Vesereo

2002 Consensus Software Awards

Product Description

Vesereo software addresses the needs of organizations to collaborate securely over the Internet. The product utilises a combination of client-server and peer-to-peer architectures to overcome the inherent limitations of other solutions such as e-mail, groupware and virtual private networks.

Vesereo is designed to address a number of business needs:

• Secure and efficient intra-company information flow;

• Secure and efficient information exchange with customers, suppliers and partners;

• Secure content control and access;

• Ease of deployment and use, especially in distributed environments

• Vesereo has three major components:

1.1. Content Management

Within Vesereo, a central directory catalogues distributed business information (in whatever format in whichever location) into categories - these categories are the key building blocks of Vesereo. This information is then immediately available to authenticated and authorised users. As a result, the latest critical information can be sourced, accessed and delivered from any location to any authorised user connected to the network. Content management features include:

• Category definition and allocation;

• Document locking - "check-out" and "check-in";

• Version management - Vesereo automatically assigns version numbers to documents lodged in the system;

• Note attachment - notes can be attached to any file loaded on the system for greater clarity and ease of use;

• File searching for title, author or content;

• Workflow to direct files to specific users for action

1.2. Security

Vesereo was developed with security as its foundation, such that intra-company and inter-company collaboration can proceed un-compromised. Security features include:

• Categories of business information can be established as either "public" (accessible to all users) or "private" (accessible to authorised users). The very existence of a private category is hidden from non-authorised users.

• Users have to be authorised and authenticated to gain access to files in "private" categories.

• For private categories the activities that an individual user (or group of users, via role-based security) can conduct can be restricted.

• All information is encrypted (configurable up to military strength) during every transmission.

• Information can also be encrypted at the local user level.

• A complete audit trail is maintained of all users, information and activities within the system.

1.3. Data Exchange

Vesereo incorporates reliable XML and EDI data exchange to allow communication in three modes:

• Person-person

• Person-computer

• Computer-computer

1.4. Secure Messaging and Discussion Forums

Vesereo's "Instant Messaging" provides a secure and cost-effective method for organizations to communicate confidential information internally and externally. Associated "Discussion Forums" enable threaded discussions to be conducted and stored accessibly. Users can see at any time which other users are available for messaging or discussion.

With Vesereo, documents can be exchanged on a publish, push or pull basis. Replication with a central server can be scheduled and performed automatically for remote users. For added efficiency, all files are automatically compressed for transmission.

Innovation

Vesereo's key innovative strengths lie in its architecture and its functionality.

2.1. Architecture

Vesereo is based on a unique highly-scalable distributed architecture. The platform consists of multiple servers and clients acting as a cohesive intelligent network. Vesereo uses a combination of client-server, server-to-server and peer-to-peer networking to intelligently determine the optimal network link between two nodes depending on the configuration of network firewalls. The diagram below provides a high-level overview of the Vesereo architecture.

Specific components include:

2.1.1. Vesereo Collaboration Server

The Vesereo Collaboration Servers are the hub of the distributed system. They provide directory services used by all other components of the system.

2.1.2. Vesereo Communications Server

The Vesereo Communications server acts as a central message relay agent, allowing the real-time exchange of information across corporate firewalls. Communication Servers are involved in relaying messages from transactional queues, instant messaging and file transfers between clients.

2.1.3. Vesereo InQ

The Vesereo InQ Server provides a robust and scalable end-point for Vesereo queues. InQ Servers are typically located at client sites, where they integrate with back-end systems and databases using plug-in component.

2.1.4. Vesereo Clients

Vesereo Client software is a set of components including:

• Local Server, which encapsulates all of the functionality available from the remote servers;

• Vesereo GUI, which provides a Microsoft Outlook style application which exposes the functionality of the system ton the user;

• Vesereo Desktop Integration, which provides components which integrate into Windows Explorer allowing remote files to be browsed and downloaded as easily as from a local hard disk.

2.2. Functionality

Vesereo's innovative strengths lie in its fitness for purpose.

Vesereo has been conceptualised and designed as a tool for business collaboration. Vesereo reflects the growing trends in business behaviour away from monolithic corporations with constant and rigid supply chains, towards much more flexible groupings of "virtual organizations" which are established (using both internal and external resources) to address specific business opportunities. Vesereo, therefore, incorporates features and functions which businesses need to be able to communicate and share information securely within and between organizations as described in brief in the previous section.

What is unique about Vesereo is the way in which these functions have been combined into a single platform.

E-mail allows for easy communication but has well-documented weaknesses in the areas of security and meaningful content management. Vesereo retains the ease of communication of e-mail, but overcomes the weaknesses by incorporating stringent end-to-end security and advanced content management.

Virtual Private Networks provide secure point-to-point (and, at a high cost, multi-point) communications, but have little if any content management functionality. Vesereo provides even higher levels of security and user management, and combines these with content management.

Groupware products fall into two basic categories. One category provides a useful vehicle for organizing information (particularly in large, relatively static, information warehouses), but tends to be unwieldy to deploy and operate, difficult to integrate with other groupware and other applications and built on proprietary technology sets - designed primarily, therefore, for intra-company use. Another category of Groupware products provides useful information sharing capabilities over such transports as the Internet, but lacks sophisticated content management and security functionality and is therefore more suited for consumer use. Vesereo overcomes the limitations of the corporate groupware products by utilising straightforward user interfaces and integrating with familiar tools such as Windows Explorer. It also provides a much higher degree of flexibility and ease of deployment in order to accommodate the needs of fast-moving teams of business users. Vesereo surpasses the consumer-oriented groupware products by adding a high degree of business functionality.

Extranet and portal products (probably the closest competitors to Vesereo) satisfy many business requirements. They often rely, though, on use of a third party for information storage and thus have high security and total cost of ownership implications. Other products rely heavily on centralized administration and thus have reduced user-friendliness and ability to operate in the flexible and responsive manner business users require. Vesereo's architecture, a combination of client-server and peer-to-peer, overcomes these limitations and allows an organization to have full control of its information whilst delegating the actual use of the information to those business users who need it to improve their effectiveness and productivity.

2.3. Summary

The innovative uniqueness of Vesereo, to summarize, is in the way in which it has encapsulated the strengths and eliminated the weaknesses of other solutions which have been put forward as a means to solve the burgeoning needs for businesses to collaborate. The highly advanced architecture has enabled this.

No other product offers the ability to create a collaboration network between enterprises using the Internet as a communication channel whilst providing totally secure communications.

Performance

The benefits to an organization using Vesereo are easy to verify. We provide our customers with the ability to easily, efficiently and securely share information within and between organizations. 

Easy, efficient and secure information exchange is essential if any organization is to participate effectively in the modern economy. Satisfying this need was relatively simple when organizations were monolithic structures which internally housed all of the information and resources necessary to address commercial opportunities, and when the opportunities themselves (and, therefore, the organization's responses) were more repetitive and standardized. In today's business environment, however, this type of operation is the exception rather than the rule. Customers, both corporate and consumer, demand a much greater degree of customisation; this customisation is delivered either by smaller, more flexible internal teams or, increasingly, by consortia of various suppliers. These consortia, in turn, are increasingly formed and dissolved on an ad hoc, project-specific basis.

Vesereo was developed specifically to meet the evolving requirements for intra-company and inter-company collaboration which this fundamental change in business behaviour have evoked.

Within this overarching benefit, Vesereo provides a number of more specific benefit points:

• Secure intra-company and inter-company connectivity, such that the sensitivity of corporate information cannot be compromised;

• Content integrity and secure delivery, such that the right information (and only the right information) reaches the right person (and only the right person) at the right time (and only the right time);

• An easy to use and manage system, such as the business users who need the system most gain the most benefit and become enthusiastic and willing adopters of the system.

Vesereo is perfectly aligned with a recent Gartner Group study described in the June, 2001, CIO magazine, which stated that the "Top 5 IT Priorities" were:

1. Internal E-business infrastructure

2. Enhancing Security

3. Network management and infrastructure

4. Building inter-enterprise business-business processes

5. Applications integration, middleware and messaging

Potential

The markets for Vesereo are both horizontal and vertical. Horizontal markets are those where project-type collaboration, often with dispersed teams (inter and intra organizational) operate. Vertical markets include IT, Finance, Government, Construction and Research

Vesereo has universal application, with the growing need of business worldwide to collaborate within and between organizations. As described above, Vesereo has significant advantages over other technologies used for business collaboration, as well as complementing the capabilities of several other technology applications - CRM, SCM, ERP, etc.

Major analysts, such as Garnet and IDC have assessed the collaboration ("c-commerce") market as being one of the fastest growing worldwide - Gartner predicts that c-commerce will be a US$8billion market in Asia alone and states that "by 2005, your enterprise will be collaborative, or it won't exist". The existence of the market is substantiated by the recent interest shown by major vendors such as IBM and Microsoft in these technologies.

Other information the judges should know

As discussed above, Vesereo is applicable to almost all areas of industry. Particular relevance is to scenarios where rapid responsiveness to customer demand is required and where this response needs to be delivered through a swiftly-deployed, often geographically dispersed, team who need a mechanism for the secure and efficient sharing of information in order to satisfy the requirement.

White paper:    http://www.vesereo.com/the_collaborative_bridge.PDF 

Web based slide presentation:  http://www.vesereo.com/presentation_files/frame.htm 

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