.

An additional component of the Portal Infranet integration solution is the Portal Outbound Component. This component generates outbound messages within the Infranet platform. This Outbound Component is managed by Portal Infranet software known as the EAI Data Manager. The EAI Data Manager also provides specifications that enable a developer to create a connector application and receive outbound events.

The Portal Outbound Component of the Portal Infranet adapter receives the outbound events in XML format and sends the output to a port that is specified in the Portal Infranet configuration file. This XML output can be received directly by webMethods.


SEMA BSCS

The options for integration make use of the Customer Administration Server / Service Layer (CAS/SL) built onto the SEMA BSCS Billing System. This is a high performance interface that exposes BSCS customer, contract creation, maintenance and information retrieval services. There are over 100 exposed services in total.

The CAS Service Layer is a CORBA-based server that has been built on top of CAS. This offers a simple access mechanism for interfacing through a CORBA interface. The platform vendor supplies the required CORBA IDL for BSCS. This IDL describes the SEMA Billing Platform interface and does need to be altered if new services or parameters are introduced into the billing platform. This is due to the CAS/SL introspection facility that allows transparency to clients requesting details about supported services and their parameters.

The CAS Service Layer provides an API that is used by the webMethods SEMA Adapter. This adapter solution is comprised of four operating components:

CAS/SL API

− Preserves data integrity and consistency

− Ensures long term durability of the adapter solution Input Connector

− A connector for webMethods request/reply interactions Output Connector

− Publishes notifications about events occurring inside the BSCS platform Services Configuration

− Allows the adapter to be configured properly for the site’s requirements

The Input Connector is capable of request/reply interactions with the BSCS system. This employs the CORBA interface that exists above the CAS/SL layer. Beneath the CAL/SL layer, interactions with other BSCS components are performed using TCP/IP sockets connections. These are not required for interfacing with webMethods.

The adapter is capable of full introspection capabilities and contains a set of configurable template operations that can be used during deployment for rapid implementation. These templates provide pre-defined mappings to speed configuration.

The Output Connector is a notification device. It is implemented with the standard webMethods database notifier in accordance with the following principles:

Notification events are linked to the BSCS tickler capabilities (i.e., triggers)

According to the notification process, only the identifier information is passed. The rest of the information is compiled using request/reply interactions through the Input Connector. Notification is therefore only a trigger mechanism used to inform the Input Connector that some new information is available to publish.

Using both the trigger notification in combination with the request/reply mechanism, a fully functional real-time outbound event can be generated and published.


The architecture of the webMethods integration with SEMA BSCS is shown below:

SEMA BSCS Integration Architecture

MAINFRAME IDMS

IDMS is a network database produced and sold by Computer Associates (originally marketed by Cullinane/Cullinet).

The webMethods platform enables integration to IDMS through a large number of open communication adapters. Examples are products from SINFONIA (OCA-MQSeries, OCA-EXCI, OCA-TCP/IP etc.).

Using these interfacing techniques, customers have the following integration options:

MQSeries interface. The webMethods MQSeries Adapter allows seamless integration to MQSeries queues and interfaces. (e.g. IDMS integration with use of OCA-MQSeries from SINFONIA).

CICS interface. webMethods’ mainframe access capabilities enable direct integration to CICS programs to integrate with IDMS. (e.g. IDMS integration with use of OCA-EXCI from SINFONIA).

TCP/IP interface. A custom IDMS adapter can be used to integrate with SINFONIA OCA-TCP/IP to retrieve information sent through TCP/IP from IDMS applications for real-time integration.


For real-time integration, a custom IDMS solution can be constructed to enable IDMS applications to fully participate in webMethods integration processes. IDMS applications can act as webMethods clients, publishing unsolicited messages that initiate process flows. IDMS applications can serve as request/reply servers for query and update operations. In this type of deployment, the IDMS system can participate in fully transactional integrations.

The webMethods IDMS solution consists of a webMethods adapter installed on a Unix or Windows server, and an IDMS Interface Facility consisting of IDMS/DC programs developed in COBOL. The adapter uses TCP/IP to communicate with the IDMS Interface Facility (IDMS sockets support is required). The adapter GUI allows customers to map webMethods document fields to and from data blocks defined by COBOL copybooks. The adapter parses COBOL copybooks to create its definition of the data block formats.)

webMethods IDMS support falls into two categories: interacting directly with the IDMS applications, and interacting directly with the IDMS database.


These options are shown in the figure below:

IDMS Integration Architecture

The recommended integration approach for the IDMS billing platform is to use a webMethods adapter to work with the IDMS Interface Facility. The reason is the higher level of data integrity versus interfacing directly to backend database tables. With this approach, the site would be free to upgrade and alter the IDMS application as it requires, modifying database tables as normally happens in these upgrades, all without the need to restructure the integration deployment.


CONCLUSION

Issues such as poor business flexibility and the consequent need to either purchase yet another billing platform for a new product launch, or the prohibitive costs associated with any attempt to use or update existing billing platform data in new ways has historically plagued the telecommunications sector.

Applying integration software to connect billing platforms with the other applications within a service provider’s I.T. infrastructure is an effective way to solve many of the problems associated with these traditionally isolated platforms.

webMethods is at the forefront in providing the solution.

Based on integration software license revenues ending June 2002, webMethods is the largest independent integration software vendor.

Industry analysts consistently rank webMethods as a market leader in areas such as technology, services, and execution

The name brands in enterprise software – SAP, Siebel, i2 and others – have staked their reputations and business success on webMethods in choosing to embed webMethods technology into their own offerings

webMethods pioneered the use of XML and Internet standards for integration, message brokering and adapters for scalable application integration, and a single unified platform to meet the business needs of the enterprise.

webMethods continues to innovate to deliver greater customer value. As an example, the Open Management Interface, drafted in partnership with HP, allows the webMethods platform to be managed using third-party systems management consoles such as HP OpenView, CA Unicenter, and BMC Patrol.

webMethods designed the integration platform on a service-oriented architecture from the beginning, making it the best solution for companies who want to migrate strategically to Web services-based integration.

Finally, webMethods’ focus on customer success is helping – on average – more than one company, somewhere around the world, to go into production with an integration project, every business day, and realize cost savings, increase productivity, and create competitive advantage.


ABOUT WEBMETHODS INC.

As the leading independent provider of integration software, webMethods, Inc. (Nasdaq: WEBM - news) delivers the industry’s most comprehensive platform for enterprise-wide integration, including complete support for Enterprise Web Services. The webMethods integration platform allows customers to achieve quantifiable R.O.I. by linking business processes, enterprise and legacy applications, databases, Web services and workflows both within and across enterprises. Through this seamless flow of information, companies can reduce costs, create new revenue opportunities, strengthen relationships with customers, substantially increase supply chain efficiencies and streamline internal business processes.

Founded in 1996, webMethods is headquartered in Fairfax, Va., with offices throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia Pacific. webMethods has more than 800 customers worldwide including Global 2000 leaders such as Bank of America, Citibank, Dell, Eastman Chemical, The Ford Motor Company, Grainger, and Motorola. webMethods’ strategic partners include Accenture, AMS, BMC Software, BroadVision, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Deloitte Consulting, EDS, Hewlett-Packard, i2 Technologies, J.D. Edwards, KPMG Consulting, SAP AG and Siebel Systems. More information about the company can be found at http://www.webMethods.com.


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integration approaches to billing systems

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