Compaq has signed up nine independent software vendors (ISVs) as business partners for its Zero Latency Enterprise (ZLE) initiative, which is designed to provide real-time transaction processing solutions for conducting business over the Internet.
The software partners joining the venture include: Actional Corporation; Acxiom Corporation; Blaze Software; Mercator Software; MicroStrategy; Protagona Worldwide; SAS Institute; Savant Technologies; and Trillium Software. Compaq's ZLE initiative is aimed at telecommunications, finance, and retail markets which have most to gain from immediate insight into customer actions and business transactions.
Compaq defines ZLE as a transaction-oriented solution which provides a single, integrated view of business and customer transactions as they occur, no matter where they occur in the enterprise, in real time. In a zero latency environment, the flow of internal information is accelerated to the point where transactions are instantaneously propagated within the enterprise and can be acted upon in real time. Gartner, which originated the zero latency concept, forecasts that almost every successful business will have some form of ZLE infrastructure.
Ross Altman, research director, Gartner, says: "Information that's fresh has the most value. In a real-time, zero latency enterprise, information is delivered to the right place at the right time for maximum business value."
Compaq's ZLE framework combines enterprise application integration (EAI) technology and a real-time Operational Data Store (ODS) supported by applications that take advantage of real-time data.
Compaq says its ISV partner software can be grouped into three categories within this architecture: Core ZLE Services; Docking Applications; and Clip-On Applications.
Core ZLE Services are the central applications used for building a customer's ZLE solution and interfacing to the ODS and include software from Blaze, Mercator, Savant and SAS.
Docking Applications enable a customer's existing applications to "plug-and-play" with ZLE implementations. Examples of typical docking applications include Siebel, SAP, Oracle, and Peoplesoft. For Compaq, Actional has been selected to provide application integration software for connecting to these ERP-based solutions.
Clip-On Applications are either standalone and enhanced through tight integration with a core ZLE service or new applications built by Compaq or an ISV such as Acxiom, Protagona, MicroStrategy and Trillium Software.