Sabre replacing EDI with Web services

Computerworld - Sabre Holdings Corp. has launched a project to replace its electronic data interchange (EDI) system for connecting to airlines, hotels and other suppliers with Web-services-based integration.

The parent company of Sabre Travel Network, Travelocity.com LP and Sabre Airline Solutions plans to replace a 15-year-old EDI system with Web services by using SeeBeyond Technology Corp.'s Integrated Composite Application Network (ICAN) suite as its integration platform.

Sabre will be completing a pilot project in October to connect with one undisclosed supplier using Web services, said Bob Offutt, senior vice president and chief architect of strategic architecture at the Southlake, Texas-based company.

The SeeBeyond tools will provide business rules and connectivity to replace Sabre's high-speed, real-time EDI system, which doesn't have the flexibility of a service-oriented architecture, Offutt added.

Offutt declined to disclose the cost of the project or the value of the contract with Monrovia, Calif.-based SeeBeyond, which has agreed to be acquired by Sun Microsystems Inc. .

"SeeBeyond will give us the ability to have multiple connectivity scenarios, depending on the flavor and language of XML," he said.

Offutt said the company has begun discussions with other suppliers in the U.S. and the U.K. for rolling out the tools.

At many sites, Web services adoption is being driven by companies looking to replace expensive EDI transactions, said Anne Thomas Manes, an analyst at Burton Group in Midvale, Utah.

"It is a much less expensive pipe, and it gives you more flexibility for the types of messages you can send and operations you can perform," she said. "A business-to-business connection that used to take two months to set up with EDI can be set up in a couple of hours with Web services."

Sabre also plans to use the ICAN tools internally to orchestrate Web services as it continues an effort started five years ago to migrate applications from its IBM mainframe to distributed systems.

The company has already used Web services to extract business logic and data from its mainframe for hotel and domestic airline reservations.

But it will need the orchestration tools for its core travel-packaging application, which allows users to book airline, hotel and rental car reservations at the same time. This core application still resides on the mainframe.

With reusable Web services, Sabre has quickly created a new shopping-cart application and built a managed inventory product that gives airlines more-sophisticated options to manage seat prices to create the highest yield, Offutt added.

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