KnowNow shows off integration agility

In the late ’90s, CIOs bought lots of ERP and CRM systems and built out Web applications for everything from managing 401K updates to online retailing. Now, IT shops are trying to meet the demands of integrating those apps.

Integration is an expensive task and traditional approaches generally require large, upfront planning exercises and monolithic projects. KnowNow 3 Enterprise Edition takes a different approach to the integration problem: a loosely coupled, HTTP-based integration platform that’s lightweight and agile.

KnowNow is built around a concept called “event integration layers,” which creates layers of

data that correspond to individual integration projects and are easy to tack up and tear down as needed. This model allows integration projects to be done iteratively, with each successive layer building on the last.

KnowNow 3 Enterprise Edition is a solid platform that is conceptually simple, thanks to the Web-server feel and HTTP underpinnings, yet it offers real help with tough integration problems. That particular combination makes KnowNow an enterprise integration contender.

Data Delivery Dynamo

KnowNow 3 Enterprise Edition has two major components: LiveServer, an HTTP-based event engine, and LiveConnectors, adaptors that connect various applications in real time to LiveServer. Two examples of connectors are LiveSheet, a plug-in for Excel that delivers data to and from the spreadsheet to LiveServer, and LiveBrowser, a real-time data-delivery mechanism for Internet Explorer and Netscape that does not rely on Java applets, ActiveX, or other plug-ins. These connectors are optional — anything that can speak HTTP can talk to LiveServer. 

LiveServer is a breeze to install: The wizard walks you through all important decisions to get you running. I installed LiveServer on a Windows 2000 platform, but Windows XP, Linux, and Solaris are also supported. The connectors are just as easy to install to LiveServer and their appropriate applications.

After LiveServer and the connectors are up, you use the system administrator console to configure the system. As configured on install, the system works well for testing and pilot projects, but like most enterprise applications, production use requires configuring the server for high reliability, greater security, and so on.

There is a nice side benefit to doing the configuration, too: The console is built on KnowNow’s connector technology, so you get a feel for KnowNow works just by watching the display update live in the browser.

The console provides a rich set of tools for configuration, user management, event queue management, and log monitoring. Reporting is weak in the console, with few historical, trending, or statistical views, but that’s probably less important in a system like LiveServer than the server’s ability to report required information to the organization’s operational management system, which LiveServer does support.

I began my tests by connecting several spreadsheets so that cells on one sheet are automatically published into any subscribing sheets. This is an example of a simple project that can grow incrementally to eventually encompass the integration of back-end systems and front-end displays.

With KnowNow’s approach, the spreadsheets are all connected through intelligent, content-based routing of event messages in LiveServer. Changes to the cells in one sheet are pushed out to the server, which notifies all the other spreadsheets dynamically. And, because LiveServer is built on HTTP, as long as your application can perform HTTP GET and POST operations, it can send messages on LiveServer.

I like the simplicity that comes from building the engine on top of HTTP. As I worked my way through some of the more advanced concepts in the KnowNow developer’s manual, I found myself quickly understanding what was happening behind the scenes because of my experience with HTTP. This architectural and operational transparency means that HTTP-savvy developers and administrators alike will easily pick up the concepts and be able to use LiveServer without having to do complex mental gyrations. 

KnowNow supports SSL for securely transferring information between the server and its clients. Authentication is done using HTTP Authentication on the front end with authentication and authorization information being pulled in via LDAP or from LiveServer’s built-in user database.

The LiveServer API provides hooks to create your own custom access control modules, but I’d like to see built-in support for some of the more common authentication engines, such as Netegrity SiteMinder, and federation standards such as SAML.

Sticker Shock

Because KnowNow is built on HTTP and uses standard GET and POST methods, everything you know about scaling the Web is applicable to the KnowNow platform as well: Load balancers and proxies work like they’re supposed to, because KnowNow routes messages with a process similar to that used to route Web traffic (unlike SOAP, for example).

The use of standard HTTP-based messaging is an important part of KnowNow’s simple integration philosophy. LiveServer also supports clustering for fail-over, allowing two or more LiveServer engines to be used together in response to message transport problems.

Unfortunately, it’s the price of enterprise applications that is starting to cause me real heartburn. KnowNow quotes typical deployments in the $100,000 to $500,000 range. I’ve talked to lots of small companies that might buy into KnowNow’s vision of using loosely coupled event servers for integration; none of them could afford to lay out that much cash.

That’s a shame, because it means KnowNow’s high cost will limit its market to big players and reduce the impact of a good product. Many other enterprise applications vendors do the same thing, but the agility of this platform makes it all the more galling — you’ll see so many small but valuable applications for the technology as soon as you start using it. If the price gets in the way, many admins won’t get a chance to see KnowNow’s full power.

Even so, I believe KnowNow 3 Enterprise Edition will be a breath of fresh air to IT shops stuck in large, monolithic integration projects. The simplicity and ease with which small integrations can be started and subsequently grown to encompass more and more of the back office should put KnowNow on every CIO’s list of products to evaluate.