SOA Software
ProFrame is TmaxSoft's application framework solution that is used to develop and operate SOA-based total enterprise systems (SOA: Service Oriented Architecture). Application frameworks provide a standardized platform for developing and operating applications. Frameworks can be considered semi-complete applications that provide the fundamental structure for building a variety of complete applications in a standardized, highly-efficient manner. Essentially they enable logic developers to ignore data I/O, channels, and other basic system functions when creating business logic, as these are handled directly by the framework itself.

ProFrame SOA software provides developers with a flexible framework for developing and operating services, which form the base layer of SOA. Within ProFrame systems, services are composed of smaller functional units: service modules. This increases the granularity of the SOA concept without negatively impacting system performance. ProFrame-based systems are able to adapt to changing business environments, integrate emerging technologies, and respond quickly to new customer requirements.

ProFrame's embedded Enterprise Module Bus (EMB) provides a GUI-based environment that takes the emphasis away from coding in service development, allowing developers to focus on the overall structure and flow of service design. New services are designed with powerful tools that developers use to manipulate the connections between reusable, self-contained service modules and generate a "logic flow." This enables the realization of SOA concepts, increases system visibility, and results in a standards- and rules-based service development environment.

Systems that are built based on the ProFrame SOA software solution offer an optimal IT environment that provides consistent access to distributed resources for end-users, a powerful service development environment for developers and an efficient system monitoring and management environment for system administrators.

Intelligent, loosely-coupled system architecture
ProFrame's architecture seamlessly integrates the entire enterprise system, from the front-end (user interfaces) to the back-end (data). This loosely-coupled and highly flexible architecture enables enterprise systems to rapidly adapt to business environment changes, incorporate new components to handle changing customer requests, and integrate emerging technologies. Additionally, ProFrame's loosely-coupled architecture implements Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), maximizing service development efficiency and ensuring that developed services are highly expandable and can be managed easily.

ProFrame SOA software is based on a tiered architecture model, making it flexible, highly expandable, and ideal for handling high volume transactions and complex business logics. ProFrame's three-tier architecture enables service design to be flexible, function-separated, and module-based. The framework itself provides many functional modules, thereby enabling developers to focus on the actual creative aspects of service development. Modules provided by the architecture include pre-processing and post-processing modules and the standard data transmission module, CommBuff, which handles data sharing and DB access for services.

Business Tier
The business tier contains and manages the service modules that are organized and controlled by the EMB to generate services, which form the core of SOA. This tier is composed of three discrete layers:
- Business Service Layer: Consists of the developed services and their respective service modules.
- System Common Layer: Consists of components used by the services/service modules in the Business Service Layer. This includes management modules and common business logic.
- Framework Services Layer: Includes system management modules and utilities essential to the functioning of the entire Business Tier.

Data Tier
The data tier separates data access logics from the client-developed service modules to streamline development and improve system performance. Within this tier, an advanced DBIO module actually separates the DB access module from the services/service modules, while the DWIO module provides integration with the EDW and provides a common API for accessing any type of DB. ProFrame incorporates all necessary DB I/O APIs to simplify the implementation of data tier concepts.

Channel Tier
The channel tier enables all ProFrame services to be channel-independent as the channel logic remains separated from the modular business logic. This increases module usability and system flexibility.

Revolutionary application development process
Within ProFrame, services are built from reusable, functionally separated service modules. New services are created by arranging the "logic flow" between these modular components. Thus, service development is standards-based and GUI driven. This eliminates the need for additional hard-coding and increases development productivity, standardization and transparency, while also reducing development errors and business logic redundancy.

The ProFrame architecture itself handles many common system functions (such as DB access and interfaces), enabling developers to focus on the actual creative aspects of application development. Additionally, ProFrame's tier-based architecture separates data access, business and channel logics to increase development efficiency and the reusability of developed items.

Enterprise Module Bus technology (EMB) enhances SOA
- Services are developed by defining the business flow between service modules
- Service logic is composed of functionally separate, self-contained service modules.
- New services are developed by using a GUI to define the interactions between the service modules.
- Service modules can also be created or modified using intuitive GUI tools. Source code is then generated by automated processes.
- The service modules can be reused in developing new services and are stored within the module pool. This increases standardization between services and eliminates redundant or repeated business logic.
- Components of the ProFrame architecture itself can also be reused in developing new services.

Reduces code redundancy
As service development is not based on hard-coding, but is performed by reusing already existing components through a standards-based GUI environment, the problems of redundant and duplicated logics disappear, while business logic manageability and reusability is improved.

Application business logic becomes transparent intellectual assets
ProFrame enables services to be visualized by graphically displaying the interactions of their composite service modules. The graphical workflows that represent services make it easy to understand and manage the overall structure of the system as a whole.

GUI-based application development: ProFrame Studio
- ProBuilder: Powerful GUI-based logic development environment that maximizes service development efficiency and minimizes development errors, ensuring that development is rapid and stable.
- IO Formatter: Manages the formatting and conversion of input/output data to ensure that all system components function as an integrated whole.
- DBIO Studio: Provides an intuitive GUI for defining DB access logic and automatically generating source code. DBIO Studio minimizes errors when developing data access logic and provides a development environment independent of DBMS type.

System-independent, reusable services
The services that have been developed within a ProFrame environment will be entirely independent of any operating system, DBMS, TP-Monitor, or web application server. Most developed services will be reusable and will require minimal or no modification to account for future changes in system infrastructure or when being migrated into a new system.

Provides a flexible system architecture
ProFrame's flexible architecture facilitates the efficient development of new services and ensures that new services and technologies can be easily integrated into the system. Furthermore, ProFrame SOA software provides standardized database access methods, DW access methods and legacy system interfaces, guaranteeing that the system remains integrated and expandable.

Increases development efficiency
- Framework provided functionality
ProFrame's tiered architecture separates business logic from display and interface logics. Low-level system functions, middleware functions, and interface processing functions are provided by the framework itself or are handled by transparent APIs. This means that developers only need to focus on developing actual business logic and do not have to account for different client types, increasing development efficiency and developer convenience.

- Loosely-coupled service modules
Because ProFrame services are made up of service modules that can be rearranged or updated to modify the services, flexibility is increased and reusability and system maintenance productivity are improved. Additionally, the requirements analysis and design phases of service development proceed simultaneously within the one GUI-based environment. This dramatically increases development productivity and minimizes the amount of source code that developers need to generate.

- Automatic generation of source code
Service modules can be created via traditional coding methods or through GUI-based modeling. These modules are then stored in a module pool and can be reused across services, reducing code redundancy, increasing standardization and speeding up development efficiency.

Proven technology that provides stability
TmaxSoft developed the ProFrame architecture and SOA software with technology that has been used reliably in many large-scale projects and ProFrame itself is now recognized as a reliable and advanced solution. The ultimate stability and performance provided by ProFrame revolutionizes any organization's IT system.

Reduces system TCO
ProFrame SOA software is the best solution for reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the enterprise system and providing high returns on investment (ROI). All of our customers have experienced dramatic drops in TCO after adopting the ProFrame solution. For many of our customers, ProFrame has become the driving force behind their increased competitiveness.

 SK Telecom   Shinhan Bank

Solutions Used: ProFrame, Tmax, JEUS, AnyLink, WebtoB
Project Period: June 2005 ~ September 2006

Client Overview
SK Telecom has been a leader in the worldwide telecommunications industry for many years. With more than 20 million subscribers, SK Telecom is the Korean market leader in providing mobile telecommunication services such as mobile phone and wireless internet services.

Project Overview
The ubiquity of mobile telecommunications has emerged as a consequence of advances in technology and society. As a result, mobile data transfer services are becoming increasingly important, leading to increased demand for reliable data communication within a range of sectors such as banking.

As the leading provider of mobile services in a very competitive market, SK Telecom realized that merely updating their current system would not be enough to remain competitive in light of emerging demands for safe, reliable mobile communications. They designated the renovation of existing products, the provision of diverse new products, advanced customer management, and systematic partner management as major infrastructural requisites for their next generation marketing system.

TmaxSoft participated in the development of SK Telecom's next-generation core enterprise system, their SKT NGM (Next Generation Marketing System). The system was designed to enable prompt account settlements and marketing services by integrating the management of 20 million customer accounts with efficient product development, large-scale transaction processing capabilities and the non-stop delivery of services.

The SKT NMG project consisted of two phases:

Phase I - IBM BCS was chosen as the major project contractor, the client's requirements were analyzed and system designs were completed.

Phase II - Commenced in 2005, SK C&C and TmaxSoft were chosen to complete the system development. The new system was successfully opened on October 9, 2006 and has operated smoothly since then.

The new system was developed within an open Unix-based platform, and both the Customer Operation Information System (COIS) and the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) System were redeveloped. The system was fully integrated to provide one-stop services for agencies and customers. The provision of real-time data transfers was realized through an advanced customer channel system that connects the Next Generation Marketing (NGM) system with legacy systems.

ProFrame was used as the core framework for developing the new system. ProFrame established development standards and provided an efficient development environment, common system modules and components, and an efficient approach to database integration.

ProFrame's loosely-coupled architecture greatly contributed to minimizing dependencies between services. For sections of the system that are highly related to one another, such as Customer Care (CC) and Billing, common business logics were derived from the solution itself and control functions were added for each of the detailed business flows.

Project Results
Incorporates verified middleware
The new system incorporates verified middleware solutions, including Tmax (TP-Monitor), JEUS (WAS) and WebtoB (Web Server). These provide stability, optimize system performance and maintain the separation of business logic from Presentation and Database Layers.

End-to-end transaction monitoring
SysMaster was incorporated as the APM solution for the new system. This powerful APM solution facilitates rapid and accurate system diagnosis at all levels of the system. SysMaster was used throughout development to analyze the entire NGM system performance and optimize system performance.

The system incorporates a range of new functionalities
The new system provides an integrated GUI that is incorporated into both external agency and customer center terminal screens. This increases efficiency in completing new subscription applications.
- The new system provides access to detailed information about applications, products used and consumption patterns. This enables marketing managers to identify market trends quickly and reliably.
- Similarly, the new system provides information about consumption patterns and notifies managers of things like excess mobile phone usage and minors attempting to access adults-only material.
- The new system resolves information discordance issues as identical data is shared between external agencies, customer centers, etc.
- The new system incorporates a PRM (Partner Relationship Management) system for account settlement with content suppliers.
- Whereas in the previous system, account settlement was not available until the 23rd day after the previous month's closing day (the last day of each month), within the new system a partial balance is now obtainable at the end of each business day.
- The customer management system is linked with the billing and mobile digital television broadcasting systems in order to prepare for the broader usage of wibro (the wireless broadband technology that makes digital media broadcasting possible).
- The shift to an open environment resulted in more stable system performance, faster response times, and optimized processing capabilities.
- Hot-deploy functions enable the dynamic modification of internal application logic for online services and application programs.
- Secured a Time-to-Market infrastructure, which enables new applications and products to be developed and implemented quickly.
- Used a verified SOA-based redevelopment core solution, resulting in more efficient system maintenance, stable operations and increased system-wide standardization.
- New channels can be quickly integrated into the system by using intuitive GUI-based tools.
- End-to-end monitoring of transactions can be used to optimize performance and pinpoint system issues.

 SK Telecom   Shinhan Bank

Solution Used: ProFrame, Tmax, JEUS
Project Period: December 2004 ~ June 2006

Client Overview
Shinhan Bank is the second largest bank in Korea with more than 22 million customers, 192 billion USD in assets, a total of 1,046 branches, and 13,872 employees.

Project Overview
In the Korean financial sector, it is understood that "next-generation systems" (4th generation enterprise systems) are the competitive edge that enable banks to evolve into globally advanced financial entities.

Shinhan Bank chose TmaxSoft as the primary vendor for developing their next-generation banking system by redeveloping their core-system, channels, financial management applications, and infrastructure. Through this project, Shinhan Bank hoped to increase their product development efficiency, implement an IT environment that could handle products that go beyond their traditional business boundaries, and surpass the functionality of their previous mainframe-based system.

Shinhan Bank's next-generation banking system was designed with the following goals in mind:
- To build a customer-oriented system that could quickly incorporate new applications to cope with changing customer requirements.
- To implement an efficient application development environment.
- To ensure that the system would offer services around the clock, 365 days a year.
- To implement a future-oriented architecture that incorporates IT flexibility, expandability, and SOA concepts.
- To provide a unified management environment of the system's various channels.
- To implement a centralized information management environment.

The core-banking system, as well as the product factory and other general components were built with the ProFrame SOA framework. This resulted in a banking system with enhanced development productivity, stability, and flexibility.

Project Results
By using ProFrame as the core SOA framework, a range of differentiated services were developed quickly and system performance efficiency was maximized. This can be seen through the reduction in receipt operations: 4,000 entries (previous system) -> 900 entries (new system).

ProFrame ensured that services were developed using modular components, which can be reused in additional development. The GUI-based development eliminated logic duplication and risk during the project and system maintainability was also maximized as standardized development methods were imposed. Additionally, ProFrame's product factory capabilities mean that new customized products can be developed quickly and efficiently.

The incorporation of Tmax and JEUS ensured that the new core-banking system is capable of providing stable services around the clock. Tmax provides automatic recovery capabilities through fail-over features and backup servers. This powerful middleware also facilitates dynamic load balancing features that eliminate bottlenecks and maximize system performance.

ProFrame is not dependent upon software or hardware supplied by any specific vendor.