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ICF Consulting
Incorporates ebXML to Strengthen Trading Partner Collaboration
with Defense Department’s Worldwide Procurement Application
SAN JOSE, CA, AND FAIRFAX, VA,
November 8, 2004 – BEA Systems (Nasdaq:BEAS),
the world’s
leading application infrastructure software company and
ICF Consulting today announced that development has been
completed on the newest version of DOD
EMALL, one of the U.S. Department of Defense’s
(DOD) most successful online applications. DOD EMALL, which is built on BEA WebLogic
Integration TM 8.1, is the Defense Department’s worldwide commerce portal,
processing more than $188 million in transactions annually.
Among the key enhancements in the new DOD EMALL is the use of the Electronic
Business using eXtensible
Markup Language (ebXML) standard for secure, reliable
messaging between trading partners. DOD EMALL is one of the largest on-line operations
ever to adopt ebXML, which is designed to allow the Web site to retry actions
that are aborted or fail and confirm message receipt to ensure non-repudiation
while helping to complete transactions faster. ebXML also helps facilitate the
use of digital signatures to verify message authenticity and help to ensure message
integrity. In addition, ebXML is protocol independent so that it can be used
regardless of the means by which an interaction is taking place (e.g., e-mail,
FTP, http, Web services).
"It is imperative that DOD EMALL users are able to send and receive mission-critical
order information among heterogeneous systems securely and reliably," said
Gabrielle Zimmerman, systems integration manager for DOD EMALL. Reliability
of messaging became a significant concern as DOD EMALL’s transaction
volume grew from $13.7 million in 2002 to $188 million in 2003. Orders are
expected to approach $300 million in 2005.
DOD EMALL has evolved into much more than the standard "shopping cart" idiom
for electronic commerce. ICF Consulting and BEA Systems worked with the DOD
to build a customized, service-oriented architecture (SOA). The SOA is designed
to bring a high degree of adaptability to DOD EMALL, helping to enable the
DOD to implement change rapidly as the department’s needs evolve, and
it presents a highly personalized screen to users based on their specific job
responsibilities, security clearances, and other variables.
The new DOD EMALL makes extensive use of modeled procurement processes and
workflows developed using BEA WebLogic Workshop, a full-featured Java development
environment optimized for SOA, and it also leverages the business process management
(BPM) capability of BEA WebLogic Integration to help orchestrate and streamline
the flow of messages and application interactions. BEA WebLogic Integration
8.1 also provides an integration layer within the DOD EMALL infrastructure,
designed to enable the DOD to integrate DOD EMALL in hub-and-spoke fashion
with finance and accounting applications, vendor catalogs, sales and fulfillment
systems, and security services.
About BEA
BEA Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: BEAS) is the world's leading application infrastructure
software company, providing the enterprise software foundation that allows
thousands of companies to benefit from service-oriented architectures. With
more than 15,000 customers around the world, including the majority of the
Fortune Global 500, BEA and its WebLogic® and Tuxedo® brands are
among the most trusted names in business. Headquartered in San Jose, Calif.,
BEA has 71 offices in 34 countries.
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ICF International (Nasdaq: ICFI) partners with government and commercial clients to deliver consulting services and technology solutions in the energy, environment, transportation, social programs, defense, and homeland security markets. The firm combines passion for its work with industry expertise and innovative analytics to produce compelling results throughout the entire program life cycle, from analysis and design through implementation and improvement. Since 1969, ICF has been serving government at all levels, major corporations, and multilateral institutions. More than 1,800 employees serve these clients worldwide. ICF’s Web site is http://www.icfi.com.
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For Immediate Release
Contact: Douglas
Beck
Tel: 1.703.934.3820
Contact: Karesha McGee
BEA Systems, Inc.
Tel: 1.408.570.8288
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