OGIS International, Inc. News

OGIS INTERNATIONAL PREVIEWS NEW WEB SERVICES INTEGRATION SUITE AIMED AT HELPING DEVELOPERS SPEED UP PROCESS FOR INTEGRATING WEB SERVICES WITH APPLICATIONS

New Version of XGrotto.com Expands Web Service Registration with Support for "Individual Web Services"

SANTA CLARA, CA, (SD West Conference & Expo) - March 24, 2003 - OGIS International announced today that it is previewing its new XGrotto Web Services Integration Suite aimed at helping developers integrate Web Services with their applications faster. The company also announced enhancements to its XGrotto.com directory, the broadest standards-based registry of Web Services. OGIS' enhanced XGrotto.com directory extends the registry beyond Web Service providers and businesses to now include individuals, who can register their personal Web Services and make them available to a broader audience.

A preview version of the XGrotto Web Services Integration Suite is available via a download by visiting http://ogis-international.com. General availability of the suite is planned for the second quarter.

XGrotto Web Services Integration Suite Previewed
Web Services unique ability to electronically link disparate systems from various parties faster and more economically than ever before is behind the growing need that developers have to rapidly integrate Web Services into their business applications. Existing tools do not have the flexibility needed by developers to rapidly integrate this growing range of Web Services available. Currently, for every Web Service addition or removal, developers must decide in advance which Web Service to use, then write code to embed it into their application before testing it out. XGrotto Suite's highly dynamic capabilities enable developers to skip this cumbersome process at run time and dynamically discover and integrate the Web Services into their workflow.

The XGrotto Web Services Integration Suite comes with a range of tools and libraries that help application developers and system integrators quickly enhance applications with Web Services. The Suite aims to simplify interoperability hurdles that developers face when incorporating different platform-based Web Services, such as a .Net-based Web Service and a Java-based Web Service. Developers using the XGrotto Integration Suite will benefit from the ability to:

Speed the process of finding and integrating business partners' Web Services by leveraging the Suite's dynamic capabilities.
Ease interoperability through the support of a wide array of industry standards and protocols including UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration), WSDL (Web Services Description Language) XML-based Web Services, and SOAP. Developers will find testing newly created or publicly available Web Services is faster with the Suite's broad support for the developers' choice of development tools and environments including Microsoft .NET and Java.
Integrate applications faster through the broadest platform support including Linux, IBM WebSphere, Microsoft .NET, Sun ONE as well as open source tools like Apache Axis.
Facilitate management of intra-enterprise Web services via a private UDDI-like registry.

Web Services Registry Engine: Offering identical functionality as the XGrotto.com directory, the Suite's Registry Engine provides developers with a tool to manage, host, and utilize their own Web Services internally. Available as a SOAP-based utility, developers can use the engine as a private registry and make Web Services available throughout their company while having a simplified, uniform way of administering the services.

Registry Client Library: This library includes administration and utility tools to manage the registry and access the XGrotto Web Services Registry Engine. This Java-based library can also be integrated into a developer's own Java application, bypassing network or other protocol issues.

Dynamic Client Library: Using the WSDL assigned by a developer at run-time, the library enables a Web Service to dynamically access an application, regardless of their development or deployment environment, saving time by avoiding the need to generate and compile binding classes for each WSDL protocol.

New Enhancements Extend XGrotto.com Directory's Usability
The XGrotto.com directory, www.XGrotto.com, provides automatic client generation and workflow-driven support of business processes. Hosted by OGIS International and introduced last fall, XGrotto.com overcomes UDDI directory limitations, because it does not restrict or require users to search for services by name only. Instead, the XGrotto.com directory provides rich, functional interfaces that enable companies to search for Web Services using keywords, service quality and other criteria. The latest XGrotto.com directory enhancements include:

"Individual Web Services" Support: XGrotto.com was first introduced as a vehicle for providers and companies to present their Web Services. Support has now been extended so individuals, students, research institutes, and academic organizations, that have developed their own personal Web Services, can register them for others to more readily locate and invoke them.
User Interface improvements: An enhanced user interface of XGrotto.com's Try It! And Connect'em! functionality improves navigation and speeds up Web Services invocation. User interface improvements minimize the number of pages users have to navigate from several down to a single one, enabling consumers of Web Services to quickly test and assess a Web Service's function and value.
SOAP Support: With published WSDL and client libraries provided as a part of XGrotto Web Services Integration Suite, developers can integrate the XGrotto.com directory into their own Java applications, taking advantage of the time-saving dynamic capabilities of the XGrotto.com public Web Services registry. This option lets developers leverage XGrotto.com's capabilities and broad range of publicly available Web Services more easily, reducing the time and development cost of their applications compared to developing similar applications from scratch.

OGIS will showcase its Web Services Development Suite at the SD West Expo, taking place at the Santa Clara Convention Center from March 25-27, 2003. Web service providers and developers interested can visit the company in the Web Services Pavilion at the SD West Conference & Expo.

About OGIS International, Inc.
Based in Palo Alto, California, OGIS International is a provider of Java, UML and Web Services solutions. OGIS' flagship XGrotto Platform and Directory enables businesses and developers to find and automate the integration of SOAP, WSDL and XML-based Web Services, saving significant development time and programming costs. Additionally, its solutions enable users to seamlessly connect to multiple Web services according to pre-defined workflows, resulting in improved customer service and Web service adoption. For more information about OGIS International and its products, please call 650-462-4940 or visit http://www.ogis-international.com.

Press Contact:
Carmen Hughes
Ignite Public Relations
415.282.9625
carmen@ignitepr.com