Enosys Adopts Xquery Spec for Integration Server

First use for enterprise integration

• By Matt Migliore
• 06/06/2002

As data integration continues to rise on the priority lists of most enterprise IT departments, startup Enosys Software has released an XML-based platform that promises a “real-time” view of disparate data sources.

The solution, called Enosys Integration Server, is based on the XQuery specification currently being developed by the World Wide Web Consortium. XQuery is designed to provide a standard method for extracting data from real and virtual documents, and ultimately allow collections of XML files to be accessed like databases. Enosys is the first vendor to use the specification in a significant way for data integration.

With functionality for querying multiple sources of a data structure in a real-time or repetitive-batch mode, Enosys Integration Server is being positioned as a platform for reducing the time-to-market for Web-ready customer self-service offerings and supply-chain portals. The XQuery solution, which can be deployed by itself or in conjunction with an existing EAI implementation, consists of a server, a design suite, and management tools.

Currently, Enosys is working on pilot programs with Tyco International and APL, and is targeting the Fortune 1000 market.

Enosys figures to draw competition from industry giants like BEA, IBM and Oracle, which all have an established presence in the integration server space. But, Raj Pai, vice president of product marketing for Enosys, believes there is room for a new vendor to break into the space.

“[IBM’s] WebSphere and [BEA’s] WebLogic are mostly development platforms at this time,” says Pai. “We look at XQuery as more of an integration tool.”

Pai feels Enosys is offering something unique by using XQuery to enable real-time data integration.

Susan Funke, a research manager with IT analyst firm IDC, says, “I think [Enosys] is on the road to a niche. The real-time component of their platform is an interesting piece.”

However, Funke says she expects IBM and some of the other big players in this space will start to offer real-time XML data integration technologies of their own. She equates it to the recent trends in the XML database arena, which has seen Oracle and IBM enter the mix after a number of smaller vendors brought technologies to market.

In the short term though, Funke says Enosys could achieve a level of success, as the ETL tools segment is one of the few growth areas in the IT industry. According to a recent IDC report, efforts to integrate disparate enterprise data consume approximately 70 percent of an enterprise’s IT budget.

And Pai, as well as most industry insiders, feels XML is the wave of the future in the integration space. “We firmly believe that XML is the way to go,” he says. “And XQuery is the language you need to build distributed applications.”

The Enosys suite of products is available now. Pricing varies by user configuration and begins at $30,000 per server.