AcuMaestro’s BASE Application for
Web Services

Web Services is an architecture based solution strategy that has become enabled by advances in network, distributed computing and distributed database technologies. The emerging generation of web services use a growing population of internet standards[1], including XML and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), that give web services the ability to support the integration and interoperability of software applications both inside and outside organizational boundaries.  There is a growing number of impressive case studies where implementations of Web Services solutions have provided dramatic results in cost reduction, time to market, improvement of customer services and managing inter-company affiliations. Some additional benefits of Web Services implementations:

• Web Services allow companies to break down large applications into small independent logical units and build wrappers around them. Once the framework of developing and using Web Services is ready, it is relatively easy to automate new business processes spanning multiple applications.

• Since Web Services are built on existing and ubiquitous protocols, the need for companies to invest in supporting new network protocols is significantly reduced or eliminated.

• Using the Web services model, existing legacy information can be wrapped into services and published so distributed applications can be developed.

• Web Services are much simpler to design, develop, maintain, and use compared to a typical proprietary solution.

• The open nature presents new marketing opportunities for enterprises that have attractive applications. 

Integration with existing complex legacy environments can be simplified to the basic data level. In cases where the legacy data is obscured behind a proprietary database or data interface, a data interface must be provided. A Web Services data interface can be grouped into the following two common methods:

1. Function Encapsulation - A typical legacy system is composed of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of independent programs that work together in a hard-wired cluster of business process flows. One approach is to refine the legacy system into Web services; each of the identified business areas can serve as a foundation for Web services. 

2. Creating Services APIs – The other approach to large-scale system de-coupling is to break up application-to-application connectivity and replace it with a SOAP-based or direct TCP/IP application program interfaces (APIs). This is considered an infrastructure level utility and can allow other providers to build their legacy-enabled Web services by including these APIs.  

AcuMaestro BASE business assurance solution manages Service Quality Objectives that can be based on Business Behavior Indicators (BBIs) from all aspects of your enterprise, in real time and historically. The result establishes a new level of information management and analysis that allows more efficient operations and drives significant improvement in service and overall customer experience. The AcuMaestro solution leverages Web technologies to deliver strategic and measurable value. The BASE Web Service Interface allows the system clients to connect, extend and optimize enterprise assets to foster success in an increasingly real time world.