Grand Central launches next service platform version

A new breed of Internet company is emerging to challenge the traditional private VANs (value added networks) that connect trading partners.

Grand Central Communications, a business services network launched by Halsey Minor, a high-profile entrepreneur and founder of Cnet three years ago, will release this week Version 4 of its Services Directory platform.

Version 4.0 now supports Business Process Execution Language 1.1 and has a revamped, Web-based graphical interface to build message flows for Web services, said John Linney, vice president of product and services at Grand Central.

The new drag-and-drop UI will give non-technical staff the ability to create business processes.

“Our object is to put as many programmers out of business as possible,” said Linney, with a small smile flicking across his face.

By adding support for BPEL 1.1, also known as BPEL4e to the Business Network, Grand Central is also extending support to non-Web service protocols such as EDI and FTP in addition to SOAP messages.

A future version will allow users to write BPEL scripts into the graphical mapping, said Linney.

One industry analyst called the simplified provisioning process designed by Grand Central an important step in creating distributed business processes among trading partners.

“Minor recognizes that if he can allow the end points to self-provision themselves, it shifts costs out to the end points and companies can make changes when they wan to make the change,” said Benoit Lheureux, research director in the infrastructure and architecture group at Gartner.

However, Lheureux also said Grand Central is building the infrastructure but has not yet fully automated the process. There is an assumption that each company has some kind of protocol or Web service wrapper for their backend system that can be deployed to trading partners to give them access to that backend, according to Lheureux.

Grand Central is, in fact, not the only company using the Internet to compete with services that are the traditional stomping grounds for VANs.

“Grand Centeral and HubSpan operate in the same world in terms of a shared utility-based infrastructure on the Internet that companies can use to leverage to connect to all their trading partners,” said Andrew Dent, HubSpan CTO.

Dent believes the traditional business of VANs has eroded as technology shifts to the Internet.

“VANs provided a proprietary transport and communications protocols. Now I plug into the Internet and talk to anyone,” Dent said.

However, VANs, such as Sterling Commerce, do not intend to be counted out. Traditional VANs can now send data securely, using AS2, over the Internet as well, according to a spokeswoman at Sterling.

“If they think that [the Internet] is a differentiator they better think of a new one,” said Sharon Hodges, a spokeswoman at Sterling.

Nevertheless, Grand Central is also ramping up its public directory or network which now has more than 31,000 end points.

“An end point is a public service into a private process,” said Minor.

Unlike the UDDI directory, the Grand Central Business Services Network deploys, monitors, reports, and secures the messaging process using a message bus built on MQ Series, added Linney.

Each of those 31,000 end points represents either a company or a business process offered up as a service. This may indeed be a real differentiator between themselves and every other integration service.