With E-Mail Systems Stumbling, Electronic Info Feeds Take Root

So far, ING is the first known company to use RSS in a corporate setting. But there could be many more business customers, says Ronald Schmelzer, senior analyst for ZapThink, a research firm.

“This is really the first time that we are really seeing it used to stream events and general data,” he said.

Read more at: Investor’s Business Daily

Events vs. Services: The Real Story

Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is an approach to distributed computing that considers software functionality as Services on the network. Event-Driven Architecture (EDA) is an approach where events trigger asynchronous messages that are then sent between independent software components. Some people think that these two approaches are different, alternative takes on distributed computing, but that’s not correct. In fact, SOA supports a variety of interactions, many of which are event-driven.

To truly understand the power of SOA, it’s important to keep in mind that SOA represents an abstraction layer that masks the complexity of the underlying technology, including the details of how various pieces of software interact–whether via events or some other kind of message. In fact, SOA allows for a range of approaches depending upon the complexity of the underlying environment.

In complex, heterogeneous enterprise environments, SOA often requires rigorous Service contracts enforced on a reliable messaging infrastructure like those Enterprise Service Buses (ESBs) provide. In more limited situations, however, more lightweight approaches to SOA are more appropriate. Lightweight event-driven approaches like the one KnowNow offers can be the most appropriate, cost-effective distributed computing technique in situations where enterprise SOA capabilities are overkill.

Best Practices in Event-Driven Service-Oriented Architecture

Presentation for KnowNow Webinar on October 13, 2004. Replay is available at http://www.knownow.com/about/events.shtml.

KnowNow and ZapThink to Co-Host Webinar on `The Best Practices in Event-Driven SOA’

KnowNow Inc., a leading provider of event-driven integration solutions, and ZapThink, an IT market intelligence firm that provides trusted advice and critical insight into XML, Web Services, and Service Orientation, today announced they will co-host a Webinar on “The Best Practices in Event-Driven SOA.”

Jason Bloomberg, senior analyst at ZapThink, will debunk many of the differences between Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Event-Driven Architecture (EDA). He will then show how SOAs should be event-driven based on a discussion of loose coupling, invocation mechanisms, and lightweight events.

Sean Martin, vice president of event-driven architectures at KnowNow will discuss how KnowNow addresses previously unsolvable problems such as data inaccuracies that produce regulatory exposure; profit loss due to missed opportunities; and exposes often overlooked time-critical information. All attendees will receive a free copy of Events vs. Services: The Real Story of Best Practices in Event-Driven SOA, a new white paper by ZapThink Analyst, Jason Bloomberg.

Read more at: KnowNow Press Release

How Loose is your Coupling?

One of the repeating themes that ZapThink frequently touts is the concept of loose coupling as one of the idées fortes or powerful tenets of Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs). In fact, there’s so much emphasis on loose coupling that many people jump to two natural, but false conclusions: first, that …

KnowNow Joins OASIS; Becomes Major Contributor to Web Services Standards Initiatives

“Companies are increasingly realizing the benefit of standards-based, event-driven Service Oriented Architectures,” said Ronald Schmelzer, senior analyst and founder of ZapThink LLC. “Using an event-driven SOAs, organization can exchange messages and notifications between its Web services systems, providing tremendous benefit in enabling companies to be more responsive and have immediate visibility into changes as they occur.”

Read more at: KnowNow Press Release