Simplify mid-market solution development

Introduction

Developing mid-market solutions can be challenging. These solutions must be:

• Appropriately priced to fit the budgets of mid-market companies
• Easily consumable by small IT staffs stretched thin from managing their company's IT systems
• Easily adaptable to legacy systems of many mid-market companies
• Easily used by business personnel with minimal training

Solution developers can meet these requirements using an open foundation that comprises:

• A common architecture and best practices approach that are central to IBM Express middleware
• IBM Express Runtime, which includes pre-integrated and preconfigured IBM middleware and a single administration console
• For IBM Business Partners, accelerators and tools (such as Solution Building Blocks) that provide enabling technologies and techniques

Benefits of this foundation include:

In this article, you're introduced to the key characteristics, capabilities, and core components of this open foundation. We delve into the simplifying elements of the foundation and discuss how you can use it to streamline creation, deployment, and management of the package. You also learn about the solution-enabling and solution building-block capabilities of the foundation and how they can empower you to meet business requirements with capabilities that leverage IBM Express offerings and ISV packages from IBM Business Partners.

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Become an on demand mid-market business

In today's marketplace, business is not confined to physical boundaries, nor is it accomplished at the pace of human interaction. Success in business is increasingly defined not so much by size as by reach. Consequently, mid-sized companies, like the largest enterprises, are seeking to build and tighten real-time connections with employees, suppliers, partners, and customers, irrespective of their locations. On demand business means using real-time information to align technology and business requirements. Extending your reach to valued partners, suppliers, and customers. And competing in ways never before possible.

Many mid-sized business managers assume they need to compromise the performance of their IT infrastructure to meet cost requirements. This assumption has left many businesses with systems and applications that may adequately do a specific job, but are weak in requirements such as function, compatibility, security, and scalability. These IT systems often inhibit, instead of enable, the transition to becoming an on demand business. Point-integration projects and stand-alone applications can leave a company fragmented and paralyzed by IT inefficiencies. Becoming an on demand enterprise means creating an environment with the IT agility required for increased flexibility and responsiveness in business operations.

Key characteristics of on demand businesses are:

Responsiveness

Able to quickly react to and resolve new requirements from systems, partners, customers, and the marketplace -- even with limited budgets and scarce internal resources

Resiliency

Proactively positioned to safeguard business assets (technology, data, people and physical facilities) when predictable -- or unpredictable -- demands surface

Ability to be focused

Concentrated on the core business and willing to turn over selected tasks to qualified partners to manage specific functions

Flexibility

Using technology and human resources to reduce risk, lower costs, improve productivity, and heighten overall business performance

What does on demand mean to a mid-market business? This table outlines some examples.

Table 1. Benefits of becoming an on demand business

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Leverage the foundation elements to create on demand solutions

The foundation is a cohesive framework comprising an integrated family of IBM Express products and offerings specifically targeted to the mid-market business sector. Together, the capabilities of the integrated products exceed the sum of the individual products. But, this does not mean that the entire Express offerings must be consumed in one delivery for a mid-market business to reap its benefits. It is not monolithic, but modular, and designed to provide incremental value as IBM Business Partners and mid-market customers roll out the desired components that precisely fit specific project objectives.

This framework enables Business Partners to create solutions with IBM Express middleware, allowing them to capitalize on the strength of IBM Express technologies to create solutions that deliver fully integrated, extensible, and high-quality customer applications. This technology provides crucial technical enablement to help partners succeed in an on demand world by making solutions easier to build, manage, deploy and integrate. The result is lower costs, reduced risk, and increased profitability.

The inherent set of foundation characteristics are designed to provide immediate return on investment for mid-market businesses and to enable them to become on demand enterprises. These characteristics are:

Enhanced integration and interoperability

Open standards-based, allowing you to choose best-of-breed applications to create a seamless integrated, highly secure, adaptive environment. Provides the operational efficiencies to compete in an on demand world.

Reduced risk

Highly integrated, pretested, open standards-based Express technologies. Provides an extensive portfolio of support and solutions templates.

Lowered cost

Pricing established specifically for mid-size businesses. Yields a faster deployment with fewer resources and simplifies the administration of the IT systems.

Easier to manage

Provides ecosystem experience by making it easier to manage with a single set of tools and extensive support.

Improved security

Provides large-enterprise level security without the complexity. Supports a single security model across all applications.

The remainder of the article examines the specific elements and approaches associated with the foundation.

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Design architecture for IBM Express middleware

During the last several years, the cornerstone of IBM's increased support of mid-market businesses is the design architecture for IBM Express middleware, which guides the creation of all Express offerings. The architecture ensures that Express offerings -- including software, hardware, services, or a combination of each -- are tailored to the specific needs and desires of mid-market businesses.

This design architecture enables the Express offerings to cover the breadth of technology and services required for implementing any solution for a mid-market customer. The offerings contain server, storage, network, and print hardware capabilities. They also contain Express software products that cover core application and information capabilities, user interaction, people, process, and information integration capabilities and systems management capabilities for control of the solution environment. Extending the hardware and software portfolio is a set of service offerings from IBM and IBM Business Partners that provides the infrastructure management services and managed hosting capabilities that can ease many headaches for IT operations personnel.

To date, there are more than 70 Express products and offerings that are part of the IBM Express Portfolio™. (See Resources for a link to the complete list.)

At a high level, the architecture serves two objectives. To ensure that:

• The experience for everyone (business partner IT personnel, customer IT personnel, and customer business users) is as simple, intuitive, and easy to use as possible.
• The product or offering correctly fits mid-market in terms of functions, security, performance, and price.

Characteristics of the design architecture are:

Easy to acquire

Solution is delivered through medium business-enabled channels. Evaluation materials and ordering information are provided to easily assess and purchase the product.

Easy to install and implement

Solution installation is responsive to small-to-medium business (SMB) customer timeframe expectations. Implementation is nondisruptive to the system and personnel. Overall effort is minimized by using easy-to-understand terminologies, clear instructions, appropriate defaults, and well-defined processes.

Easy to learn and use

Solution touchpoints are designed to be simple and intuitive. The offering provides samples, tools, training, and documentation that help ensure a quick and successful first-use experience.

Easy to manage

Solution is secure and operational out of the box. Setup, configuration, and ongoing maintenance require minimal administrative skill and effort. Tools are provided to simplify complex tasks.

Right function and competitive features

Solution provides the features and functions attractive to medium businesses. Features are competitive and perform consistently within the offering, offering family, and platform.

Total solution

Solution package contains all components, tools, and information needed for successful implementation. The solution is concise and provides only that which is required. All components have consistent terms and conditions for seamless packaging.

Enabled for growth

Solution readily scales to accommodate growing demand. A clear path exists to advance capabilities, helping to protect the investment.

Easy to support

Solution uses all the support channels that provide technology awareness, skills and deliverables, enablement, presales support, implementation, and post-sales support.

Reliable and dependable

Solution meets the requirements for reliability and dependability, with service and support available as needed to meet customer requirements by preferred method of contact, including Web, telephone, and e-mail.

Priced to market

Solution is competitively priced, with a total cost that is attractive to mid-size companies.

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IBM Express Runtime

Solutions for customer requirements usually involve multiple products that share data and work together. In today's on demand environment, product requirements often include Web applications, data storage, and an application server. IBM Express Runtime offers a cohesive set of middleware components as a single offering, enabling hardware and software assets to work together. Express Runtime provides the packaging and installation technology to create and deploy complete packages across multiple platforms.

You can use Express Runtime to quickly deploy IBM middleware to an end-user system, and then install a solution so that it integrates with the components. Or you might need to deploy the required middleware components and application to the end user as a single package. Express Runtime can greatly reduce the time, effort, and complexity associated with installing and configuring middleware components.

Express Runtime provides tools that helps you integrate applications with IBM middleware components into a cohesive solution and then deploy the solution to end-users. The following tools are provided with Express Runtime:

Express Runtime developer

Provides a standard platform for solution development through an Eclipse technology-based plug-in. Express Runtime developer helps you offer a complete solution, including integrated installation and configuration. It features custom editors that help you to assemble solutions quickly and effectively.

Express Runtime deployment wizard

Helps you deliver a solution to target computers through an interface that lets you deploy a solution task by task. Provides the solution launcher, a utility that helps you start the deployment wizard and deploy a solution directly from a CD or DVD. The Express Runtime developer provides an export function that creates CD or DVD images in solution launcher format.

Express Runtime console

Helps you manage middleware components and provides a single, Web-based console for performing frequent administrative tasks.

Express Runtime application development toolkit

Offers a variety of tools you can use to make the most of your applications and to get the most benefits from the IBM middleware components.

Log and trace technology preview

Helps to manage and correlate logs of various products across various hosts using the Autonomic Log and Trace Analyzer, based on open and industry-standard technologies.

Express Runtime developer

Use the Express Runtime developer project to assemble your solution into a single deployable image. An Express Runtime developer project is a construct based on the Eclipse Platform Integrated Development Environment. Structure and function follow standard Eclipse Platform guidelines.

Default resources are placed in the project to assist you. Certain tools, views, wizards, and menu selections are available that are specific to solution development, as shown in Figure 1. You can create two types of Express Runtime projects: solution projects and application projects, which are described next.

Solution projects
An Express Runtime solution project provides a specific project folder structure, populated with a basic solution file and an empty translation file. You complete the solution definition by specifying information and adding tasks to the solution. You then add resources, such as graphics, readme files, license files, and documentation to the project using the solution editor, shown in Figure 2.

Express Runtime ships with four sample solution projects. You can modify them using the Express Runtime developer and deploy them as needed, using the deployment wizard.

Table 2. The four sample solution projects shipped with Express Runtime

You can easily customize the solution to brand it for your company. For example, if you want to change the title, select the General tab of the solution editor in Figure 1 and enter your new title.

From the Tasks tab of the solution editor, you can easily assemble your solution by selecting the applications to include, as shown in Figure 2.

Application projects
An Express Runtime application project provides a specific project folder structure, populated with a basic application file and an empty translation file. You complete the application definition by specifying information in the application file and adding resources, such as user programs, to the project using the application editor.

When building your solution with the Express Runtime developer, you can create your own application wrappers or choose from the list of application wrappers included in Express Runtime. The following are available application projects:

• Sample application for Microsoft® Windows
• Sample application for Linux
• Sample application for IBM OS/400® (i5/OS™)
• IBM DB2® Universal Database™ Express Edition Version 8.2 for Windows
• IBM DB2 Universal Database Express Edition Version 8.2 for Linux
• IBM DB2 Universal Database Express Edition Version 8.2 for Linux on POWER™
• IBM WebSphere® Application Server-Express for Windows
• IBM WebSphere Application Server - Express for Linux
• IBM WebSphere Application Server - Express for Linux on POWER
• IBM WebSphere Application Server - Express for OS/400 (i5/OS)
• IBM HTTP Server 6.0 for Windows
• IBM HTTP Server 6.0 for Linux
• IBM HTTP Server 6.0 for Linux on POWER
• IBM HTTP Server for OS/400 (i5/OS)
• IBM WebSphere HTTP Plug-in for Windows
• IBM WebSphere HTTP Plug-in for Linux
• IBM WebSphere HTTP Plug-in for Linux on POWER
• Integrated Solutions Console for Linux
• Integrated Solutions Console on Linux on POWER
• Integrated Solutions Console for Windows
• Console Management Extension for IBM DB2 Universal Database Express Edition Version 8.2 for Linux
• Console Management Extension for IBM DB2 Universal Database Express Edition Version 8.2 for Linux on POWER
• Console Management Extension for IBM DB2 Universal Database Express Edition Version 8.2 for Windows
• Console Management Extension for IBM HTTP Server for Linux
• Console Management Extension for IBM HTTP Server for Linux on POWER
• Console Management Extension for IBM HTTP Server for Windows
• Console Management Extension for WebSphere Application Server - Express for i5/OS

Use the application editor shown in Figure 3 to easily customize existing application projects or to add your own projects.

Cheat sheets
Eclipse cheat sheets are available for common tasks in both the application and solution editors. The Creating Application Wrapper cheat sheet is shown in Figure 3.

Express Runtime deployment wizard

The deployment wizard, a simple graphical user interface, helps you deploy a solution to target computers that you specify. The deployment wizard is a set of steps that you complete by clicking Back and Next, as shown in Figure 4. When a solution is exported to CD or DVD, the deployment wizard automatically launches with the solution.

Express Runtime console

The Express Runtime console provides a single, Web-based utility for performing administrative tasks, as shown in Figure 5. By providing a consistent Web-based user interface, the console for Express Runtime simplifies managing the following IBM Express Runtime middleware components:

• WebSphere Application Server - Express
• DB2 Universal Database Express
• IBM HTTP Server

The Express Runtime console helps you manage multiple instances of each of the Express Runtime middleware components, which can be on one or more computers. You can use the Express Runtime console to do the following administrative tasks:

• Check status, start and stop application servers, Web servers, and DB2 databases.
• Configure log settings and view logs.
• Check server status and database health.
• Perform a one-step database backup.
• Modify WebSphere Application Server - Express configuration settings.
• Filter tasks according to the role you perform.

You can access the Express Runtime console from a Web browser, which means you can manage Express Runtime middleware components remotely. The console for Express Runtime can be configured for use with a certificate from a certifying authority for added security.

Express Runtime application development toolkit

You can use the Express Runtime application development toolkit to install development tools to develop applications that you can bundle with the middleware components provided with Express Runtime. Or you can deploy the development tools as complete solutions.

The Express Runtime toolkit CD contains deployment packages for the following tools:

• DB2 Universal Database Express 8.2 Development Environment for Windows
• DB2 Universal Database Express 8.2 Development Environment for Linux
• DB2 Universal Database Express 8.2 Development Environment for Linux on Power
• WebSphere Application Server - Express 6.0 Development Environment for Windows
• WebSphere Application Server - Express 6.0 Development Environment for Linux
• WebSphere Application Server - Express 6.0 Development Environment for Linux on POWER
• WebSphere Application Server - Express 6.0 Development Environment for i5/OS
• IBM Rational® Web Developer 6.0 for Windows
• IBM Rational Web Developer 6.0 for Linux

Log and trace technology preview

Middleware deployments present several unique obstacles, particularly maintenance and problem determination. The first step in debugging a problem is usually a review of the product log files. This approach is practical, yet can be frustrating. Each product log file tends to have its own format and semantics. In real-world middleware deployments, the log files are also likely to be located on various remote hosts and accessed from product-specific consoles, as shown in Figure 6.

In contrast, the Express Runtime console has a single point of problem determination for all the software components deployed in your middleware solution. The Autonomic Log and Trace Analyzer uses open and industry-standard technologies to manage and correlate logs of various products across various hosts. Figure 7 shows the Log Analyzer, which lets you correlate multiple log files in a single view and debug multiple product errors on remote systems.

Get the most from Express Runtime

What does the Express Runtime mean for an ISV that is an IBM Business Partner? It dramatically lowers deployment and ongoing support costs for its business application, while increasing customer satisfaction. How can Express Runtime do this? Let's use a fictional scenario with Joe, a development manager at an ISV, to show the benefit.

Joe has an application built on Java™ 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE). Each quarter, he is seeing amazing growth, which indicates that his company has found a niche with its application. The downside of this success is the overwhelming workload for Joe's employees. Spending far too much time on each new deployment and swamped with escalating support calls, his team is neglecting key new line items that need to be developed to do service calls.

With Express Runtime, Joe has the opportunity to shorten the time it takes to deploy his application and underlying middleware, which, in turn, reduces the labor hours dedicated to customer support. Using the Express Runtime developer project, his team can assemble its solution into a single deployable image. The deployment wizard helps the team quickly and reliably deploy it to the right target computers by simply following a set of prescribed steps. As a result, installation mismatches and erroneous configurations become a thing of the past.

The Express Runtime console provides browser-based remote access to allow Joe's team to manage its application and the underlying middleware and servers. Remote access lets the team quickly diagnose a problem without sending IT personnel to the customer site. The integrated console provides a standardized interface for administration that simplifies the management task. Combined with the log and trace capability, Joe's team can easily debug problems that occur remotely and quickly gets the customer back up and running.

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Solutions Builder Express: tools and accelerators

The foundation provides the elements required for implementing an industry solution. An industry solution can vary in content, but typically consists of one or more packaged applications, combined with custom implementation of business processes or functions, that are incorporated into the customer's IT environment through systems integration activities. The framework can also accommodate the delivery of solutions consisting of components from multiple vendors and easily integrates with existing business applications.

Beginning with Express Runtime, the tools and runtime are used to easily build and deploy a package that contains IBM middleware and IBM Business Partner ISV applications. To extend that to meet the needs of industry solutions, this package must be combined with customization and systems integration capabilities. For core middleware integration products, it must also provide a set of solution building blocks that enable the rapid development of these custom integration functions. The building blocks are available in both industry-specific (vertical) and industry-neutral (horizontal or cross-industry) implementations to best meet the needs of the customer.

The Solution Building Blocks are delivered through the Solutions Builder Express offering. Solutions Builder Express is a portfolio of more than 30 solution Starting Points, developed and tested with IBM Business Partners, that provide planning, implementation, and deployment resources to help Business Partners expand their mid-market customer base and sell more, faster. Solutions Builder Express offers several key benefits, including helping to:

• Accelerate solution design, customization, and deployment in the small-to-medium business space.
• Build unique and repeatable small-to-medium business solutions faster and easier for increased return on investment potential.
• Provide tools and assets to penetrate new markets and expand existing ones.
• Offer new ways to uncover up-sell opportunities for your value-added products and services, helping to increase return on investment.
• Grow systems integration business, including nurturing ongoing customer relationships.

Each Solutions Builder Express Starting Point delivers the full breadth of information for prospecting, selling, designing, and implementing an engagement for a particular industry solution. Each Starting Point contains the following:

A solution overview

• Concepts and business value

  Articulates the primary business value of the solution, providing business justification for the investment. Provides an explanation of key concepts, both technical and industry specific, that are part of the solution. Ensures that the business partner, even if unfamiliar with the solution area, can interact intelligently with customers about this solution.

• Architecture

  Helps you understand the deployment configuration of the software, letting you make intelligent architectural decisions based on the customer's functional requirements, capacity, and performance requirements.

• Recommended hardware, software, and tools

  Bill of materials information for the required software and hardware to enable correct proposal and pricing. Includes recommendation of tools that will help get the job done quickly.

Planning Guide

• Skills assessment

  Depending on the components of the industry solution, specific skills might be required. Details each of the job types necessary to complete each task in the project and the type of skills required to complete that task.

• Task estimates

  Based on IBM Business Partner input with the solution, task estimation models allow the business partner to build proposals, staffing, and project plans for this solution.

Implementation Guide

• Development environment architecture

  Defines required software and hardware for developing the solution. Includes recommendation of tools for creating and customizing the solution for a customer.

• Implementation checklist

  Helps users understand the order for doing installation and configuration steps, and on which system each task is performed.

• Tips and techniques

  Based on real experience implementing this solution, they help the user avoid common pitfalls that can occur. Covers both middleware deployment and configuration issues, as well as techniques for improving the solution implementation.

• Customization information

  Instructions for installing and configuring all software, and any samples, required to deploy the solution. Discusses how to customize the solution to meet specific customer requirements.

• Use cases

  Detail the use cases implemented by the solution. Provide an excellent starting point for use-case modeling of customer requirements, which helps to ensure that each requirement is precisely implemented.

• Templates, samples, scripts

  Can be picked up and modified in support of specific requirements. Provide a guide for how to get started, and serve as a model for implementation that can be easily modified.

Other deliverables

• Demo toolkit

  Allows the IBM Business Partner to win business by leveraging a prebuilt demo of the solution that can be easily customized to the potential customer's business model and company information.

Get the most from Solutions Builder Express

How can Solutions Builder Express help a Business Partner? Consider a Regional Systems Integrator named Donovan, who has a retail customer with some problems. The retail customer, manager for a mid-market retail outlet with 600 employees, tells Donovan that she is experiencing problems with employee productivity. Compared with similar retail outlets, the store's labor hours to sales are not inline with the industry mark.

Donovan decides to investigate. After interviewing employees, both in the central office and in the stores, Donovan reaches the following conclusions. Managers are spending excessive time on paper work and on data entry for human resources, replenishment, and inventory control systems. As a result, they don't have adequate time to properly attend to staff issues, and, without their direction, employee productivity is down.

Donovan needs to find a solution that can reduce the time the store managers spend on paper work and data entry. However, cost is a big issue. This retail customer cannot afford to throw away existing systems and start over. The solution needs to work with the company's existing systems. Donovan, as an IBM Business Partner, can leverage the Solutions Builder Express offerings. Scanning the Starting Points available on IBM PartnerWorld®, he finds one that looks appropriate -- the Employee Portal Starting Point.

From the solution overview, he finds a match on business value, as shown in Figure 8. It describes the value as:

This solution can increase employee productivity by promoting efficiency and effectiveness, and by reducing the complexity of accessing multiple applications and data sources through separate user interfaces. All aspects of employee-related activities can be managed, maintained, and customized.

Simplified access to resources through a common, unified interface that can aggregate related applications and resources that help users do their jobs more efficiently. Portals can be accessed from any Web-capable, Internet-connected device, including wireless phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs).

Reduced information overload ("too many things to know and places to go"). With an integrated search engine and a way to easily customize what each user or group of users views, it can reduce the time users spend searching for information or applications.

The business value is extended in the solution overview with a description of the potential benefits and usage scenarios in various industries, as shown in Figure 9. The description of the usage in a retail environment convinces Donovan that an Employee Portal Starting Point is the right solution.

Now Donovan must put together a proposal for the customer. The solution overview provides the recommended hardware, software, and tools required, so he can begin to create the cost estimate for the client. He needs to add in the services hours required for contract. The Starting Point provides roles and staff required for the project, which Donovan can use to determine the job level he needs to cost each task. Based on these roles, he realizes that his company does not have one specific skill required. He knows of another systems integrator who does and decides to subcontract this specific task to that business partner. The task-estimation model in the Starting Point, shown in Figure 10, helps him estimate the hours required to do the project.

Donovan's proposal is accepted, and the contract is signed with the retail customer. He now needs to begin managing the project. For help, he uses the Implementation Guide in the Starting Point. This guide provides a roadmap for implementing the project, as shown in Figure 11, with details about each specific task required.

The Implementation Guide describes how to:

• Install each piece of software.
• Configure the software to work together as a solution.
• Define the security controls for access to the portal.
• Create user and group definitions.

Security is a primary concern for Donovan's customer because the desktops that can access the portal aren't in a locked room in the store. An unwanted intruder could get access to business-critical applications. The Starting Point shows how to correctly set the security controls to ensure that this does not happen.

After validating the solution configuration is correct by executing the sample portlets provided with the solution, Donovan's team is ready to implement the custom portlets for the retail customer. The Implementation Guide describes the different types of portlets and techniques for creating those portlets. Following this roadmap, the team is able to build the solution for the client successfully.

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Summary

In this article, you discovered an approach for building solutions on an open foundation for the mid-market that helps simplify development. You also learned how this approach can take IBM Express product offerings to the next level by assembling individual products together into an integrated environment. You saw that with integration capability at multiple levels, you can gain increased value on investment. Integration at the deployment level through integrated installation, configuration, and administration helps shorten the time it takes to deploy a solution and lowers your cost of ongoing IT operations. Integration at the solution level through Solutions Builder Express simplifies the assembling of middleware components and IBM Business Partner ISV applications into a complete solution.

Over the long term, the deeper level of integration means lower costs and makes the solution easier to manage. This integration, combined with prescriptive solution implementation roadmaps, helps reduce the risk associated with implementing any new solution built on IBM Express middleware. The integration at the security level helps ensure that the resulting solution is protected from any type of security threat, helping to protect your investment.

Resources

• Explore the IBM Express Portfolio.
  
  
• Get information about IBM Express Software.
  
  
• Explore Solutions Builder Express.
  
  
• Learn more about Express Runtime.
  
  
• Become a member of IBM PartnerWorld and access tools and resources for developing mid-market solutions. There is no charge for membership.
  
  
• Follow along with the IBM Software Group System House team as they use the IBM Express Portfolio to develop an e-business foundation for a small-to-medium business.
  
  
• The IBM Redbook Implementing WebSphere Business Integration Express for Item Synchronization shows how mid-market suppliers can achieve supply-chain integration through the UCCnet Global registry.
  
  
• Download a trial version of WebSphere Application Server - Express Version 6.0.
  
  
• Download a trial version of DB2 Universal Database Version 8.2 (Windows) or DB2 Universal Database Version 8.2 (Linux).
  
  

• Innovate your business with IBM products. Try IBM trial downloads to find out how.

  
  
  

About the authors

John Medicke is the chief architect of the On Demand Solution Center in Research Triangle Park, NC. He has worked in industry solution development for last seven years across various industries including financial services, retail, health care, industrial, and government. He is the author of the book, Integrated Solutions with DB2, as well as multiple articles in various journals. Contact John at medicke@us.ibm.com.

Bob Sizemore is the IBM Express Runtime Development Lead in the Software Group SMB Development Center. You can contact Bob at sizemore@us.ibm.com.

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Trademarks

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Become an on demand mid-market business
• Leverage the foundation elements to create on demand solutions
• Design architecture for IBM Express middleware
• IBM Express Runtime
• Solutions Builder Express: tools and accelerators
• Summary
• Resources
• About the authors
• Comments

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