Brixlogic Joins IBM PartnerWorld Industry Networks to Deliver Insurance-Focused Integration Solutions; Smarter, Industry-Specific SOA Enablement Tools to Aid Industry Market

[November 08, 2004]

Brixlogic Joins IBM PartnerWorld Industry Networks to Deliver Insurance-Focused Integration Solutions; Smarter, Industry-Specific SOA Enablement Tools to Aid Industry Market

SAN MATEO, Calif. --(Business Wire)-- Nov. 8, 2004 -- Brixlogic, a provider of next-generation development tools and services for Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) enablement, today announced participation in the IBM PartnerWorld Insurance Industry Networks program, which is designed to provide Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) with comprehensive go-to-market sales support and technical resources that are specifically tailored for targeted industries. By joining this program, Brixlogic aims to address the integration challenges of insurance companies.

While SOA has been touted as the solution to all integration challenges, it does not avoid problematic "spaghetti" integration that emerges. Industry XML standards such as ACORD are a compelling alternative to developing web service contracts from scratch. However, because of complex constraints that can be expressed in web service contracts, current development tools that generate code from computer-readable contracts, do not fully enforce contract compliance nor do they provide an effective way to transparently upgrade to new contract versions. These limitations ultimately lead to high costs in SOA enablement and evolution.

To address this challenge, Brixlogic has designed a development approach and supporting tool that accelerates the delivery and evolution of complex, highly-customized services. The approach prevents contract compliance errors by deriving the entire implementation of the service from the service contract -- in this case, an ACORD XML schema. Brixlogic also verifies that an existing service implementation does or does not comply, highlighting where the implementation infringes the service contract. This identification enables service designers to upgrade the parts of the service contract that are not backward compatible.

"If one is implementing an ACORD XML-based service contract in Java or C++, they are essentially programming with no safety net," stated Xavier Wartelle, Brixlogic's President and CEO. "Brixlogic's tool is graphical, easy-to-use, and leverages service contracts to guide development, prevent errors, and perform change impact analysis when the service contract changes. Overall, this means a dramatic jump in development productivity and a considerable reduction of maintenance tasks," added Wartelle.

Brixlogic has already customized its solutions to leverage IBM's WebSphere(a) suite of middleware and IBM DB2 Universal(a) software. In addition, IBM's open source database management system, Cloudscape(a), is embedded in evaluation versions of the Brixlogic Studio. Brixlogic is aiming for closer integration with IBM's business-to-business integration products, WebSphere Business Integration(a) (WBI) and WBI Connect(a), as well as IBM's development tools built on Eclipse technology.

As part of the PartnerWorld Industry Networks, ISVs can team with IBM and bring joint solutions out to market faster and industry-by-industry, reflecting how customers are buying technology today. ISVs who achieve the optimized level have successfully enabled and validated their industry applications on IBM infrastructure software and hardware. IBM has Networks covering eight industries, with plans to introduce more throughout the year.

ISVs can sign up for PartnerWorld Industry Networks at www.ibm.com/isv.

About Brixlogic

Brixlogic's XML schema-driven development tools provide a unique approach to the design, implementation, testing, maintenance and upgrade of SOA components. In doing so, enterprises can transparently establish the architectural discipline necessary to jumpstart and scale their service-oriented initiatives incrementally, minimizing development and maintenance costs. The company's Development Studio provides customers with a graphical environment that empowers business analysts and data architects to rapidly deploy evolvable and reliable services.

(a) Denotes a trademark or registered trademark of the International Business Machines Corporation.

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