Kovair Value Proposition for Tools Integration

Kovair Value Proposition for Tools Integration

Introduction

Kovair, a technology leader in the domain of Integrated Applications Lifecycle Management – ALM offers several solutions such as Requirements Management, Test Management, Issues and Change Management. Kovair is known for its following four technology value propositions, no matter what specific application or solution you want to build with it. 100% web based solution that supports multiple major browsers IE, Firefox, and Chrome with no client-side software installation. Drag and drop interface and easy codeless configuration of desired applications making it a very viable and flexible long-term investment having very high ROI. An excellent Task based, built-in Process, or Workflow Engine called the ‘Omniprocess’ that allows to configure and maintain any business process within the tool using a drag and drop visual designer. A SOA architected Enterprise Service Bus ‘Omnibus Integration Platform’. It facilitates integration of different tools or software by building thin adapters for each of them. It also allows bidirectional data transfer between the tools. Other than just synchronization of records between tools, Omnibus also allows synchronization of relationships, comments and attachments associated with each and every record. With the above basics of Kovair succinctly outlined, let us focus on the value propositions of the Enterprise Integration Bus – the Omnibus Integration Platform in this particular paper.

The Omnibus Integrations

Almost every organization has separate teams for working on different phases of application development. These teams work in silos and prefer to use their own set of tools popular in their own domain. This has made all the phases disjointed from each other and has made the process of tracking and maintaining the progress of a release very tough. Kovair helps to resolve this communication issue in two dimensions. For seamless communication between multiple phases of Application Lifecycle Development, Kovair offers a 100% web based single data repository where data of all phases can be maintained, traced and tracked for better predictability and ensuring quality at every step. However, this is not the case in real life as most organizations use best-of-breed tools from multiple vendors which seldom have interconnectivity and data transferability unless point to point integrations are carried out. Even different tools from the same vendor are not typically connected with each other. Here the second dimension of Kovair’s integration capability comes into play.

To eliminate the need for point-to-point integrations – where integrating 5 different tools requires 10 total integrations, Kovair developed the SOA based Omnibus technology. In a bus or hub like architecture for integrations, 5 tools integrations would require only 5 adapters, thus bringing in considerable savings in both the development and maintenance costs during upgrade to the newer version of the tools. Kovair’s Omnibus Integration Platform is technology, vendor and location agnostic. This means Kovair can be integrated with other tools that may be using Oracle database or running on a Linux platform, or are in different locations. Kovair’s web based architecture facilitates remote communication and collaboration among tools and their users. In today’s multi-location and outsourced development environment, it is necessary that a Requirements Management tool based in Boston communicates with a Test tool based in Bangalore. The Omnibus Integration Platform is very capable of delivering on this essential need. The following figure provides a visual representation of multiple integrations from Kovair that can be described as “Kovair Model” for ALM.

Tool Integration

The Advantages of the Omnibus Technology

The Omnibus technology has a few unique advantages that are enumerated below.

  • The Bus or Hub versus point-to-point integrations, as discussed above brings considerable savings in development and maintenance costs.
  • Web Services Standard or SOA architecture makes it open to integrate with any type of software from any vendor including homegrown tools or databases for integrations.
  • The data layer is separated from the business layer and as such no hard coding of business rules has to be carried out for the integrations. Business rules are configured for each application as desired by the user in a codeless manner.
  • Kovair Omnibus integrations enhance the process capabilities of other tools that do not have a built-in process engine.

The Competitive Edge

SOA based ESB architected Kovair Omnibus Integration Platform is backed up by a 100% web based central repository system. This gives manifold advantages to Omnibus in comparison to other competitors. The uniqueness of Kovair Omnibus Integrated platform is given below.

  • Proprietary SOA based ESB architected integration platform
  • Task and Web based Automated, Graphically Configurable Workflow with Notification, Eliminating manual hand-offs
  • Policy engine allowing users to configure business rules for –
    • Event based actions
    • Sending notifications o Perform scheduled activities
    • Escalate information
  • Helps to achieve cross tool End-to-End Traceability
  • Built-In Cross Tool Data Based Real-Time Reporting and Dashboards increases predictability and quality of a release.

Summary

For organizations having prior investments in multiple tools from vendors such as IBM, HP and Microsoft, Kovair offers an excellent value proposition to enhance ROI in two major ways. The first one is by providing the capabilities to integrate tools from any one of these or other vendors at a relatively low cost. The second one is by filling out certain gaps in point tools that may not exist at these companies. Kovair has a complete list of existing and planned integration adapters on its website.