BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic

New Software from BEA Greatly Simplifies Getting Fast Answers To Complex Business Questions

Available Immediately, BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic Integrates Real-Time Information Across Enterprise Applications and Data Sources

San Jose, California, USA. November 4, 2002.

BEA Systems, Inc., the world's leading application infrastructure software company, today announced the general availability of BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic, a product that makes it possible to get fast answers to business questions that were prohibitively difficult to answer before. BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic works by providing integrated views of enterprise information from virtually any data source: databases, XML files, Web applications, integration adapters and more. These logical views of information are reusable, and they can quickly aggregate the latest real-time information from both inside and outside large organizations. Before BEA Liquid Data, organizations may have faced complex programming or enterprise application integration projects to get answers to critical business questions, and in many cases the answers would not be based on real-time information. Also today, BEA announced Cap Gemini Ernst & Young (CGE&Y) as the first global systems integrator to agree to training, education and co-marketing activities around BEA's new product. BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic is available today as an add-on to the BEA WebLogic Enterprise Platform, the enterprise software foundation based on the industry's leading application server.

BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic can provide real-time information visibility to front-office applications, such as customer self-service portals, customer service and support, and supply chain applications. BEA Liquid Data uses extensible mark-up language (XML) technology, designed to provide a cost-effective, standard way to easily aggregate and expose logical views of business information inside and outside firewalls, regardless of the location, format, or type of data source. BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic also extends BEA's application server, integration and portal products by reducing the amount of custom development needed to access back-office systems, or provide a cost-effective and quick mechanism to access and aggregate information into a portal.

"For years, IT professionals have struggled to provide business executives with standards-based applications that deliver the information they need to answer real-time operations questions," said Michele Rosen, research manager, IDC. "BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic has expanded BEA's ability to provide IT professionals with a platform on which they can build such applications."

By solving long-standing information integration challenges and minimizing the complexity of data aggregation within distributed systems, BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic can allow business professionals to access composite views of information when they want it, and can enable applications and business processes to share common data. As a result, businesses can create real-time views of product information, or develop a single view of the customer for service representatives or self-service portals.

"With customer contact options growing rapidly across multiple channels, the task of providing a single, consistent and comprehensive view of the customer has become an enormous endeavor," said John Parkinson, chief technology officer Americas, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young. "We have more information than ever before, but leveraging it to provide a superior customer experience remains a challenge. BEA and CGE&Y are working together to create and deliver solutions that can support a consistent customer experience across all channels. BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic simplifies access to diverse enterprise data sources, and provides consistent and comprehensive views of information. This helps businesses become more responsive, and drive down operational costs."

The possible impact of BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic can be seen in financial services organizations that serve their customers in branch offices, online and through call centers. Providing consistent, real-time customer service is almost impossible in these demanding environments, which are often plagued by costly custom-coded, proprietary software, or rely solely on batch-oriented, analytic warehouses. BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic can help solve problems concerning real-time information visibility.

"BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic has shown the potential to increase the productivity of developers, and improve the efficiency of fund managers to address the various needs of their customers," said Mike Goldverg, vice president of research and portfolio services at OppenheimerFunds. "BEA Liquid Data can make it less complex and time consuming to design and build applications that require data from multiple sources. Our goal is to make an already smart, agile organization even more productive by turning data overload into manageable, actionable information."

BEA Liquid Data Simplifies Information Integration

Software vendors have been trying to simplify information integration for 20 years, but have met limited success. With the rapid increase of online information, distributed databases and packaged applications, the complexity of aggregating real-time data from distributed systems has increased. These distributed systems have essentially become proprietary data silos, making it cumbersome and costly for businesses to aggregate real-time views of information. This situation is especially true for front-office applications that would benefit from a complete, up-to-date view of specific business information, such as a single view of the customer.

BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic can provide a standard way to access customers' existing IT systems through the use of XML standards. The primary technology behind BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic is XQuery, an XML-based query technology. XQuery is designed to allow BEA Liquid Data to query multiple, disparate data sources across an enterprise and return XML results. Key features to BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic include:

Real-time universal data access allows businesses to retrieve data from legacy and Web applications, databases, integration adapters, flat files, XML files and more
Ability to leverage corporate assets through reusable and flexible data views by different applications to help businesses adapt to changing requirements
Investment protection by leveraging a standards-based solution built on J2EE, Web services and XML
Highly optimized real-time data access and data processing inside and outside firewalls, regardless of source location, format, or type, designed to increase developer productivity

BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic is available today from http://www.bea.com as an add-on to BEA WebLogic Platform 7.0, BEA WebLogic Server 7.0, BEA WebLogic Integration 7.0 and BEA WebLogic Portal 7.0.

About BEA

BEA Systems, Inc. is the world's leading application infrastructure software company, providing the enterprise software foundation for 13,000 customers around the world, including the majority of the Fortune Global 500. BEA and its WebLogic(R) brand are among the most trusted names in business.

Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., BEA has 91 offices in 33 countries and is on the Web at http://www.bea.com.

Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive.

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BEA Systems, Inc., the world's leading application infrastructure software company, today announced the general availability of BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic, a product that makes it possible to get fast answers to business questions that were prohibitively difficult to answer before. BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic works by providing integrated views of enterprise information from virtually any data source: databases, XML files, Web applications, integration adapters and more. These logical views of information are reusable, and they can quickly aggregate the latest real-time information from both inside and outside large organizations. Before BEA Liquid Data, organizations may have faced complex programming or enterprise application integration projects to get answers to critical business questions, and in many cases the answers would not be based on real-time information. Also today, BEA announced Cap Gemini Ernst & Young (CGE&Y) as the first global systems integrator to agree to training, education and co-marketing activities around BEA's new product. BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic is available today as an add-on to the BEA WebLogic Enterprise Platform, the enterprise software foundation based on the industry's leading application server. BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic can provide real-time information visibility to front-office applications, such as customer self-service portals, customer service and support, and supply chain applications. BEA Liquid Data uses extensible mark-up language (XML) technology, designed to provide a cost-effective, standard way to easily aggregate and expose logical views of business information inside and outside firewalls, regardless of the location, format, or type of data source. BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic also extends BEA's application server, integration and portal products by reducing the amount of custom development needed to access back-office systems, or provide a cost-effective and quick mechanism to access and aggregate information into a portal. "For years, IT professionals have struggled to provide business executives with standards-based applications that deliver the information they need to answer real-time operations questions," said Michele Rosen, research manager, IDC. "BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic has expanded BEA's ability to provide IT professionals with a platform on which they can build such applications." By solving long-standing information integration challenges and minimizing the complexity of data aggregation within distributed systems, BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic can allow business professionals to access composite views of information when they want it, and can enable applications and business processes to share common data. As a result, businesses can create real-time views of product information, or develop a single view of the customer for service representatives or self-service portals. "With customer contact options growing rapidly across multiple channels, the task of providing a single, consistent and comprehensive view of the customer has become an enormous endeavor," said John Parkinson, chief technology officer Americas, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young. "We have more information than ever before, but leveraging it to provide a superior customer experience remains a challenge. BEA and CGE&Y are working together to create and deliver solutions that can support a consistent customer experience across all channels. BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic simplifies access to diverse enterprise data sources, and provides consistent and comprehensive views of information. This helps businesses become more responsive, and drive down operational costs." The possible impact of BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic can be seen in financial services organizations that serve their customers in branch offices, online and through call centers. Providing consistent, real-time customer service is almost impossible in these demanding environments, which are often plagued by costly custom-coded, proprietary software, or rely solely on batch-oriented, analytic warehouses. BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic can help solve problems concerning real-time information visibility. "BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic has shown the potential to increase the productivity of developers, and improve the efficiency of fund managers to address the various needs of their customers," said Mike Goldverg, vice president of research and portfolio services at OppenheimerFunds. "BEA Liquid Data can make it less complex and time consuming to design and build applications that require data from multiple sources. Our goal is to make an already smart, agile organization even more productive by turning data overload into manageable, actionable information." BEA Liquid Data Simplifies Information Integration Software vendors have been trying to simplify information integration for 20 years, but have met limited success. With the rapid increase of online information, distributed databases and packaged applications, the complexity of aggregating real-time data from distributed systems has increased. These distributed systems have essentially become proprietary data silos, making it cumbersome and costly for businesses to aggregate real-time views of information. This situation is especially true for front-office applications that would benefit from a complete, up-to-date view of specific business information, such as a single view of the customer. BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic can provide a standard way to access customers' existing IT systems through the use of XML standards. The primary technology behind BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic is XQuery, an XML-based query technology. XQuery is designed to allow BEA Liquid Data to query multiple, disparate data sources across an enterprise and return XML results. Key features to BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic include: Real-time universal data access allows businesses to retrieve data from legacy and Web applications, databases, integration adapters, flat files, XML files and more Ability to leverage corporate assets through reusable and flexible data views by different applications to help businesses adapt to changing requirements Investment protection by leveraging a standards-based solution built on J2EE, Web services and XML Highly optimized real-time data access and data processing inside and outside firewalls, regardless of source location, format, or type, designed to increase developer productivity BEA Liquid Data for WebLogic is available today from http://www.bea.com as an add-on to BEA WebLogic Platform 7.0, BEA WebLogic Server 7.0, BEA WebLogic Integration 7.0 and BEA WebLogic Portal 7.0. About BEA BEA Systems, Inc. is the world's leading application infrastructure software company, providing the enterprise software foundation for 13,000 customers around the world, including the majority of the Fortune Global 500. BEA and its WebLogic(R) brand are among the most trusted names in business. Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., BEA has 91 offices in 33 countries and is on the Web at http://www.bea.com. Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive.