Iona takes the wraps off Orbix successor


22 Oct 2003

Iona Technologies yesterday unveiled Artix, a new family of middleware products that the software firm claims will enable its customers to extend the life of existing IT systems and consolidate legacy middleware to reduce technology cost, complexity and vendor dependency.

Iona is presenting the technology as the logical successor to its groundbreaking Orbix platform. “Ten years ago, Iona pioneered a software revolution with Orbix. Since that time, global 2000 companies and their IT partners have adopted our vision and approach to making software work together,” said Chris Horn, CEO and founder at Iona. “Artix applies this vision to today’s complex and dynamic business environment, making it possible for organisations to transform their technology heterogeneity from a liability to an asset.”

In a statement, the company said the technology’s distributed architecture was what separated it from its rivals.

“Unlike ‘hub and spoke’ designs common to EAI [enterprise application integration] technologies, or dependence on a single technology that platform vendors demand, Artix’s distributed architecture ensures that applications and systems remain independent and loosely coupled, leaving them able to communicate with multiple systems using a common interface. Artix’ distributed scheme improves the scalability of integration projects and eliminates single-points of failure in the system.”

The Artix family includes four initial products that perform unique tasks such as abstracting applications from legacy middleware, renovating existing applications and building high-performance web services links between middleware platforms. Two of the products – Artix Relay and Artix Encompass – are shipping now. Artix Migrate and Artix Mainframe would ship later this quarter, the company said.

Keith Walter, managing director of the Communications and Mobile Industry practice of BearingPoint, an Iona partner, said: “Companies are looking for a product that offers the capability of implementing next-generation architectures as well as help them accelerate the integration process. Implementing a product like Iona’s can jump-start this process without the need to abandon existing investments.”

By Brian Skelly