of these repositories. Today's information systems also need to present relevant data in a cohesive view within traditional spreadsheet applications, Web browsers, or on-line analytical processing (OLAP) programs.
Traditionally, this meshing of data represented the most programming-intensive aspects of an integration project. Custom code was often needed to lin
k new decision support systems and other end-user report programs to access modules for mainframes and RDBMSes. And as every reseller and integrator knows, the inverse relationship between custom code and profit margins can leave you wondering how to justify complex integration jobs.
To stay competitive, some resellers have developed unique products to deliver custom and fast-changing info-analysis applications without devoting an uneconomical amount of programming resources to the task. These resellers are following major trends in the financial community: a total embracing of object technology (using Smalltalk and C++) and pioneering efforts in Java development that may be years ahead of other market sectors. Object-oriented programs can give financial organizations the ability to change quickly. As one integrator says, on Wall Street "you're competitive or you die." Here are some survival techniques you can use.
Middleware for the Web
In the last year, Transaction Information Systems
(TIS) has seen data integration become one of the main technical challenges for the discount brokerages, banking firms, and insurance companies that make up most of its clientele. What's been the catalyst? Deregulation has blurred the lines that separate the services each of these formerly distinct types of businesses can offer. Now, you may go to your bank for bond trading and mutual funds as well as for your savings account.
The result is that analysts within these organizations need to pull data that's been structured in disparate ways into a single view that can help them make decisions. In the last year, the vehicle to make this integration happen most effectively has been the Web, according to Peter Melomo, a TIS vice president and director of the company's software development lab.
"As an integrator, we typically go into a new project by doing an architectural study, and then we build the appropriate applications," Melomo explains. "We found that we were rebuilding the same set of archite
ctures each time."
To shrink development time and increase margins, the company sought an architecture that could talk to multiple data stores and would be transferable from project to project. "We wanted to decouple the whole data access and management process from the application layer," Melomo recalls.
TIS first began to look at the Web as a sprawling client/server application. But then it decided that the key missing element was technology that could act as a "data resolver," middleware that would let analysis and reporting applications receive data streams from existing internal repositories, such as RDBMSes and order processing systems, or from external sources of data, such as stock-quotation and news services. Another goal was to develop standard interfaces for transaction monitors, such as Tuxedo, CICS, and Encina. What's more, TIS wanted the middleware to integrate data in real time, not after the data had been structured and stored away in a data warehouse application.
The middlew
are TIS developed, now known as HumanActive Integrator, can communicate with a variety of output devices, from workstations running browsers to electronic kiosks. These devices all talk to the same back-end applications, including corporate databases and market data feeds.
TIS, according to Melomo, can get new applications and back ends communicating in about two weeks if companies are using Sybase or Oracle DBMSes, which he adds are prevalent in the financial community. Currently, the TIS middleware runs on Solaris, DEC Unix, HP-UX, and AIX. (Under development for release in the third quarter is a Windows NT port.) It supports Netscape Server, Microsoft Internet Information Server, Lotus Domino, and Oracle WebServer. The software lets end users assemble content on the fly using JavaScript or HTML. For end users, JavaScript handles formatting on clients rather than on servers.
How does this middleware address real-world problems? One financial customer, National Discount Brokers, uses the software
to create workstations where employees can enter orders, receive stock quotes and market information, view accounts, and run financial analysis tools from a single Web page.
Metadata to the Rescue
Telos, a systems integrator, also found development gold by building middleware. It developed, and recently established a commercial operation to sell, Virtual DB, a product designed to connect you with data stored anywhere within your organization or across the Internet, without regard to location or data structure. To the end user, the information looks as if it exists in a single database. A financial analyst, for example, can select an icon to call up pricing information that's stored on an Oracle database, find manufacturing cost data within a Sybase program, pull in inventory amounts from DB2, and see all the amounts in a single view.
Virtual DB provides native connectivity to databases via TCP/IP or Systems Network Architecture (SNA) networks. Sitting between analyst workstations and d
ata stores, typically in its own Unix server, Virtual DB consolidates a number of individual components found in most large data-analysis systems, including such elements as data extraction, cleansing, and transformation engines.
The Virtual DB middleware consists of three components: the API Server, the Data Server, and the Object Server. The API Server establishes the main link to front-end applications by supporting APIs for object-oriented and procedural programming languages, including Java, C, C++, Smalltalk, and ODBC. These APIs let companies plug in PowerBuilder, Visual Basic, or Delphi front ends. The API Server takes client requests, translates them into SQL statements, and moves them on to the second main component, the Object Server.
The Object Server uses an object-oriented database to massage data and apply business rules. An essential tool is a metadata repository that stores information about the location, access format, access methods, and conversion methods for company-wide data.
The metadata store streamlines the process of mapping new applications to existing data stores, which translates into much shorter development cycles, according to Jim Dunham, a Telos systems analyst. In addition, the Object Server can do the work of some stand-alone data preparation tools, such as data cleansers. The Object Server also provides data caching and a centralized storehouse for business rules.
Database Bridge
Next, the Object Server sends the SQL statements to the Data Server -- the piece that provides the bridge to all the various databases within a corporation, including relational, hierarchical, flat-file, text-file, and mainframe databases. This server talks in the native language to any machine (server or mainframe) that holds company data. The Data Server supports cross-table and cross-platform data joins.
After the Data Server culls the needed data from the corporate databases, it sends the SQL statements back to the Object Server. The Object Server turns the data
into software objects that incorporate the company's business rules and data policies as object methods. These objects reside within Virtual DB's object-oriented database where front-end tools can access the objects through the API Server.
The software is designed to be agnostic about which database management system or front-end tool it connects to. "The core needs of financial companies are to access, manipulate, and deliver data," says
Ken Knuevan
, Telos's director of financial services and banking. With the right middleware, integrators can eliminate "the heartache" of cobbling together different data-management products, he says.
Being object-oriented is necessary for middleware products that go to financial institutions because of the industry's affection for quickly customizable Smalltalk, C++, and now Java programs, Dunham says. "Most big financial houses are so far ahead on the object-technology curve, it's scary," he says. "That's because object programming is the o
nly game that allows developers to simulate their world and react quickly to changes. And Java developers want to interact with an object model, not some scheme that was created for working with a mainframe."
Many developers of financial applications have a sure-fire way of dealing with the performance overhead that object-oriented programs can levy. "They throw as much hardware as necessary at the programs, as long as they're built on an object model," Dunham says.
Selling Services
Both TIS and Telos are turning the middleware they developed for their systems integration operations into commercial products for sale to the channel or to in-house corporate programmers. TIS sells customer site licenses for HumanActive Integrator and declines to quote representative costs. Likewise, Telos quotes deployment and development licenses for Virtual DB on a project-by-project basis.
Although both programs help funnel multiple types of data into a central view for end users, one main d
ifference is in the final display. TIS focuses on browser front ends; the Telos product supports browsers as well as traditional business applications and OLAP tools. In either case, brokers and bankers on Wall Street and beyond are getting better data-analysis tools to turn volatility into a business opportunity.
Where to Find
Transaction Information Systems
New York, NY
Phone: 212-962-1550
Internet:
http://www.tisny.com
Resellers Learn Wall Street Smarts
