PeopleSoft Debuts EAI Product Suite
AppConnect exploits Web services to connect heterogeneous applications.
At its Connect2002 tradeshow in New Orleans, PeopleSoft Inc. unveiled AppConnect, a product suite that purports to integrate its existing portal, application integration and warehouse solutions. The company also claims AppConnect can facilitate integration between applications from disparate software vendors.
The product suite consists of PeopleSoft’s Enterprise Portal, Integration Broker and Enterprise Warehouse products. In keeping with its new emphasis on integration, PeopleSoft says that it will sell AppConnect as an integration product suite, similar to a CRM package.
AppConnect exploits Web services standards and boasts support for Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) and for the .NET framework from Microsoft Corp. AppConnect’s Enterprise Portal and Enterprise Warehouse components provide vanilla Web services capabilities, but its Integration Broker component boasts more sophisticated capabilities—such as transformation and routing—commonly associated with enterprise application (EAI) integration tools.
AppConnect runs on top of a Web application server base, and currently supports IBM’s WebSphere and BEA’s WebLogic.
Peter Gassner, vice president and general manager of PeopleSoft’s technology group, says AppConnect constitutes a single platform for EAI.
"CIOs have had to choose a portal, a warehouse, and a middleware technology to integrate their applications," Gassner noted in a prepared release. "With PeopleSoft AppConnect, we give customers one choice to address all three areas, all on a common platform."
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Stephen Swoyer is a Nashville, TN-based freelance journalist who writes about technology.