Feature

SOA – Integration or Interaction?

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 05:45:00 EDT

SOA and integration have been working together so well that we tend to forget that SOA is not just about integrating and we often refer to SOA itself as mainly an integration architecture. The word ‘integration’ has been used for decades to describe the possibility for systems to interact, which makes it confusing when applying it to the SOA domain where it might be relevant to distinguish between integrating and interacting. The point is that integration and interaction are two different things but how they differ depends on the way you define integration.

Next-Generation Service Infrastructure & the Semantic Challenge

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:00:00 EDT

Driven by SaaS market momentum, the growth of large service ecosystems involves radical changes in both enterprise Business Process organization and IT infrastructure to fit interoperability and agility requirements. Many questions associated with the paradigm shift arise: how can we move to a network of services of Internet scale transparently available across the many devices we use to access information?

SOAP Over JMS Interoperability

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 16:00:00 EDT

Web Services are becoming the chosen way of exposing interoperable units of work as services. Today consumers and providers of software services talk different languages, and SOAP makes them understand each other. SOAP can be transported via almost anything, and we sometimes joke that we can even do SOAP over FedEx if necessary.

SOA Feature: Redefining the Economics of Mainframe SOA

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 13:00:00 EST

Next-generation middleware exploits IBM System z specialty engines, redefining mainframe total cost of ownership and spurring expanded legacy participation in Service Oriented Architectures. Of all the wonders Service Oriented Architecture has wrought in the business world, one of the most valuable has been to unlock legacy data, applications, and processing resources for new and profitable use.

SOA World Feature: SOA as a Business Strategy

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 02:45:00 EST

If you had to pick a single business benefit that service-oriented architecture (SOA) can provide, it is the ability to respond to change. Change occurs continually in a multitude of places that affect the enterprise: the market, the supply chain, strategic processes, regulations, and so forth. SOA can enable the creation of an agile environment that creates stability in the face of change because it restructures automated functions into reusable pieces that can be quickly reconfigured into new or modified processes.

Index XML Documents with VTD-XML

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 14:15:00 EST

Traditionally DOM or SAX-based enterprise applications have to repeat CPU-intensive XML parsing when accessing the same documents multiple times. VTD-XML 2.0 introduces a simple general-purpose XML index called VTD+XML (http://vtd-xml.sourceforge.net/persistence.html) that eliminates the need for repetitive parsing of those applications.

What's Next After SOA?

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 13:00:00 EST

This is the time of year when trend or predication articles start cropping up. Year after year I'm asked if I would be interested in writing about what's to come. You see I have an uncanny ability to pick lottery numbers. Unfortunately my lottery guesses, like most articles that look into the future, aren't right most of the time. So I usually say no, and leave my writing time to topics of here and now.

SOA Feature Story: Real-Time SOA Starts with the Messaging Bus!

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:30:00 EST

Service Oriented Architectures are increasingly being used to implement high-performance and real-time systems. Traditional systems operate in 'human real-time,' where human patience is the limit. Increasingly, however, systems operate in 'computer real-time,' where the only limits are imposed by the operational speed of the computers and networks.

Testing SOA Solutions

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 10:15:00 EST

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) has been discussed as an important architectural style for the last few years. Organizations have started to develop service-oriented solutions and many are now leveraging services in their production environments. SOA introduces new technical complexities and challenges and makes testing a critical component of the development lifecycle.

Multi-Enterprise SOA

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 13:00:00 EST

Merger and acquisition expenditures exceeded $2.7 trillion worldwide in 2005 and are expected to grow through 2009. However, according to McKinsey and Company, the big global strategy consultancy, 'Half or more of the big mergers fail to create significant shareholder value.... The sad conclusion is that an average corporate control transaction...delivers little or no value in the return.'

Expanding SOA with AJAX and Web 2.0 Tools

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 17:15:00 EDT

The Web is evolving as an open platform with rich user interface capabilities of desktop clients. This has triggered user-driven management of service consumer ecosystems, expanding the reach of SOA with rich interactive controls and Web 2.0 tools to access the Web content and services. However the usability dimension of these Web 2.0-based service consumer ecosystems is often ignored, leaving doubt about whether present usability testing techniques in Web-based systems are capable enough to guarantee a usable experience in RIA-based service consumer systems.

A Suitable Test Bed for SOA

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 05:30:00 EDT

You are equipped with a technical understanding of Web Services. You are a strong believer in the power of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). Now you're eager to bring SOA to your enterprise. You want to get maximum benefit from SOA, so you propose to service-enable the key functions of your company's enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) applications and automate cross-application processes like order-to-cash.

AJAX Composite Apps - The Last Mile Between Your Users and Your SOA

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 05:45:00 EDT

In the telecommunications industry there's a special phrase for that bit of technology that carries data from the last pole or relay box into the customer's home. It's called 'the last mile' and it's often seen as one of the biggest challenges because this last step in the technology chain can be a considerable physical undertaking. In the IT industry we also have our 'last mile': putting the right application in the hands of the end user. Composite applications address this 'last mile', combining a rich user interface with SOA-driven application integration technology.

Building SOAs That Benefit Business Users

Sun, 07 Oct 2007 14:00:00 EDT

If Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is all about business agility, then why does the focus continue to be on how services will be built, deployed, and managed by IT instead of how they'll be consumed by business users? How will SOA services to be rolled out in your organization? Through a Web browser or rich Internet application? Will these Web applications totally replace the applications your business users are currently relying on?

SOA Feature - Service Provisioning via SPML in SOA

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 14:15:00 EDT

Provisioning is the automation of all the steps required to manage user accounts or system access facilities or data relative to electronically published services. The Provisioning Services Technical Committee (PSTC) at OASIS, the premier standards body for SOA-related standards, defined an XML-based framework named Service Provisioning Markup Language (SPML) for exchanging user information, resource information, and service provisioning information in systems. In this article, we'll explore the role of SPML in managing identity and resource information in SOA environments.

The Three Faces of SOA - COTS, Legacy, and New Development

Mon, 20 Aug 2007 09:30:00 EDT

You have purchased applications. You have existing in-house applications. You have applications you are in the process of writing from scratch. Now your CIO wants to know how all these applications are going to start leveraging this 'SOA' that's been in all the papers. Ah yes, S-O-A, the elusive Service Oriented Architecture. You've read the analyst reports. You've watched some online webinars. You even have a fancy poster in your office. It all sounds good, but you're not quite sure how it applies to your environment.

SOA Best Practices - Four Steps to Securing Your Web Services

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 16:30:00 EDT

Security has the inherent nature of spanning many different layers of a Web Services system. Web Services vulnerabilities can be present in the operating system, the network, the database, the Web server, the application server, the XML parser, the Web Services implementation stack, the application code, the XML firewall, the Web Service monitoring or management appliance, or just about any other component in your Web Services system.

The Necessity of OOSE Design Patterns

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 16:15:00 EDT

Patterns emerge as software engineers begin to notice recurring problems. If you design software and you face a situation in which you ask yourself 'Gee, I can't be the first person facing this problem!' your search for a pattern has just begun. Once you find and apply a pattern, your solution will not only benefit from the knowledge gained in the past, but this pattern might also open a door to related patterns.

Service Versioning For SOA

Wed, 26 Jul 2006 16:15:00 EDT

(Found in a blog, 'Versioning is as inevitable as security.') SOA development practice isn't much different from other software development practices except for design and maintenance. Multiple self-containing and aggregated services that interact with others have their own lifecycle and evolution. The loosely coupling model of SOA services significantly simplifies design but creates additional difficulties in maintenance, especially in the interoperability of different service versions.

Identity Propagation in a SOA

Thu, 11 May 2006 10:00:00 EDT

One of the challenges IT organizations face is how to propagate identities in complex business processes that are commonly found in Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs). Identities, which are passed from one service invocation to the next in a business process, give the process a user context. Identities can be used to determine access rights to SOA services and for audit and compliance purposes.

Blending Discovery, Governance, Security, and Management in SOA and Web Services

Tue, 18 Apr 2006 16:15:00 EDT

With power comes responsibility. The promise of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) offers significant opportunity for service reuse and the realization of a fully integrated enterprise. But left unchecked, the flexibility enabled by an SOA will result in a Wild Wild West of enterprise IT. To properly harness the power of SOA while delivering value for the enterprise, certain controls are essential. Incorporating service discovery, service security, service management, and policy governance in a ubiquitous and transparent framework is essential to the success of any enterprise SOA deployment.

i-Technology Viewpoint: "Personal Blogs Will Be Dead in Another Two or Three Years"

Tue, 17 Jan 2006 18:15:00 EST

'Few people know that the first webpage ever created, Tim's home page, was actually a blog,' writes Alex Krupp. 'Blogs are the epitome of Web 1.0. They focus so much on the individual that even Ayn Rand would blush. At their best they can be truly uplifting and inspiring, but on average there are some serious problems with blogs as they exist today. Blogging will be around forever, but I think that personal blogs will be dead in another two or three years.'

i-Technology Viewpoint: Thinking Outside the VC Box

Wed, 26 Oct 2005 05:30:00 EDT

Prior to the year 2000, business was a world in love with office spaces and corporate travel. We traveled to work (the office) every day. We traveled away from the office for customer meetings, for internal meetings, for conferences, for awards ceremonies. We traveled because we could and we believed that it was necessary for the competitive advantage. That all changed rather quickly with the economic downturn of the early 2000s and, of course, 9/11. In short order, we relearned how to do business by staying put.

Demystifying SOA - Myths About SOA Web Services Architecture

Thu, 22 Sep 2005 06:00:00 EDT

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) refers to an architectural solution that creates an environment in which services, service consumers, and service producers can coexist, and still have no dependence on each other. SOA enables an enterprise to increase the loose coupling and the reuse of frequently used software assets. These software assets, together with the functionality that they provide, are called services in the SOA terminology. By nature, SOAs are complex and are typically applied to solutions with highly volatile requirements.

The Role of EII in SOA

Sun, 19 Jun 2005 14:15:00 EDT

EII and SOA are two of the newest acronyms bandied about in enterprise IT departments. Application architects are seeking to build loosely coupled applications with Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). Data architects are trying to make information more widely available with Enterprise Information Integration (EII).

BPM Theory for Laymen

Wed, 25 May 2005 16:00:00 EDT

In most software topics, the boundary between theory and practice in software is clearly demarcated: theory is for academics who seldom descend from the ivory tower, practice is for industry professionals who have long forgotten the concepts and application of theory. In concurrency, for example, most developers either know or have programmed semaphores, but few remember the conceptual underpinnings devised by Dijkstra.

ESB Integration Patterns

Tue, 31 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EDT

The past several years have seen some significant technology trends, such as service-oriented architecture (SOA), enterprise application integration (EAI), business-to-business (B2B), and Web services. These technologies have attempted to address the challenges of improving the results and increasing the value of integrated business processes, and have garnered the widespread attention of IT leaders, vendors, and industry analysts.

Horses for Courses: Services, Objects, and Loose Coupling - Integration without compromise

Wed, 31 Dec 2003 09:37:09 EST

Object-oriented technologies are used today in the design and development processes for many computer systems; it is a proven paradigm and has made possible the development of large and complex software systems. Enabling platforms and tools for building and consuming Web services will not be an exception.

Pragmatic Web Services Security Today - Simple strategies for securing and monitoring Web services

Mon, 01 Dec 2003 00:00:00 EST

Concerns about security are cited as the single largest barrier to rapid Web services adoption. Yet most Web services today are fairly straightforward point-to-point integrations that can be securely implemented using only digital certificates and the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol.

SOAP's Two Messaging Styles

Mon, 27 Oct 2003 00:00:00 EST

To RPC, or not to RPC: that is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the control and dependency of coupling, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them?

The Critical Need for Monitoring & Analysis

Mon, 27 Oct 2003 00:00:00 EST

The Web services paradigm is poised to become the dominant form of distributed computing this decade and beyond. Indeed, A. T. Kearney, an EDS global consultancy, found that 75% of companies ranging from less than $50 million to more than $1 billion in revenues and across 20 vertical industries have already deployed one or more Web service.

Using Web Services for Business

Mon, 27 Oct 2003 00:00:00 EST

SOAP is at the heart of all Web services as the way to deliver messages between two applications or systems. SOAP in its various versions is well known and often discussed.

Registering a Web Service in UDDI

Fri, 26 Sep 2003 00:00:00 EDT

UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration) is a registry for Web services. It provides a mechanism to advertise and discover Web services. Although you don't need to use UDDI to implement a Web services solution, you'll find that a UDDI registry greatly simplifies the management and administration of your services, particularly once they have reached a certain critical mass.

Toward Web Services Management Standards

Fri, 26 Sep 2003 00:00:00 EDT

The work being done in WSDM will lay a firm foundation for effective distributed system management, both leveraging the unifying strengths of Web services in the solution itself and addressing the specific requirements for managing what are rapidly becoming the universal glue in enterprise system design.

The Enterprise Service Bus

Fri, 26 Sep 2003 00:00:00 EDT

In the past there seemed to be two more or less exclusive routes to integration: 'roll your own' or buy an EAI product. Typically, developers would choose the first option for maximum flexibility, while project managers preferred the second, for consistency and security.

Integrating CICS Applications as Web Services

Tue, 19 Aug 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Web services promise to lower the costs of integration and help legacy applications retain their value. This article explains how you can use them to integrate mainframe CICS applications with other enterprise applications.

Future-Proofing Solutions with Coarse-Grained Service Oriented Architecture

Tue, 19 Aug 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Web services and service-oriented architectures are transforming application construction. The ubiquity of Web services support by all leading platform venders brings the promise of a flexible application environment with simplified interface techniques, location transparency, and platform-neutral interoperability. This dynamic infrastructure brings about a new implementation approach, the service-oriented architecture.

The Change Management Balancing Act

Thu, 24 Jul 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Managing change in a software system is a lot like balancing your personal finances. With or without a resource allocation plan, the assets available and the demands placed on them change constantly. Whether it's your code or your checkbook, the result of mismanaging change over time is likely to be the same: disaster.

Building a Business Logic Layer Over Multiple Web Services

Thu, 24 Jul 2003 00:00:00 EDT

Over the last few years, there have been significant developments in the Web services world. Many enterprises have embraced Web services to build business-to-business transactions and a uniform communication layer among applications over corporate intranets.

Inroducing BPEL4WS 1.0

Thu, 24 Jul 2003 00:00:00 EDT

In July 2002, BEA, IBM, and Microsoft released a trio of specifications designed to support business transactions over Web services. These specifications, BPEL4WS, WS-Transaction, and WS-Coordination (see WSJ, Vol. 3, issues 5-7), form the bedrock for reliably choreographing Web services-based applications, providing business process management, transactional integrity, and generic coordination facilities, respectively.