NeuVis Making Moves on Web Services Front

• By Matt Migliore
• 10/30/2001

The NeuVis Developer Center provides product downloads, product documentation, product demonstrations, archived webinars, white papers, technical support, FAQs, and access to a RAD process companion – based on Rational Software’s unified process methodology – for the NeuArchitect platform.

Randy Newell, vice president of product marketing at NeuVis, says the developer site shows an increased focus on Web services by the company, which he believes is a necessity as more organizations are looking to leverage legacy systems and emerging technologies at the same time.

One of the areas on NeuVis’ developer site that features Web services information is the “Technology Tracks” section, which provides information on XML, J2EE, DNA/COM/.NET, and Web services standards SOAP, UDDI, and WSDL. Technology Tracks is designed to detail how emerging technologies relate to NeuVis' products, including the just-released 3.5 version of Neuarchitect.

Neuarchitect 3.5 is the first major move by NeuVis on the Web services front since it secured $10 million in capital in July of this year to fund its expansion into the space. Attracted by analyst reports making bold predictions – 80 percent of Internet traffic will use XML by 2003; the market for XML Internet software will grow to $11.3 billion by 2003 (Source: Gartner Group) – NeuVis is banking on the success of Web services.

However, while NeuVis is putting some money on the Web services concept, it isn’t yet ready to bet the house on it. “I wouldn’t say that any of [our customers] are looking to build their e-business infrastructures on Web services at this point,” says Arun Gupta, chairman and CTO for NeuVis. “Security and reliability issues need to be figured out before we reach that level.”

But, he says there are a number of enterprise-sized customers NeuVis is currently working with to layout some elements of a Web services architecture for use inside the firewall.

Last week NeuVis announced it had licensed its Neuarchitect platform to software developer Silverline Technologies. Silverline plans to use the offering to help a solution it developed for the hospitality segment of the airline industry more easily interface with other applications and systems.

Brent Christensen, product architect for Silverline, says the company is currently beta testing with Neuarchitect and plans to launch its first live device on the platform in a couple of weeks. He says Silverline initially plans to use Java Server Pages to create the interfaces it needs, but envisions the Web services capabilities of Neuarchitect will come into play real soon.

“Certainly the use of standards is important,” says Christensen. “And what we use is driven by our clients. And even if we don’t use Web services immediately, we may use them a month from now.”

At this point, NeuVis commitment to Web services doesn’t go much further than XML, SOAP, UDDI and WSDL, and automated connectors for a number of J2EE platforms. “Basically what we’ve done with 3.5 is extend the NeuVis architecture to incorporate support for a number of new platforms, including Web services,” says Newell.

A system based on visual modelling and automated construction, Neuarchitect 3.5 has been optimized to work with iWay Software’s Enterprise Integration Suite, which Gupta says gives developers access to 120 legacy data sources on 35 different platforms. Neuarchitect is also optimized for use with most leading application servers, including IBM WebSphere 4.0, BEA WebLogic 6.0 and 6.1, and Oracle 9i Application Server, as well as leading databases like IBM DB2 7.2, IBM DB2 6.1 for IBM eServer zSeries, IBM DB2 V4R5 and V5R1 for iSeries, Microsoft SQL Server 2000, and Oracle 9i Database.

Future plans for the Developer Center include developer-driven forums on key areas of industry interest to enable developer-to-developer exchange of information.