December 2009

Welcome to the Hubspan newsletter – Your connection to trends and happenings in the business integration market, Hubspan customer stories and expert views. For more information on any of these articles or to learn more about Hubspan, please email info@hubspan.com 

IN THIS ISSUE

Feature Story:  Hubspan launches New WebSpan Connect SaaS Integration Products

Executive Q&A:  Security in the Cloud with VP of Engineering Ian Huynh

Customer Spotlight:  eCommerce Integration with Barnes & Noble.com

News & Views:  Articles on Cloud Trends and the Evolving Integration Market

Feature Story:   Hubspan Launches New WebSpan Connect SaaS Integration Products

Hubspan has announced the new WebSpan Connect product line, a suite of basic business integration packages designed for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). WebSpan Connect launches with four packages, including secure managed file transfer, e-invoicing, electronic purchase order and eCommerce punchout.

The WebSpan Connect SaaS integration packages are uniquely priced per connection instead of by transaction, which enables SMEs to easily predict budgets and scale up or down accordingly.  Pricing starts at $350 per connection and is tiered as the number of connections grows. 

The new packages unveiled today include:

• Purchase Order Connector – Enables purchase order exchanges, as well as other messages such as purchase order acknowledgements and shipping and delivery notices, in a secure environment. Purchase Order Connector supports major PO formats from EDI 850 and iDOCs to Ariba, Oracle and Lawson, and more.
• Invoice Connector – Provides electronic exchange of invoices, as well as other invoice-related documents across systems, applications and enterprises.  It supports all invoicing formats, from EDI 810 and 811 to procurement systems, such as Ariba, SAP, Oracle and Lawson, as well as in-house applications.
• Punchout Connector – Offers a direct connection from a buyer’s procurement system to a supplier’s online catalog or eCommerce store. Punchout Connector seamlessly works with procurement systems such as Ariba, SAP, Oracle and others and supports all types of data formats.
• File Transfer Connector – Provides small to massive managed file transfers, as well as enterprise-level services, such as on-boarding, community management, process visibility, monitoring, data validation and data protection.

With this launch, WebSpan is now available in two solutions: WebSpan Connect for basic integration processes and WebSpan Process, which are premium business integration processes for Supply Chain, Demand Chain, eCommerce and Advanced Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).

As a cloud-based solution delivered as SaaS, WebSpan Connect reduces IT costs by eliminating the need for costly hardware or software to configure, maintain or support, while providing interoperability across applications and standards. With WebSpan, customers remove paper-based exchanges and manual interactions to receive a fully-automated, electronic process matched with services by Hubspan’s integration specialists.

Learn more about the WebSpan solutions: http://www.hubspan.com/solutions/

Executive Q&A:   Security in the Cloud with VP of Engineering Ian Huynh 

Ian Huynh is Hubspan’s VP of Engineering. A veteran of the IT industry, Ian has nearly 20 years experience in the software, services and Internet markets, with a particular expertise in security. Hubspan Connections spoke to Ian about security in the cloud and what every company should know and ask to keep their information and transactions safe.

Connections:  What is the first thing that comes to mind when people talk about security in the cloud?

Ian:  The first thing I believe people are concerned with is how their data is protected.  If you are going to place your data outside your physical control, what steps are being taken to secure that data?  Protecting data is very important, but it is also more complex than it first appears. There are many pieces to data protection, from the encryption of the data to the access control rules to key management, and others.

Connections:  How do you ensure the protection of data for your customers?

Ian: It’s important to clarify that there are two types of data that need to be secured. There is data in transit and data at rest.  Data in transit by itself is pretty secure because most protocols have built in security as the data is transmitted.  But it’s just as important to have strong protection within the data center while the data is at rest, as this is where you typically find problems. 

Data should also be encrypted, and encrypted at the highest levels.  All data that comes across our data center is encrypted (at levels consistent with Department of Defense requirements), and it is encrypted whether in motion or at rest. 

At the same time, encryption can be expensive and can slow down the transfer process. So we have created a two phased encryption process. There is a minimal set of information that needs to be recorded for the transaction to flow. We encrypt that information first and then asynchronously encrypt the heavy message afterward.

Finally, after you have encrypted the data, you need to audit who can access it. So data or security auditing is also an important step in the overall data protection process. 

Connections:  Why is auditing important?

Ian: There are two steps to this: controlling the access and then auditing and reporting on that access. With access control, you always need to make sure your data is not accessed by anyone without a need to know.  Beyond that, you also need to know who accessed the data and why.  There are people who have the privilege to access that data, but they do not always have permission to see it. So we need to audit when they access the data and if they had permission and reason to do so. These are just a few of the issues that come up in conversations we have with our customers.

Connections:  Are there other areas of security companies should consider?

Ian: There is absolutely more to security than encryption and auditing. In fact, there are multiple factors that should be considered that span the technology, infrastructure, people and processes.  The greatest factor with security is trust and reliability. People want to be assured that a cloud solution can be trusted and will deliver what the vendor says it will. Hubspan built one of the very first cloud-based platforms, and we are experts in cloud security. Also, over our ten years, we have achieved a strong record of reliability, security and scalability. Our business integration platform is always on and can be trusted to deliver.

For more information: Listen to this Network World Podcast interview with Ian Huynh on cloud security and what every CIO should ask a cloud vendor. Or email info@hubspan.com and ask for a copy of the Hubspan Security and PCI Compliance White Paper.

Customer Spotlight: eCommerce Integration with Barnes & Noble.com

Barnes & Noble.com is focused on the customer, illustrated by its repeated leadership in customer satisfaction surveys and its strong customer loyalty. This commitment remains true across both its physical and online stores. Therefore, it’s not surprising that when the B2B division discovered customers were requesting new functionalities from its procurement platform, the company quickly sought a solution. Barnes & Noble.com turned to Hubspan to provide interoperability across all systems and applications and made it easier for corporate customers to work and shop with Barnes & Noble.com. The result is greater customer satisfaction, retention and revenues.

At the heart of Barnes & Noble.com’s challenge was how to support new and legacy procurement platforms used by customers and prospects, while not having to invest in new systems itself or stop using its preferred data format, a proprietary form of XML, called bnML. The company also needed to optimize overall eCommerce operations to automate Web-based sales; ideally including punchout along with automated online purchase orders, invoicing, and inventory availability checks. Any solution had to rapidly activate those many different existing e-procurement platforms, as well as an unknown number of homegrown solutions. The company’s IT staff faced this complex, potentially costly and time-consuming project at a time when staff resources were needed for other equally urgent tasks.

Barnes & Noble.com B2B customers were using more than 10 different e-procurement systems such as SciQuest, Ariba, SAP and Oracle. Hubspan automates the exchange and transformation of the diverse messages coming from these applications and mediates the various standards and business rules, thereby enabling Barnes & noble.com to integrate seamlessly with its customers. Since the solution is SaaS-based, the implementation scaled easily and deployed quickly without the need for additional software or infrastructure purchases. Hubspan also handles all the customer on-boarding as well as ongoing community management.

B2B integration for Barnes & Noble.com improved the top and bottom lines! Results included 100% retention of integrated customers, more than 20% net new B2B customers (and still growing), net savings of two full-time employees, and tens of thousands of dollars saved in development and infrastructure costs.

For More Information:  Recently, Barnes & Noble.com and one of their customers, DonorsChoose.org were featured in a Hubspan Webinar.  DonorsChoose.org is an educational non-profit that is making a difference and using cutting edge technology with Ariba and Hubspan.

Watch the Webcast now:  https://hubspan.webex.com/hubspan/ldr.php?AT=pb&SP=MC&rID=34319417&rKey=1e260c278402eb99

Download the podcast: https://hubspan.webex.com/hubspan/lsr.php?AT=dw&SP=MC&rID=34319417&rKey=bc3cc715b8873ae6 

You can see read this case study and others on the Hubspan Website:  http://www.hubspan.com/resources/case-studies/

News & Views

Top 10 Cloud Computing Flashpoints of 2009 by Jeffrey M. Kaplan, E-Commerce Times http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/Top-10-Cloud-Computing-Flashpoints-of-2009-68872.html
SaaS expert Jeff Kaplan gives a brief history of SaaS and cloud computing in 2009, and suggests that it has arrived as a viable mainstream business model, that the market is volatile, and missteps won’t be overlooked. However, Kaplan acknowledges there’s still plenty of room for innovation and SaaS will be a growing force to be reckoned with in 2010.

Government Technologist:  States as Cloud Service Providers – As state CIOs devise cloud computing strategies, they must assess whether their teams can provide services with the same skill and efficiency as commercial providers   By John Foley, Information Week http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/cloud-saas/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=222000730

The Evolving Market for Cloud Integration – IT Business Edge’s Loraine Lawson talks to Hubspan’s Margaret Dawson about what Hubspan offers and the market for cloud-based integration. http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/community/features/interviews/blog/the-evolving-market-for-cloud-integration/?cs=36824  

Shop This Holiday Season from the Hubspan Community  

Avoid the Malls and Shop Online at Barnes & Noble.com:  With a vast selection of books, music, movies and more, Barnes & Noble.com helps make holiday shopping easy!! www.barnesandnoble.com

Give the Gift of Education at DonorsChoose.org:  Does your company give gifts to clients or staff during the holidays?  Or are you looking for a meaningful present for friends, family, or contacts this season? 

Better than a fruit basket, a DonorsChoose.org GivingCard gives someone the gift of giving.  With this gift, your recipient chooses a project to support and hears back from the classroom.

GivingCards stand out, and as reported by The Wall Street Journal, they are proven mechanisms for increasing customer loyalty. 

Please visit http://bit.ly/DCGivingCard today for info.  If you’re interested in ordering more than several GivingCards, see the option for a bulk / corporate order.  GivingCards can be customized with any message and be of any denomination.  And you can even choose to get them via mail or email, or to print them yourself.