Press Releases

Fiorano becomes first ITK Middleware vendor to be awarded ITK R2 Certification
by UK Department of Health

Fiorano ITK Framework brings unique distributed service-oriented architecture (SOA) to NHS integration


Chertsey, UK (November 18, 2011) – Fiorano Software, (www.fiorano.com) a leading provider of enterprise class business process integration and messaging infrastructure, today announced that its recently released Fiorano ITK Framework, built on the Fiorano SOA Platform has gained the prestigious UK Interoperability Toolkit (ITK) Version 2 Standards Accreditation.

Commenting on Fiorano’s accreditation, Keith Naylor, Head of Data Standards, NHS - Interoperability Toolkit (ITK) said “It is extremely encouraging to see a new larger wave of vendors bringing systems through the ITK accreditation process. Fiorano have been at the forefront of the second wave and have actually become the first company to gain accreditation for ITK Release 2 which was published in July this year. The Fiorano accreditation submission was swiftly and professionally achieved as you would expect a leading vendor in the sector.”

NHS Trusts have tight budgets and are under pressure to deliver quality healthcare services. Point to point integration of bespoke systems over the years has led to the creation of complex spaghetti architectures with huge investments required for ongoing maintenance and development. The ITK standard has been created by the NHS to address these complexities in an attempt to make a significant positive impact on end-user outcomes of the UK national healthcare system.

The Fiorano SOA Platform is a unique, standards-based, REST-based platform that has been proven in multiple high-performance, highly scalable, enterprise-class installations over the past decade. This proven technology is now ITK R2 certified and ready to solve some of the most vexing and complex problems in UK healthcare integration today.

“We achieved the accreditation in record time thanks to the maturity of the Fiorano SOA Platform and the depth of its feature set, making it easy to comply with various ITK bundles and a rigorous testing process for ITK R2 which supports more complex implementation scenarios. Fiorano provides a robust, comprehensive solution for NHS Trusts and system vendors looking to ITK-enable their integration projects today”, said Atul Saini, CEO of Fiorano Software. “Fiorano is offering flexible licensing models including OEM options to suit individual requirements of each user”, he added.

Fiorano will continue to work closely with the NIC to disseminate information and education regarding the ITK, its benefits and compelling ROI through a series of workshops for NHS Trusts and supporting system vendors.

ITK 2.0 - Support for more complex implementation scenarios

Whereas ITK R1.1 provided support for simple interaction patterns (e.g. basic one-way message transmission) between pre-defined and configured endpoints, ITK R2 rounds this out with support for more complex scenarios i.e.:

  • Acknowledgements at both the infrastructure and business level
  • Addressing and Routing services

Another key focus of ITK R2 has been to lay the groundwork for clinical document exchange. This has included specifying a set of generic services for document transmission - including the ability to carry attachments.

Fiorano's ITK certification may be viewed here: http://www.fiorano.com/docs/Fiorano_ITK_certificate.pdf

About the Connecting for Health NHS Interoperability Toolkit (http://www.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/)

The Interoperability Toolkit (ITK) is a set of standards and frameworks for making IT systems interoperable. It follows the strategy to 'connect all' rather than 'replace all', endorsed in the UK government White Paper, 'Equity & Excellence: Liberating the NHS'.

What does the ITK do for the NHS?*

  • Reduce the amount of money the NHS spends on local integration by standardising technology and interoperability specifications.
  • Help the NHS realise business benefits by speeding up the development of integrated services.
  • Provide a framework for innovative business solutions by defining a pervasive interoperability specification and provides a common interpretation of base standards like HL7.
  • Ease the development of local health community integrated systems.
  • Lower the entry barrier to new systems developers

*From: http://www.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/systemsandservices/interop/community/itknews1.pdf

About Fiorano Software (www.fiorano.com)

Fiorano Software is a leading provider of enterprise middleware and peer-to-peer distributed systems for over a decade. Fiorano's innovative event-driven, Rest-enabled SOA platform integrates applications and complex technologies into an enterprise nervous system, increases business process performance, yields higher message throughput and enhances availability through agent-based visual composition that bridges the capability gap between business models and their implementation – the model is the application, ready to run.

Global leaders including McKesson, ABN AMRO, Boeing, British Telecom, Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group, Kent County Council, NASA, POSCO Steel, Qwest Communications, Rabobank, Schlumberger, Lockheed Martin, United States Coast Guard and Vodafone have deployed Fiorano to drive innovation through open, standards-based, dataflow SOA applications built in just days, yielding unprecedented productivity.