Today, Groove announced a new server package: "Enterprise Data Bridge". (See also the product details page).

I think this is a major event, and really important, so here's a quick rundown of the "what" and "why".

EDB has two components. First: a V3 version of the Groove Enterprise Integration Server (v2.5 of which has been shipping for some time). This is a high-capacity device capable of being a member of thousands of Groove spaces at once. Second: a version of Casahl ecKnowledge with a Groove-Connector. Casahl's product is a general-purpose data switch: it can be configured for one-shot or continuous data mapping from A to B, uni- or bi-directionally (in other words, full replication), where A and B are any of: {Oracle, SQLServer, DB2, Informix, Access, SAP R3, SharePoint, Notes, Exchange, Groove, and more}. It's a really powerful engine for linking different systems, for application migration, and for building cross-application business processes.

There's an interesting technology deveopment on the Groove side, too. Most of my work with EIS has been in building "in-process" Bots, which live on the server and take part in Groove dynamics transactions. That's too difficult to be readily repeatable... and EDB takes a different approach. The Casahl bridge is out-of-process, using Groove Web Services to the V3 Forms tool. Both of which I've talked about a little before. Yowza.

This is an off-the-shelf, general-purpose integration point - you don't need custom Groove bots or tools. Coupled with the low-development-overhead Forms tool, it's now possible for averagely-savvy business users to build applications which build out onto distributed infrastructure.

Update: Michael Sampson points to a Network World writeup which is worth reading.