Application Integration Middleware
Business Challenge
Responding to the changing structure of distribution channels, the insurance companies
face a challenge to use Internet technologies for timely and accurate information
exchange with business partners and independent brokers. Processing claims and queries
over the Internet can be implemented only through adoption of ACORD XML-based standards
by the insurance agency. The process is complicated by the fact that the most insurance
companies rely on legacy systems for many of their core operations. As a result,
they face a challenge to expose their legacy systems to support XML standards and
Internet communications.
Software Solution
Axmor Software was involved by IBM team into the development of the solution that
should simplify adoption of ACORD standards by Insurance companies burdened with
legacy systems or even those who manually process queries.
ACORD standards define a document structure and flow for industry specific forms,
documents and data. Processes in proprietary legacy systems do not match these standards
and require a “proxy” to adopt to ACORD.
The technical challenge was to isolate private processes accepted within organizations
from a complexity of the ACORD specification. Axmor’s team engineered a middleware
component that converts ACORD messages to business forms and reports used in legacy
operations. The project required not only a deep understanding of the ACORD specification
and industry specific knowledge, but also analytical skills to build an accurate
conversion algorithm.
The middleware component receives ACORD messages arriving via SOAP/HTTP, splits
them into XML documents and converts them into a proprietary data flow format. The
high security level is achieved through authentication of the messages arriving
from within or outside the organization.
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CLIENT:
A multi-national IT corporation
BRIEF:
Development of a tool to translate ACORD message flow - an insurance industry standard
for Internet data exchange - to proprietary data exchange formats.
BENEFITS:
Through implementation of the middleware component, the insurance companies can
respond to the technological challenges while keeping transition costs at a minimum.
The new solution provides a path for the agencies to modernize legacy system to
better integrate Internet technologies and stay competitive in the market.
TOOLS & TECHNOLOGIES:
- IBM WebSphere Business Integration Server Foundation
- IBM DB2 Universal Database
- EJB
- JSP
- Servlet
- Webservices
- Process Choreographer
- ItemFiled Content Master
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