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MetaApp Framework Looks to Resolve Disruptive Events
iSpheres’ development platform utilizes XML/Java APIs for mapping
By Douglas Finlay
April 15, 2001 — Developers eager to hit the streets running with Web services without waiting for the final SOAP, UDDI and WSDL standards will find an avenue in iSpheres Corp.’s MetaApp Framework, an XML/Java-based application framework that maps components and then enables the components-as-services to discover other services within business transaction events among trading partners that can resolve supply-chain dilemmas.
“While Web standards are due within four to five years, there are many services available we can componentize today that can use enterprise event management across many trading partners, even though they may not speak the same languages,” said Mani Chandy iSpheres’ (www.ispheres.com) chief scientist. He said the challenge for developers is to “take what data is available and map it to a normal customer form without committing to one particular standard,” and then specify another form and map it for particular business processes or transactions.
“Developers can now rapidly build reusable components to use as Web services using the framework, irrespective of the data application interchange model that vendors provide,” said Santosh Alexander, iSpheres’ CEO. He said the framework enables new applications to dynamically bind to other applications, and then the components can be wired into event/response flows and maintained in an ongoing fashion.
The expressed goal is to get a “dynamic, instantaneous reaction to a business disruption,” enabling the components to then search other databases to retrieve pertinent information that will resolve the dispute, Chandy said. What will be of interest to developers is a composite event, he continued, using data from different industries and aggregating it. Then, if a manufacturer’s supplier runs out of a specific part, Web services components could be automatically triggered to search other data sources to discover another supplier of the part, he said.
Chandy cited two ways in which components gather information from outside data sources. One way is through nonintrusive access in which the component pulls information from a Web page, for example, to find the “event of interest,” or metadata telling precisely what the document is about. Another way is to work with whatever tools are available to access the source.
Alexander said the underlying technology involves defining the components and component interfaces; binding them together (such as package trading or inventory levels) once defined; and then once built and bound into underlying services, wiring them together into event/response process flows.
Chandy said once Web standards such as UDDI and WSDL become available, they would be incorporated into the MetaApp Framework.
MetaApp Framework pricing starts at $200,000 per license, and includes tools to define components, bind them and link them together. Additional components such as messaging middleware, data transformation programs, rules engines and work-flow engines are available at extra cost.
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