Service platform for independent solution development

Trivadis has built a flexible service platform for BKW Energie AG. It has also trained employees in various aspects for future developments.

In Short

CHALLENGE

Heterogeneous system landscape, high integration requirements, high criticality of the systems.

SOLUTION

A fault-tolerant, flexible integration solution with automated and timely data exchange.

BENEFIT

Possibilities of efficient development of robust and fail-safe solutions for future applications.

Our Solution

BKW Energie AG commissioned Trivadis to provide solutions for several issues: For some years now, Oracle Service Bus (OSB) has been successfully deployed at BKW Energie AG as a central mediation platform for Enterprise Application Integration (EAI). The high availability platform primarily provides stateless services for integrating applications with data and log transformations. To supplement this integration platform, a likewise high-availability environment is now to be set up on which the processcentric processing operations can also be efficiently mapped and executed as stateful services.

The medium-term objective is to expand the capabilities of the platform with decision services by means of a rule engine and a Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) tool. Last but not least, the Development, Engineering and Operations staff have to be trained and supported during the further improvement measures. The fully realized project covers all the areas in question, from the design of the new platform and its implementation, development of the integration processes, through to optimization of the platform and training of the internal staff:

High availability SOA Suite 12c cluster platform based on Oracle WebLogic
Integration processes between business-critical applications
Optimization of the existing OSB 11g platform
Training of the Engineering, Operations and Development staff
Design guidelines and recommendations for developers

The integration processes implemented as a pilot solution allow the network information systems to be linked up with the ERP system at BKW. They are based on the Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) and use Oracle Service Bus on the mediation level. During the company-specific training, BKW staff from various ICT areas were specially trained in the respective requirements and needs in the areas of platform engineering, tuning, monitoring, operations, and application development.

Thanks to the competent support and experience of the Trivadis consultants, we now have a powerful and flexible service platform. The setup and launch of the platform were carried out in a thoroughly solution-oriented and professional manner. This means that we now also have at our disposal a template for future developments in this area, and with the training given to our staff we can implement them efficiently as well.

Maurice Bachor, Head of the Enterprise Application Integration working group, BKW Energie AG

Ideal use of know-how on both sides

The utilized architecture concepts and technologies provide for an extremely fault-tolerant integration solution which automatically safeguards the reliable transmission and processing of messages even in the event of temporary downtimes or an overload of the end systems. It can also cope with system failures lasting for several hours or days. The individual processed events can be tracked at all times as required. The drafted design guidelines and recommendations – together with the high availability platform and the task-oriented training – allow for efficient development of robust and failsafe solutions for future application scenarios. For the successful and target-oriented implementation, the project teams from different departments at BKW and at Trivadis worked very closely together. This ensured that the solutions ideally accommodate the specific circumstances and fulfill the requirements and needs at BKW to the greatest possible extent. The know-how and experience of both parties could thus be exploited to the full.

ABOUT BKW GROUP

The BKW Group is a Bern-based international energy and infrastructure company employing around 10’000 people. Its company network and extensive expertise allow it to offer its customers a full range of overall solutions. The Group plans, builds and operates infrastructure to produce and supply energy to businesses, households and the public sector, and offers digital business models for renewable energies. Today, the BKW Group portfolio comprises everything from engineering consultancy and planning for energy, infrastructure and environmental projects, through integrated offers in the field of building technology, to the construction, servicing and maintenance of energy, telecommunications, transport and water networks.

Technologies used

Oracle WebLogic Suite
Oracle Service Bus
Oracle SOA Suite