In large enterprise informatics the emphasis is put on fulfilling business needs to the greatest possible extent and in addition to this – due to the development in technologies and tools – customized support is provided to users.

Large enterprises make significant efforts to create new type of IT infrastructures. They identify and make their existing applications manageable and re-usable from an IT perspective. Within these service-oriented architectures (SOA) tools to business areas are offered, with the deployment of which their processes can be organized and re-designed. – says Gabor Darmai, technology director of Alerant Information Technologies, Inc.

Information from several sources

Business process management, namely the BPM tools provide the ability to use IT applications – for instance the CRM-or invoicing system – as services to support the implementation of tasks. Therefore the purpose of BPM tools is to connect the human and IT side, facilitating for the user to have access at the given point to the necessary application.

However, the solution of a task is usually more complex, thus it requires more sophisticated IT support. In order to fulfill the task, background information from several sources and collaboration with additional stakeholders is required. It is essential to ensure that the user acquires not only the corporate data in a timely and integrated manner, but also the related external information. The technology solutions collectively called Web 2.0 may deliver the answer to these challenges. How great the demand for these tools, is revealed by the Yankee Group’s most recent study. According to the study 86 percent of corporate employees use at least one consumer-driven tool that isn’t managed by the IT department. An average user normally uses four such solutions.

A comprehensive tool kit

Vendors – including BEA Systems as well – therefore make major efforts to ensure that integrated solutions are delivered to users by connecting Web 2.0 and BPM tools. Tools are connected by AquaLogic User Interaction portal solution that has already manifested significant collaboration features. This is the portal platform where processes and applications identified by the BPM Suite are displayed and users are able to integrate at the appropriate points the Web 2.0 applications used by them.

BEA has developed a comprehensive tool kit for creating, utilizing and managing Web 2.0 solutions. IT professionals can work in a framework system, namely AquaLogic Ensemble that assists in handling the mashup applications from different sources. New applications can be created on Ensemble platform from external and internal applications, tools and programmable functions, then they can be uniformly published to the users and managed regardless of the development platform, language or operation environment. 

Knowledge management

Then from the Web applications developed and managed by the IT department, users can freely assemble any collection of applications they need. Support for this is provided by AquaLogic Pages, with which Web pages can be created and added to Web 2.0 type applications simply by using the drag-and-drop technique.

Interactive solutions are often required to capture the necessary information. Users can share their personal experiences in blogs, while wiki-type applications make professional knowledge built in the given area available in a structured form as well as any arising issue can be discussed with the colleagues in chat rooms.

A significant portion of the deployed applications typically provide assistance in knowledge management, namely in facilitating access to available knowledge. The number of this type of applications may be great in large enterprises, therefore in order to ensure efficiency, BEA offers an all-round management tool. By deploying AquaLogic Pathways, intelligent search-driven solutions can be created that combine search, tagging, bookmarking and activity analytics functions. It lets users to comment and qualify the content by tagging; users can also make a collection of documents important for them by bookmarking.