Cicero Technology / Cicero Software
Cicero integrates disparate applications regardless of the platform, enables rapid development of effective, simple-to-maintain composite applications, accelerates time to value and deploys cost-effective, "best-of-breed" business solutions by leveraging existing IT investments.
Integration Architecture
Cicero helps the architect maintain consistent integration project design and implementation by providing extensible, standardized methods for interacting with Windows applications, COM objects, web pages, commercial software packages, legacy applications, and Java applications among others. Cicero can integrate applications running on the server or desktop, giving the application architect complete flexibility in determining where, when, and how application integration occurs. Cicero can also be used to capture and aggregate data from many different applications, apply business rules as needed, such as data transformation rules, and share that data bi-directionally via a composite view. An event in one application can cause processing in another unrelated application, even if these were implemented using differing technologies, such as Windows and Java.
Non-Invasive Integration
Cicero Studio, an integration configuration toolkit, provides a nontraditional approach to application integration. By providing a high level of object-oriented integration, Cicero Studio eliminates the need for source code modification. It includes high-level integration objects, called genes (which translate disparate application interface protocols to one common interface used by Cicero), an event processor, a context manager and a publish-subscribe information bus that enables applications to share data. It also includes a set of integration wizards that greatly simplify the task of application integration.
Point-and-Click Integration
Cicero Studio enables integrators to examine the interface exposed by an application and to selectively access specific information at a meta-level without requiring a deep knowledge of that application's internal implementation. The integrator can also specify the events generated or used by the interface and the data to be included in context for use across applications. The integration activity is more similar to a configuration than a programming exercise. Once the integrator has selected the information of interest, Cicero Studio translates the integration specifications into an XML repository that fully describes the behavior of the integrated applications. The Cicero Runtime processor uses the XML repository to instantiate the interface and proxy interactions between the applications and Cicero. Integrators can reuse integration specifications by exporting them from one "project" and importing them into others.
Unified Desktop
The user experience is can vary from displaying applications with no visible changes with behind the scenes integration and no visual footprint to using Cicero to guide the users visually through complex workflows. In the latter instances, Cicero provides a lightweight but powerful, HTML-based GUI that is also configured within Cicero Studio. This GUI can be also used to create composite applications that optimize user productivity.
Cicero can perform navigation across applications on the users' behalf. This not only optimizes user productivity (fewer keystrokes, no skipped steps in a workflow), but also can reduce training requirements by automating navigation across difficult to navigate applications (such as a series of 3270 screens). The user sees the relevant data at all times instead of navigating to find that data.
Web Services
Cicero enables the architect to produce complex, feature-rich and human-friendly Web Services immediately while still be ready to quickly adopt emerging industry standards (e.g., Business Process Execution Language - BPEL) as they are finalized and disseminated. In addition to acting as a Web Services provider, Cicero can act as a Web Services consumer retrieving data and using it within the Cicero integration. Cicero's unique ability to make legacy, client server, Web and Windows applications truly efficient Web Services means that the architect does not have to wait for future budgets, standards, tools and business requirements to come available. Functionally-rich Web Services can be developed and deployed in a matter of weeks using the applications, systems, tools and talent already in place.
Extending Integration Capabilities
Cicero is a powerful integration tool that eliminates most of the technical complexity associated with application integration. Integrators avoid the high cost and complexity of invasive code modifications and extend the scope of their integration capabilities into new and legacy environments. Cicero provides an open architecture that can be extend to incorporate new behaviors by adding genes and communicating with COM objects. This enables Cicero to be extended to accommodate new platforms and interface requirements as needed and provides a rich paradigm for evolving integration behaviors over time. It also means that Cicero can be implemented in both the desktop and n-tier server of a service-oriented architecture.
Reducing Integration Costs
By using Cicero, integrators can substantially reduce the time and cost of integration projects and achieve scalable and sustainable integration solutions to evolving business needs. Cicero-supported integration enables organizations to preserve and extend their technological investments and augment systems with new technological capabilities without the need for large-scale technology replacement initiatives and complex middleware integration.
