IBM begins another wave of SOA releases
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IBM released SOA productsÂ for integrating software applications and improving business processes, and said more customers are starting to understand the SOA concept.
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Mainframe systems are playing a key role in many SOA (service-oriented architecture) projects, according to a study released this week by IBM user group SHARE.
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IBM said Wednesday it is expanding its broad SOA (service-oriented architecture) portfolio with the acquisition of AptSoft, a maker of business event processing software.AptSoft&#39;s products will sit in IBM&#39;s WebSphere line. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.Also known as complex event processing (CEP), business event processing is seen as a key technology driver for the next generation of SOA. The software analyzes vast amounts of system events in real time, searching for trends and anomalies -- &quot;complex events&quot; -- that may impact the business, and triggers a response process if one is found.For example, the technology could be used by an online gaming site to spot malfeasance among the torrent of transactions that occur each second, or by a trading firm to track minute changes in stock price activity among various markets, IBM said in a statement.IBM executives are planning to reveal more about the acquisition during a conference call Wednesday at 1:15 p.m. Eastern Time.Other companies in the CEP/BEP market include Tibco and Streanbase.
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Vendors have begun to release products that are taking the next steps in the evolution to true services-centric networking.
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Microsoft, IBM and Borland are upgrading their software and offering users new workflow features, support for multiple languages and tools to manage the lifecycle of in-house applications.
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(InfoWorld) - IBM Corp. is introducing a range of new products and services, many based on technologies coming from recently acquired companies, aimed at helping businesses better manage and take advantage of their various software and hardware systems. The new offerings stem from IBM acquisitions including MRO Software Inc., Micromuse Inc., Rembo Technology SARL, Isogon Corp., Collation Inc. and CIMS Lab Inc. and aim to offer businesses simple and central ways to manage their technology assets. IBM plans to release this month a new version of Tivoli Change and Configuration Management Database software that will include technology from application resource mapping software developer Collation, a company IBM acquired late last year. The new software integrates IT information spread across the enterprise, including information about servers, storage devices, networks, middleware and applications. The software could help businesses notice, for example, that an IT problem stems from a change in an application such as a security update, rather than from hardware or software failure, and help pinpoint and fix the problem quickly. Another new release, IBM Tivoli Capacity Process Manager, which will become available in the fourth quarter, predicts computing capacity and performance, thus helping users reduce network slowdowns and outages. The software is part of IBM's process manager family of products that automate workflows. Two additional new products are available immediately. One is the IBM Service Management Self-Assessment Toolkit, a free online service that helps users focus on priorities when designing a service management strategy by rating the importance of internal processes. The IBM Tivoli Unified Process Composer, also available now, aims to help new customers begin employing service management. In addition to the new products, IBM also launched the IBM Service Management Partner Ecosystem with a dozen other companies including Avnet Inc., Cisco Systems Inc., Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. and Nortel Networks Corp. The companies say they'll work together to build and promote products based on IBM's platforms and industry standards.
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IBM, Sun Microsystems, and Computer Associates have jumped aboard in support of the WS-Eventing specification for subscribing to Web services-based events, joining original developers Microsoft, BEA Systems, and Tibco Software.
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GT Software next week will formally unveil its platform for outfitting mainframe applications with Web services functionality and linking legacy data into SOAs (service-oriented architectures).
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(InfoWorld) - BEA Systems this week offered a rare glimpse of its upcoming SOA (service-oriented architecture) tool set, called WorkSpace 360, with a demonstration of a prototype tool currently under development. "We're moving towards having the ability to do metadata-driven development," said Bill Roth, vice president of BEA's Workshop Business Unit, during an interview in Singapore. In the future, developers will spend most of their time creating metadata that describes the application and how it behaves, "rather than a bunch of sentences that end with semicolons," he said. "There will always be the need to write code, there will always be the need to do the lower-level stuff. But I think we can do better," Roth said. The heart of WorkSpace 360 is called WorkSpace Central, a set of tools designed for developing and managing applications built usingÂ BEA's upcoming SOA 360 platform. Scheduled to be introduced starting next year, WorkSpace 360 is designed to bring business analysts, architects, developers and IT operations executives together in a shared workspace. WorkSpace 360 will cover BEA's entire product lineup, including a mix of rich-client tools based on Eclipse and Web-based versions. "It starts potentially with AquaLogic and leveraging AquaLogic business-process management. There then will be a piece which we've previously called AquaLogic Composer, which will evolve into a bunch of tools, including a service assembly modeller," Roth said. The service assembly modeller, which is based on the SCA (Service Component Architecture) specification developed by BEA and IBM, gives users a view of how different services are connected and how they communicate, Roth said. The service assembly modeller can scan a set of services available from a registry or a data-services platform and display the connections that exist between them. The result, as demonstrated using a prototype of the tool on Roth's laptop, is a flow chart of available services, including SCA notations for each service. "What you'll be able to do ultimately is [click the] right mouse button on the links and annotate them," Roth said, noting these annotations will be saved to the metadata repository. Developers and other team members will then be able to access the annotations, he said. The service assembly modeller and other WorkSpace 360 tools are expected to be available during the first half of 2007. "Maybe sooner," Roth said.
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IBM has unveiled two new Rational development tools and and a Tivoli applications management offering. They can be used separately or jointly to boost the quality of a service-oriented architecture.
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IBM will begin shipping a new DB2 Universal Database next week that has more self-managing capabilities, extended Linux support, and geospatial technology.
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BEA Systems today unveiled an architecture and toolset designed to help companies moving toward SOA by separating out business processes from packaged applications.
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WebLayers, the market leader for automated SOA governance, today  announced at the IBM Rational Software Development Conference its  support for the new IBM Rational Asset Manager offering.
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IBM on Wednesday formally announced the next major release of WebSphere, code-named Vela, which company officials see as an integral building block for both its ongoing SOA (service-oriented architecture) and On Demand strategies.
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IBM is fleshing out its On Demand computing strategy with the release later this year of Websphere 6.0, the next incarnation of its flagship application server software.
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The Eclipse Foundation with its Swordfish project is developing an open source SOA framework intended for applications ranging from enterprise environments to embedded systems.Based on technology from German logistics company Deutsche Post, Swordfish features an SOA runtime platform that leverages three popular projects: Service Component Architecture (SCA), Java Business Integration (JBI), and Open Services Gateway initiative (OSGi). SCA provides a common programming model and assembly description format while JBI serves as a common messaging model. OSGi, which is the basis of the Eclipse runtime platform, provides common deployment and runtime component models in Swordfish.The Swordfish architecture uses OSGi to implement JBI and SCA."[Swordfish] is a framework to bring [together] different components, which are needed for an SOA platform," said Ricco Deutscher, CTO at Sopera, which is leading the Swordfish effort and offers an open source SOA suite based on the project."[Enterprise IT directors] should be very excited because this is up and running [for] more than six years in the largest logistics company in the world, and it is a very proven, mature technology," said Deutscher.According to the Eclipse Swordfish blog, Deutsche Post developed the core SOA engine with plans calling for the code to be refactored into an OSGi-based SOA engine. The OSGi engine serves as a milestone to an SOA runtime framework.The version 1.0 production release of Swordfish is scheduled for the third quarter of this year.Swordfish offers a way to use JBI, SCA, and OSGi for server-side applications, said analyst Michael Cote of Redmonk. It also demonstrates Eclipse's reach to the server, he said."Where I see Swordfish fitting in is [it is] sort of [an] 'enterprise' framework for writing software and applications with OSGi," said Cote. The Swordfish vision also appears to follow the ESB-driven (enterprise service bus) way of doing SOA, he said."I think the more interesting thing about Swordfish than just the SOA angle is how it's part of Eclipse's overall idea of doing more runtime -- stuff for the server side rather than desktop stuff," Cote said.The Sopera open source suite features Swordfish and components for messaging, registry, security, and BPEL (Business Process Execution Language for Web Services). Sopera supports business applications, as well as legacy and SAP NetWeaver integration. It also provides a gateway to third-party ESBs.Chris Kanarcus, U.S. correspondent with IDG News Service, an InfoWorld affiliate, contributed to this report.
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IBM is developing a new, &quot;one-stop-shop&quot; product offering, Lotus Foundations, aimed at companies with five to 500 employees, it said Monday.Lotus Foundations will consist of on-premise software servers sold primarily through partners. IBM is also developing a set of accompanying Web-hosted services, now available in a beta version.The company plans to bundle Lotus Domino, file management, directory services, firewall, backup and productivity tools in the initial offering of Lotus Foundations. Customers who need more power will be able to bring on additional servers, according to IBM. The company&#39;s partner community will also be able to integrate their own applications into the core platform.The server software sold under Foundations will be autonomic or &quot;self-healing,&quot; and therefore appropriate for small companies without paid IT staffers, IBM said.Foundations will be the home of technology IBM acquired through its&#160;purchase last week of Net Integration Technologies. That deal is set to close later this year.&quot;Net Integration is a key part of our strategy here. That&#39;s why we bought them,&quot; said Mike Rhodin, general manager of Lotus, during a press conference Monday at IBM&#39;s Lotusphere show in Orlando, Florida.IBM did not release pricing information on Monday, but Rhodin indicated the company plans to compete vigorously for market share.&quot;Our intent as we price the Foundations offering, to be blunt, is to be very aggressive,&quot; Rhodin said. &quot;The total value we&#39;ll put around the solution is going to be pretty big for the customer and we&#39;re going to leave some room in there for the partner to make some money.&quot;The Web-hosted services, on the other hand, will focus on helping businesses collaborate with each other, such as through contact and file sharing, or online chat and Web meetings. Interested users can register for the beta test at bluehouse.lotus.com.The Bluehouse beta test represents a chance for IBM to fine-tune the economics of selling software as a service, according to Rhodin. &quot;You don&#39;t find a lot of profitable software-as-a-service companies. The business model is in evolution,&quot; he said. &quot;Our approach is going to be to work with partners and the marketplace to find out the best solution for them.&quot;Also Monday, IBM and SAP said they are codeveloping a software product under the codename &quot;Atlantic,&quot; which will integrate IBM&#39;s Lotus Notes collaboration and office productivity software with SAP&#39;s Business Suite.The Atlantic project represents a further deepening of the long-standing relationship between IBM and SAP.&quot;We think the timing is just right,&quot; Rhodin said. &quot;The timing for collaboration and business systems to come together is right now.&quot;The first release of Atlantic is expected to ship in the fourth quarter of this year, and will feature support for SAP workflows, reporting and analytics. It will also include the ability to use roles from within the Lotus Notes client, and tools for expanding these core capabilities, IBM said in a statement.