Background

Align Technology, Inc. in California used JMS Courier® to integrate their existing C++ applications into their new JMS messaging environment during a transitional phase. Align Technology, makers of Invisalign® “The invisible way to straighten your teeth, without braces”, needed a simple, reliable, and inexpensive messaging solution for their manufacturing facility. They knew that JMS was the best messaging environment; the problem was, they could not and did not want to abandon their core C++ applications. They needed to deploy their C++ applications to approximately 50 servers and to have them communicate in the JMS environment with several Java applications. The C++ application would be used internally, that is, it would not be part of a product sold to customers.

The Business Problem: Merging C++ Applications Intact Into a JMS Environment

Align Technology has a top-notch team of programmers whose highest priority is their business software for designing and building invisible braces. They needed a messaging environment that was reliable enough for a manufacturing environment, yet flexible enough to easily accommodate changes in the manufacturing procedure. The Align Technology programmers knew that JMS was the answer but they also knew that JMS couldn’t work with their C++ applications and they certainly didn’t want to abandon or significantly change those. They were faced with an integration problem that they didn’t have the time or resources to solve, yet they had to solve it to keep their C++ applications up and running while migrating the infrastructure to Java.

Evaluating the Integration Options

Align Technology wanted to ensure that their already too-busy programming staff didn’t have to take on the added burden of providing integration components for C++ and JMS. Therefore, the integration solution had to be an out-of-the box solution that could be:

• Cost-effective

• Reliable

• Easily maintained

Align Technology evaluated other JMS-C++ integration options and eliminated them: creating their own integration components using a low-level integration language was eliminated because their programmers would have to spend months coding and JMS vendor C++ bindings were eliminated because they were proprietary, expensive, not easily updated, and would lock them into a JMS implementation.

JMS Courier Was the Only Solution to Meet All Align Technology Criteria

JMS Courier, paired with a free JMS implementation, was the only solution that met Align Technology’s strict criteria. JMS Courier requires minimal coding, making it quick to implement; it works with any JMS vendor, making it very flexible and inexpensive; and Codemesh provides updates making it easy to maintain. Even if Align Technology decides to change JMS vendors, they won’t have to re-do their integration work. Their C++ applications would be immediately usable with any new JMS implementation, without changing a single line of code.

Technical Support Is Part of the JMS Courier Solution

Align Technology wanted an integration solution that was as invisible as their dental appliances. JMS Courier provides the almost-invisible technical solution and Codemesh provides any technical support that might be needed to implement and maintain it. During evaluation and deployment, Align Technology programmers reported:

"Support from you guys … has been phenomenal, and I thank you for your rapid feedback to our messages.”