E-Net Delivers Information Integration
With the release of its e-Net business-to-business information integration and e-commerce managed network service, CommerceQuest delivers a supporting technology to the e-business market that uses IBM's MQSeries to make inroads to all the platforms that messaging infrastructure supports, including the AS/400.
E-Net is a managed network service offering created to enable business-to-business information integration, according to Paul Roth, CTO of CommerceQuest, a Tampa, Fla.-based provider of enterprise application integration solutions previously known as MessageQuest. "What we're doing with e-Net is moving aggressively into business-to-business e-commerce over the Internet, or any network of choice, with a little bit of a different spin, providing reliable, secure messaging, end-to-end solutions and application integration," he says. "It's a virtual, secure messaging backbone that drives information back and forth between companies."
Since MessageQuest sits on top of MQSeries, it works with IBM platforms that use MQSeries. The timing of CommerceQuest's announcement coincides nicely with IBM's recent MQSeries enhancements. In June, Big Blue announced MQSeries 5.1 for the AS/400 would include the following key enhancements: multiple queue managers, large message support, larger queues, dynamic workload distribution, improved Java classes and threaded programming support
While most e-commerce that takes place over the Internet today still involves human interaction--via HTTP, FTP or SMTP in the form of e-mail--CommerceQuest positions e-Net to provide secure, reliable, end-to-end application integration between enterprises or within a single enterprise over the Internet or the customer's network of choice, according to Roth.
CommerceQuest's background working with MQSeries environments is expected to facilitate the company's efforts to provide an outsourced managed network service, Roth says. In providing such a service, "trading partners will be able to connect to CommerceQuest, enabling the exchange of transactions, files and databases between one another for whatever sorts of e-commerce initiatives they might have," he adds. "This could mean augmenting what companies are capable of today using value added networks [VANs], or especially where the applications the customers want to implement between one another are of a collaborative nature. Anything where real-time reply/request responses pairs are required for application-to-application integration."
E-Net has been generally available since June 30. The IT market can look for a subsequent release of the offering on September 14, adding data enhancements within the e-Net service.
In other CommerceQuest news, the company announced general availability of MQSeries Client for 4690, extending MQSeries to the IBM 4690 Point of Sale (POS) controller. CommerceQuest also announced the extension of its e-Adapter information integration solution and Enable/MQ--an application development tool designed to simplify the creation of MQSeries-based applications--to the 4690 platform.
"Our collaboration with IBM to develop MQSeries Client for 4690 addresses three items," says Colin Osborne, CEO of CommerceQuest. "First, it helps to maintain IBM's position as the market leader in messaging middleware. Second, it solidifies our position as a leading provider of information integration solutions to the retail community. Finally, and most importantly, it satisfies an almost universal need of retailers to integrate their entire value chain as a means of sustaining competitive advantage."