J D Edwards has teamed up with Webmethods and Hewlett-Packard to
bring business process monitoring to the existing business process
management capability in its Extended Process Integration (XPI)
framework, writes Antony Adshead.
While business process management is a growing trend, the ability
to monitor those processes for faults which may affect the
operation of processes is a relatively new field. JD Edwards is
attempting to do this by bringing HP's system management
capabilities on board.
Currently, Webmethods integration software is embedded into JD
Edwards 5 as the XPI framework. It gives an integration backbone to
the software, allowing business processes to be created by the
integration of applications through a centralised model.
With XPI if a customer submits an order to, for example, a customer
relationship management system, messages can be sent to other
relevant modules in the supply chain and production systems and
information such as delivery date be returned immediately. By
incorporating HP's infrastructure management capabilities, JD
Edwards can allow its users to gain an insight into how hardware or
software outages or faulty integration of processes affects the
overall flow of information.
If, for example, a process fails to work, perhaps because the
processing of a purchase order is delayed or cancelled, the user
will be able to discover if the fault lies in the software or the
hardware, or will be able to simulate the effects on its processes
if part of its IT infrastructure breaks down.
Simon Bragg, an analyst with ARC Consulting, said the move by JD
Edwards signalled a change from its IBM-centric past, adding that
built-in monitoring of business processes was a welcome
development. "If you have a BPM [background processing management]
layer over multiple applications you need a way of monitoring
process performance to find out whether any of them are screwing
up."