AS WEB SERVICES continue to evolve, it becomes quickly apparent that Web services technology such as XML and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) will make it easier not only to integrate applications but also to facilitate the integration of business processes. One startup company that plans to facilitate that process is iBusinessHub, which has created an XML-driven business process management engine called iBoss. In an interview with InfoWorld Editor in Chief Michael Vizard and Test Center Director Steve Gillmor, company CEO David Allinson explains how the company’s forthcoming iBoss offering allows customers to orchestrate business processes without requiring additional expensive middleware. InfoWorld: What is iBusinessHub’s core mission? Allinson: iBusinessHub’s been in business since July of 1999 and we’ve raised about $5 million. What iBusinessHub has is an XML-driven business process management engine, and the purpose of the engine is really to create an easier way to manage workflows among various siloed systems. You could solve a lot of problems if computing islands would open up their kimono and expose their business logic as a Web service and allow that logic to participate with other application logic. iBoss allows you to choreograph the interactions of technically diverse and geographically remote services. InfoWorld: How does iBoss work? Allinson: Let’s say you’re trying to do a simple five-step workflow that needs to interact between SAP and PeopleSoft. The way our implementation partners would make that five-step workflow come to life is [by] using our drag-and-drop tool to create that workflow. What’s happening when you create the workflow is that you’re defining what the tasks are and what the business logic for that task is and the decision tree surrounding what to do if certain conditions exist. What’s happening behind that is XML documents are being created and those XML documents are then going to call upon a business service when there is a request made to start that task. That business service is going to be an EJB [Enterprise JavaBeans] sitting on an app server somewhere. So you don’t have to know XML to model business processes. We have a version of XML that we created, called Rules Embedded XML, which allows the XML document itself to contain the business rules and logic. iBoss can start to self-determine workflows without having to have someone code numerous exceptions based on data to those workflows. Our system has the ability — through a technology that we have called the Relevance Engine, which is within iBoss — to determine on its own what the most appropriate workflows would be based on the rules presented in the XML documents. InfoWorld: What would be the alternative approach to trying to make that integration happen? Allinson: In buying our product, iBoss, you don’t need to also make a big investment in middleware. We’ve got a JMS [Java Messaging Service] messaging layer that’s a bus within our system. InfoWorld: What role will Web services play in business process integration? Allinson: As we move toward Web services, you’re going to need tools to build those applications. We [provide] a platform that business analysts and developers would use to build new applications that need to discover or identify Web services as they relate to that application. InfoWorld: So at the end of the day, what’s the key benefit of iBoss? Allinson: An organization benefits the more that people are focused on working with the business model and changing things at the speed that the business changes with [its] partners, rather than focusing on the coding level. I don’t think there’s a lot of perceived value at the coding level. Software Development