Coherence's caching features also allowed Wells to store less-rapidly updated data such as mutual fund balances, which are typically only updated at the end of the day, and its master list of customer data, which is maintained by its PeopleSoft CRM system. The customer list, Mitchell says, is constantly replicated to Coherence for faster access by other dependent systems.

The distributed work manager is a feature in Coherence 3.1, which was released in mid-February at about the same time Wells' debuted its upgraded in-house SOA system.

While Mitchell cautions that Wells is still "pulling the system all together, I wouldn't call it a triumph yet." He said that calculations that might have taken minutes or hours before to generate can now be consolidated in a single, real-time view.

"Usually you have to buy an entire integration framework or an awful lot of products to get this," Mitchell said. "The experience [with Coherence] has by and large been good."