Software Case Study

Company appropria Industry Sun Technology and Services Java 2 SDK, Standard Edition Java Technology Jini Network Technology Linux Solaris Operating System

Key Challenges Integrate information from a wide range of separate, incompatible information silos Cut administration costs while providing a resilient, flexible solution Gain competitive advantage by rapidly and cost-effectively developing and deploying new solutions Solution Build an intelligent information integration solution on Jini technology Integrate legacy systems, making services available and unified Enable better decision making by delivering mission-critical data in a timely, contextual, easy-to-use format

Executive Summary

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Workplace Information Integration Application Opens Up the Silos

Enter appropria, a software company headquartered in Pleasanton, California that is engaged in the design, building, and marketing of applications that create an Intelligent Interface between users and corporate information databases. Appropria's Plant~Advantage is the first product based on the company's innovative Workplace Information Integration technology.

Targeted at the oil and gas, chemical, petrochemical, food and beverage, power generation, pulp and paper, and pharmaceutical industries, Plant~Advantage manages communication between distributed components, while optimizing the integrity and performance of solutions based on the Advantage platform. Because it is closely aligned with business processes, Plant~Advantage delivers the information that users really need, as defined by their roles within the company.

Plant~Advantage makes managing a business easier by consolidating complex information, such as financial, process control, maintenance, and inventory, then delivering it all through a single, easy-to-use interface. In effect, it opens up the silos, consolidating information from a range of systems to help users make well-informed decisions.

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Jini Technology Delivers the Flexibility Plant~Advantage Needs

To provide the most flexible, resilient solution possible, Sun's Jini network technology is an integral component of Plant~Advantage. Explained Paul Smith, appropria president and CEO, "From the start of our development process, Jini technology has been a core building block. Our application integrates information from multiple, distributed data repositories into a single browser-based user interface. We use Jini technology to manage the communication between these distributed components of Advantage."

Smith continued, "Our software is about bringing information from many disparate sources together. The source systems typically live on an enterprise network, which are subject to change, reconfiguration, and evolution. By using Jini technology, appropria's software is better able to cope with this environment, and can continue to work reliably with a minimum of user intervention."

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The Benefits of Plant~Advantage

The benefits of using Plant~Advantage are many, with the most immediate in time savings. Appropria's initial research suggests that the average worker spends almost an hour a day finding or manipulating information. Plant~Advantage could reduce this by half, cutting up to three weeks per year, per worker. In addition to time and productivity gains, customers will benefit in other ways.

For example, if employees have all the information they need in a timely manner, they can make better decisions. That helps their organizations perform at a higher level and better meet the expectations of management and shareholders.

Because Jini technology enables customers to add components of Plant~Advantage with no interruption of service, it provides continuous access to information. No matter how many different data repositories are tapped into, the process remains invisible to the user. Appropria's software is a meta layer, utilizing XML and Jini technology to extract information from raw source data, aggregate it on a higher level, and deliver the information in HTML format through a Web browser.

"Appropria understands how the highly adaptive nature of Jini technology can improve process efficiencies, simplify the use of information, and easily handle large amounts of data," explained Franc Romano, group marketing manager for Sun Microsystems. "Throughout their implementation, Jini technology is used across platforms to integrate new and legacy applications. We at Sun are impressed with their use of Jini technology in the plant and process manufacturing area."

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Enabling Mission-Critical Decisions by Providing Robust, Resilie

In the oil and gas and process manufacturing industries, there is often a fine line between operating in a safe, efficient manner, or operating in ways that may risk personal safety, environmental integrity, and a corporation's reputation. The difference is how quickly the right information is available when decisions must be made. Plant~Advantage delivers this information to the right people, when they need it. Clearly, the solution has to be extremely robust and resilient. For this reason, appropria based Plant~Advantage on Sun's Jini technology to assure reliability for customers who demand the highest levels of system integrity and reliability. Said Stephen Duncan, assurance manager for appropria, "Distributed environments are fragile and hostile - but with the help of Jini technology, they can become robust and resilient, without much human intervention. Jini opened up so many doors for us that traditional architectures don't."

For fast failure recovery, Plant~Advantage utilizes Jini technology distributed across machines to manage network services. When failure occurs, Jini technology provides a self-healing capability that automatically brings services back online. Because there is no need to restart or reset the entire system, even when the hardware fails, the application continues to work on a 24x7 basis. This creates a system with self-administering intelligence that reduces system management by up to 45 minutes per day, translating into significant cost savings over the long term. Based on a typical site of 1500 people with a license for 500 concurrent users, appropria estimates that an enterprise can break even on all costs associated with implementation -- such as hardware, consultants, and so on -- within six months.

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Plant~Advantage Meets the Needs of Process and Manufacturing Cus

For users involved in the operation and maintenance of large process and manufacturing plants, Plant~Advantage provides an intelligent PC desktop, which collates information from multiple existing repositories. The goal is to deliver information that is directly relevant to the task of assuring the safety, efficiency, and regulatory compliance of these facilities. The product integrates information from a variety of sources including drawings, maintenance routines, work permits, procedures, e-mail, Web content, equipment histories, and vendor databases, and presents this knowledge back in readily usable form.

By providing an Intelligent User Interface to enterprise-wide information, Plant~Advantage significantly reduces both the time it takes to find relevant information and the risk of overlooking mission-critical knowledge. Additional integration functionality enables users to create "virtual workpacks" around specific planned maintenance routines, shutdown tasks, or safety-related "workscopes."

To date, Plant~Advantage has been used mainly to help run and maintain plants in the petrochemical industry, but the technology is not tied to process manufacturing. In fact, the company is planning to expand into other industries that have complex, robust repository systems, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), and sees opportunities in finance, crime agencies (for organizing licensing, fingerprints, and so on), health care, and corporate acquisitions.

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Jini Technology Offers Developers a Way to Build Solutions That

Jini technology is a framework that helps developers build solutions for organizations where information is vital to the business process, because it provides a fast, reliable way to access information for everyday decision making. It delivers the resiliency needed for mission-critical applications, forming the core of appropria's platform-independent, robust, scalable solution.

The Internet is constantly changing and growing. It is no longer made up of servers talking to servers. With the advent of Web services, networks need a secure, reliable way to communicate without interruption. Using Jini technology, services can be added or removed from the network, and new clients can find existing services -- all without administration.

With the help of Jini technology, innovators like appropria can gain a competitive business advantage by rapidly and cost-effectively developing and deploying compelling new applications and services for their customers worldwide.

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Nth Ready

As part of the Sun Open Net Environment (Sun ONE) platform, Jini technology provides a simple infrastructure for delivering services in a network and creating spontaneous interaction between programs that use these services.

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