Case Study ZapNote: The Hartford
The insurance industry is leading the economy in the adoption of Web Services and Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs), and The Hartford is an early adopter of these technologies among insurance companies. When it became necessary to update an agent tool that required integration to a heterogeneous collection of back-end systems, taking an SOA approach was a natural fit for them.
The Hartford realized early in this project that they needed to acquire a Web Services management (WSM) solution, so they established formal selection criteria, invited several vendors to participate, and narrowed the selection down to two vendors. They then put those two vendors through an exhaustive, three-week proof-of-concept in order to determine which vendor would meet their needs.
This case study details The Hartford’s selection process, and the criteria they used to make the selection. As an early adopter, The Hartford’s approach can serve as a useful lesson for companies in many industries considering a WSM solution.