Applications:

• EDI - Electronic Data Interchange (also known as B2B integration) supports numerous industry-standard formats and message types, including AX12, HIPAA, and EDIFACT.  EXTOL's EEI and EBI products support EDI.
• Application integration - Application integration (also known as A2A integration) enables stand-alone applications to communicate with each other through EBI.
• Data conversion - Data conversion is supported through EBI's RuleSets and data transformation capabilities and supports multiple modes, including zero-downtime data conversion.
• Data migration - Data migration is supported through EBI's RuleSets and data transformation capabilities and supports multiple modes, including zero-downtime data migration.
• Web services  - Web Services support in EBI allows controlled and secure exposure of key business functions and processes.  EBI supports key functions and technologies, including UDDI, RESTful, and SOAP.

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Project Type:

• A2A - Application-to-application project support in EBI enables communications and control between disparate applications.  Those applications may be in a single location (in-house) or deployed across multiple infrastructures (hybrid, frequently a combination of in-house and cloud).
• B2B - Business-to-business projects are traditionally EDI, often but not always in an industry-standard format.  EEI and EBI support standard and non-standard (custom) data and mapping rules.
• Data - Migrate, synchronize, and integrate enterprise file and database content, in support of application migrations, business intelligence applications, on-demand web access, and other data-intensive business processes.
• Cloud - Integrate Cloud-based applications and services with on-premise applications and data, in support of e-invoicing, sales force automation, field service dispatching, and other business processes.
• All/Mixed - EXTOL’s EBI provides full support for complex projects requiring both internal (A2A) and external (B2B) integration capabilities.

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Payment Terms:

• Purchase - EXTOL offers payment term flexibility—you can convert your lease, monthly, or usage license into a purchase license.
• Lease - EXTOL offers its products “for sale” in the traditional manner, a standard perpetual use license.
• Monthly - EXTOL offers its products on a monthly basis, for a time-boxed project, a peak-load situation, or an extended evaluation.
• Usage - For customers working to tie revenue and expenses, EXTOL offers “pay as you go” (“software as a service”) pricing, where your monthly costs are a function of your transaction volume.

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Syntax:

• EDI - EEI and EBI support EDI syntaxes including ANSI X12 and EDIFACT.
• XML - EBI supports data transformation to and from XML.
• Spreadsheet - EBI can transform spreadsheet data (including .xlsx) into other syntaxes.
• Database - EBI supports reading and writing do multiple databases, including DB2 for the i, Oracle, MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server.
• Flat File - Flat files are a universally-recognized data syntax frequently used as an intermediate, or interchange, format.  EEI and EBI support reading and writing flat files to and from other data syntaxes.
• All/Mixed - EBI supports mixing and matching data syntaxes: for example, you can convert a spreadsheet into a database format, a flat file into XML, or XML into a database.

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Hardware:

• Dedicated - Running EXTOL’s products on dedicated hardware, both owned and hosted, is fully supported.
• Virtual - EXTOL’s products run in virtualized mode as well (although this option is workload-dependent)

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Location:

• Behind the firewall - In this traditional method, your EXTOL products run on your hardware behind your firewall.
• Managed hosting - You can run your EXTOL products on hardware hosted by a third party.
• Cloud - You can run your EXTOL products in large-scale clouds such as Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon’s Elastic Cloud.

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Operating System:

• Windows - EBI runs on multiple versions of Windows Server, including 2003, 2005, and 2008.
• Linux - EBI runs on multiple versions of Linux.
• System i OS - EEI is supported on all supported releases of the i (iSeries and AS/400) OS, from v5r4 to v7r1.

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Staff:

• Customer personnel - EXTOL provides extensive training and Pennsylvania-based support for customer-directed deployments of EXTOL’s products.
• EXTOL Professional Services - EXTOL’s Professional Services team can handle the complete deployment process, from needs assessment through system auditing.  We have a strong and proven methodology that ensures a successful deployment.
• Shared responsibility - Many customers have discovered the fastest and most cost-effective deployment approach is to deployment activities with EXTOL’s Professional Services team—it allows customer team members to focus on operational tasks and EXTOL’s team can handle the one-time activities.

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Professional Services:

• Needs assessment - The needs assessment exercise uncovers the gaps between the current environment and the desired environment, where the desired environment may be described in multiple scenarios.
• Requirements analysis - Requirements analysis details the specific steps required to achieve the desired, or target, environment.
• Project planning - EXTOL has delivered hundreds of deployments and knows the problems that occur during a deployment.  Our project planning exercise reduces risk and exposes issues before they affect the project delivery.
• Project management - EXTOL’s Project Management Office has the domain knowledge and project management skills to keep the deployment on track while reducing risk and increasing quality.
• Installation/configuration - EXTOL’s Professional Services team can lead or assist in proper configuration of EXTOL’s products.  We’re flexible and can work with you to find the right combination of resources to ensure your project’s success.
• Implementation - EXTOL’s Professional Services team can lead or assist in the implementation of EXTOL’s products.  We’re flexible and can work with you to find the right combination of resources to ensure your project’s success.
• Partner provisioning - A key metric in determining the effectiveness of B2B integration is the level of participation by your business partners.  EXTOL’s Professional Services team can lead or assist in helping your business partners become trading partners—it’s smart business for both of you.
• Communications configuration - EXTOL’s Professional Services team can lead or assist in proper configuration of the communications setup for B2B and A2A deployments.
• Testing - EXTOL’s Professional Services team can lead or assist in thoroughly testing your business data integration processes.
• Performance Analysis/tuning - In business, nothing stays the same, and performance tuning is necessary to adject to your “new normal.”  EXTOL’s Professional Services team can lead or assist in analyzing the performance of your EXTOL products when initially deployed and as they’re used over time.
• System auditing - EXTOL’s Professional Services team can lead or assist in system auditing to address internal mandates, regulatory requirements, or commercial certifications (such as Drummond).

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Staff:

• Customer personnel - EXTOL offers extensive training and Pennsylvania-based support for customers operating EXTOL’s products.
• EXTOL Managed Services - For customers with headcount restrictions, staffing issues, or a commitment to outsource IT activities, EXTOL’s Managed Services team “does it all” for you and provides end-to-end support of your EXTOL product set including setup, monitoring, configuration changes, and trading partner setup.
• Shared responsibility - Some customers have limited capacity in their IT teams and EXTOL’s Managed Services team can fill in those gaps to ensure reliable day-to-day operations of B2B and A2A activity.

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Managed Services:

• Day-to-day operation - EXTOL’s Managed Services team can handle all aspects of the operation of EXTOL’s products in the customer environment, regardless of where the applications are hosted.
• Day-to-day monitoring - EXTOL’s Managed Services team can monitor B2B and A2A activity and alert key customer personnel of any issues while providing support for resolving those issues quickly.
• Technical support - EXTOL’s Professional Services team, in conjunction with EXTOL’s development organization, can help solve problems at all levels.
• Training - EXTOL’s Professional Services team provides training in multiple locations and in multiple modes throughout the year to support customer deployment schedules.
• Custom projects - EXTOL’s Professional Services team can undertake custom projects when customer IT staff is unavailable or not experienced in the technologies EXTOL deals with on a daily basis.  EXTOL can reduce risk while providing confidence in the final cost of a custom project.
• Emergency response programs - EXTOL’s Professional Services team is always available to deal with emergency and unplanned situations.  Whether it’s a datacenter issue, a natural disaster, a sudden regulatory change, a misbehaving line-of-business application, or a personnel change, the entire EXTOL organization will stand with you until the situation is resolved.

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