IBM WebSphere Portal Brings SOA Integration to New Markets

IBM (www.ibm.com) has announced the latest version of WebSphere Portal, which includes new features to further support customers' efforts to build service oriented architectures (SOA). It is available for the IBM eServer zSeries and iSeries platforms, as well as the new IBM System z9. SOA is a standards-based framework that enables enterprises to integrate data and applications with customers, partners and suppliers.

Combining WebSphere Portal's industry-leading portal services with the scalability and performance of the IBM System z9, zSeries and iSeries platforms will provide IBM customers the flexibility, efficiency, and security features they need to operate in an on demand business environment and maximize investments in SOA.

Customers with existing investments in iSeries and zSeries systems can now leverage the cost savings and productivity benefits of WebSphere Portal. WebSphere Portal provides customers with a unified user experience and a single point of interaction to applications, content, business processes and people.

Better business decisions can be made faster through the integration of business processes and portal users via an orchestrated workflow while new Web content management functionality allows customers greater flexibility in tailoring specific portal content.

In addition, total cost of ownership is reduced through the simplification of application deployment and management, virtual portal support, and new support for WebSphere Application Server, Version 6. The application of SOA through WebSphere Portal will allow customers to leverage WebSphere Portal's existing rich set of platform services including framework, integration, content, and collaboration services.

These services enable businesses to quickly orchestrate components into composite applications that can be deployed via a role-based model, enabling more efficient communication with external audiences and faster response to changing market dynamics.

WebSphere Portal continues to dominate the enterprise portal space through consistent customer and partner growth. Today, thousands of companies in over 17 vertical industries leverage WebSphere Portal to deliver real business value.

The WebSphere Portal Catalog Offering Program has almost 200 business partners representing over 500 solutions, offering WebSphere Portal customers greater choice and customization with their deployments. This program continues to grow, increasing by over 15 percent from January to July of this year.

Organizations around the world are leveraging the reliability of the iSeries and zSeries systems with the productivity enhancements of WebSphere Portal.

Republic Indemnity Company of America, a leading provider of workers' compensation insurance, required a single point of access to provide their employees, insurance agents and customers with multiple types of information while maintaining a consistent look and feel.

"Since we began running WebSphere Portal on our iSeries server we have had 99.9 percent uptime," says Dave Alton, Director of Infrastructure Services for Republic Indemnity. "

"WebSphere Portal is a key component of IBM's middleware strategy providing integration and portal services essential to the creation of rich composite applications," said Ken Bisconti, vice president, IBM Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Products.

IBM WebSphere Portal for Multiplatforms Version 5.1.0.1 and IBM WebSphere Portal Enable for z/OS Version 5.1 were made available in June of 2005 from IBM and authorized resellers.

IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. IBM Software offers a wide range of middleware and operating systems for all types of computing platforms, allowing customers to take full advantage of the on demand era.