The Value of Service-enabling Batch Processing

Here’s an interesting question: What happens when you service-enable batch processing?

If you’re curious about just what the business benefits would be, then check out this recent article by Ronald Schmelzer, an analyst with ZapThink, a consultancy and analyst firm specializing in SOA and SOA training.

“From a Service-oriented perspective, the Service contract and policy would have to specify how many times a batch can be executed in a single day, how long the batch takes to operate, and any other Service or data dependencies.”

Read more at: IT Business Edge

Business Empowerment with SOA Presentation from IDV Solutions Webinar

Presentation delivered during IDV Solutions Webinar on January 28, 2009 on the topic of “Business Empowerment with SOA”. This presentation features a discussion on the Long Tail of Applications and the role that SOA has to play in creating the vision of business empowered to leverage IT resources for continued innovation.

Batch Processing with SOA

Although typically thought of as an artifact of legacy computing, batch processes remain vital to today’s real-time enterprises. Behind the real time systems that power the real time enterprise, such as customer order fulfillment, account management, supply chain scheduling and optimization, or financial trading systems, are regularly-updated back office business …

ZapThink Podcast: ZapThink SOA Security Deep Dive Preview

ZapThink SOA Security Deep Dive Preview

Podcast preview of ZapThink’s upcoming SOA Security Deep Dive event in Washington, DC on February 10, 2009 and San Diego, CA on April 10, 2009 featuring expert Toufic Boubez, associate analyst with ZapThink. In this podcast, Toufic Boubez provides a preview of the content to be presented at the event including a discussion of the key agenda items, takeaways audience will learn from the event, description of hands-on and practical portions of the event, usage of technology and tools during the instruction, and details regarding the importance and relevance of the training materials.

ZapForum Podcast: Leveraging Legacy, Data, & Web Assets for SOA Rapid Application Development

ZapForum Podcast for January 26, 2009 features

Guest Experts Stefan Andreasen, Founder and CTO, Kapow Technologies, and Ron Yu, Head of Marketing,
Kapow Technologies.

Listen to this Podcast and you will:

• understand what’s wrong with traditional application development
• learn about rapid application development inthe SOA context
• understand how data access issues impact the requirements gathering process

Setting the Stage: ZapThink Analysts

ZapThink analysts Ron Schmelzer and Jason Bloomberg set the stage by discussing the role data access plays in SOA initiatives.

Next, Stefan Andreasen and Ron Yu discuss rapid application development in the SOA context, and how data access is a critical part of the application modernization benefit of SOA. Next, they discuss how the presentation layer fits into the picture of SOA-based RAD, and how that in turn ties to Web 2.0. Finally, they discuss some customer examples.

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Help ZapThink understand more about Rich Internet Application (RIA) spending patterns and trends by answering a quick, 15 minute online survey. Let us know what you have been up to with regards to RIA development and investment, and get a chance to win a customized Mino Flip Camera!

To fill out the survey and get your chance to win this cool giveaway, just click here!

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Read more at: ZapThink

SOA now mainstream

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is no longer the hype of yesteryear. It has entered the mainstream and more companies are enjoying success with it, according to ZapThink MD Jason Bloomberg, who is adamant the style of enterprise architecture is being viewed in a new light.

“People are asking the right questions about governance, loose coupling, best practices and business agility, one of the major benefits SOA confers,” says Bloomberg. “And they’re asking the right questions up-front, seeking to solve a business problem rather than adopting SOA for SOA’s sake.”

SOA is important in organisations because it is architecture, he says, and as architecture, it creates a formalised way to deal with various business issues, like solving business problems with IT. It also establishes best practices and discipline across the enterprise.

Bloomberg says SOA has a number of benefits for organisations, including cost reduction, asset re-use, business visibility, business empowerment, and business agility. He says business agility is the most important reason for implementing SOA.

“Anyone who can say SOA adoption is slowing down fundamentally doesn’t understand the fact that SOA consists of a set of best practices.”

The big win for companies implementing SOA is being able to apply SOA best practices for better governance overall, he says.

Read more at: ITWeb

Microsoft donates code to Apache Stonehenge project

“In general, this is a big issue. The whole point of standards is to provide for interoperability, but so many are implemented in slightly different ways that the desired interoperability is not achieved,” said ZapThink managing partner Jason Bloomberg.

In many ways, that lack of standards interoperability is slowing down Web services efforts, and SOA has now outpaced Web services due to the standards challenge being faced, he added.

Standards interoperability is what allows mobile phones to work anywhere in the world, Bloomberg noted. “Imagine what has to happen to make that work. Handsets are working with local providers across infrastructures. In IT, there is nothing like that. It is still using stone knives and bearskins compared to the telecommunications world’s leverage of standards.”

Read more at: SD Times

The Rumors of SOA’s Demise…

OK, everyone, calm down. SOA isn’t dead, in fact, it isn’t even sick. Thousands of organizations are showing real success with SOA around the world, and more are ramping up their SOA efforts every day. Even in today’s economy, plenty of smart organizations realize the cost savings and agility benefits …

ZapThink and Linthicum Deliver Cloud Computing, SOA Training

ZapThink announced its partnership with David Linthicum of Blue Mountain Labs, and an Associate Analyst with ZapThink, to deliver a one-day conference called Cloud Computing with SOA: A ZapThink SOA Deep Dive on April 7, 2009 in the Washington, DC area. The one day event will feature David Linthicum as lecturer as well as additional contributions from ZapThink analysts.

“Companies want to know how emerging Cloud Computing efforts will be enhanced by their existing investments in SOA,” said Linthicum. “This one-day, practical event will give enterprise architecture practitioners, consulting firms, and vendors, the best practices and practical implementation knowledge they are seeking.”

Key topics addressed during the one-day event on April 7, 2009 in Washington, DC will include:

• Emerging Cloud Computing models
• Storage-as-a-Service
• Database-as-a-Service
• Information-as-a-Service
• Platform-as-a-Service
• Testing-as-a-Service
• Assessing business capabilities
• Understanding cloud resources
• Practical SOA approaches to Cloud Computing
• Governance and security strategies for SOA-enabled Cloud Computing
• Emerging vendor and technology solutions for SOA-enabled Cloud Computing
• Cloud computing futures

“ZapThink and David Linthicum are collaborating on a brand new seminar that takes the mystery out of the intersections between cloud computing and SOA,” said Ronald Schmelzer, Managing Partner with ZapThink. “We hope that events like these clear the fog from understanding about cloud computing and SOA.”

Early bird discounts are available for a limited time.

Seats are limited and ZapThink expects the event to sell out.

Read more at: SYS-Con