Service-Oriented Architecture Fundamentals

Presentation delivered at Mercury World on October 10, 2006. This one-hour presentation includes an introduction to SOA, building the business case for SOA, and some recent thinking on SOA quality and management. File is presented in pdf.form.

Mercury’s Latest Tools Broaden Capabilities In SOA Management, Testing

Collectively, the new products and enhancements are a part of Mercury’s strategy of providing more than just tools for testing SOA components before and after they’re deployed, Ron Schmelzer, analyst for ZapThink LLC, said Tuesday. “Mercury wants to get its arms around the whole issue of lifecycle quality.”

Mercury now has a “deep, comprehensive toolset for the entire service lifecycle, from design time through deployment to runtime management and dynamic service change and reconfiguration,” ZapThink analyst Jason Bloomberg said in an email.

“As a result, as companies achieve success with their SOA initiatives, Mercury will be able to support them from the earliest stages to full enterprise SOA rollout,” Bloomberg said.

Read more at: Intelligent Enterprise

Small SOA Projects Can Show Immediate ROI

Jason Bloomberg, an analyst at ZapThink LLC, said a backlash from some users undertaking large SOA efforts is fueled by “people realizing there are real pitfalls.” He also said the efforts in such cases aren’t showing the expected ROI.

Bloomberg suggested that companies first look to undertake SOA pilot projects that involve a few services and can quickly can show a strong ROI.

Read more at: ComputerWorld

New Orbits For Mercury’s SOA?

ZapThink analyst Jason Bloomberg, who followed Systinet closely when the company was a standalone competing with the likes of SOA Software, Actional and others, applauded Mercury’s integration of the governance software maker.

“Mercury now has a deep, comprehensive toolset for the entire service lifecycle, from design time through deployment to runtime management and dynamic service change and reconfiguration,” Bloomberg said.

Read more at: InternetNews

Mercury Announces New BTO Products to Reduce Service Oriented Architecture Business Risk

“Mercury has one of the most complete pictures of how to leverage SOA governance, quality and management in production together to drive SOA results across the lifecycle,” said Jason Bloomberg, senior analyst at ZapThink. “The Mercury and Systinet products are a powerful combination and create a force to contend with in the SOA market.”

Read more at: Mercury Press Release

IBM making $1 billion bet on SOA

LogicLibrary, although still independent, announced a worldwide reseller agreement with IBM Global Services last week that will allow IBM Global Services to resell and provide services for LogicLibrary’s Logidex registry/repository and design time governance product.

In time, the company could be a natural acquisition target for Oracle, said Ronald Schmelzer, senior analyst at ZapThink.

IBM’s other main SOA competitors — notably BEA Systems, HP, and SAP. — are, like Oracle, software vendors with a strong presence in middleware.

HP’s SOA offerings appear more focused on a subset of SOA around management and governance, Cearley said. It’s not clear what SAP will do — adopt IBM’s approach and build its own registry/repository or, less likely, acquire one, Schmelzer said.

With IBM’s reaffirmation to SOA, Schmelzer sees echoes of the company’s wholehearted embrace of e-business in the mid-’90s, which manifested itself across every segment of Big Blue’s business.

“It’s the same level of commitment,” Schmelzer said, pointing to the more than $1 billion IBM is investing in SOA-related areas this year.

“Clearly, IBM’s expecting a multibillion dollar return on its investment,” Schmelzer added.

Read more at: InfoWorld

BEA Unveils SOA Infrastructure Platform

Besides BEA, Oracle, WebMethods and Mercury, which is now part of Hewlett-Packard Co., have also taken steps toward bolstering their SOA infrastructure platforms, Ronald Schmelzer, analyst for ZapThink LLC, said.

“BEA is making the right moves with respect to fleshing out their platform, as well as their professional services capabilities,” Schmelzer said in an email. “While BEA’s work is not done in consolidating and improving the strength and competitiveness of their offerings, BEA 360 represents this latest trend in SOA evolution towards a complete ‘stack’ of product, processes, professional services, and methodologies.”

Read more at: TechWeb

WebMethods Acquires Infravio for SOA Boost

Jason Bloomberg, an analyst with ZapThink, in Waltham, Mass., said WebMethods has “seen the SOA writing on the wall for a while now. As a proprietary EAI [enterprise application integration] vendor, they really have little choice but to tell the SOA story, and in fact, they’ve been doing a reasonably good job telling that story, given that what they’re really selling is an integration infrastructure.”

However, by acquiring Infravio, WebMethods is bringing in a clear thought leader in the SOA space, Bloomberg said.

“Infravio is at the eye of the SOA storm, focused on registry/repository, SOA governance, and service life-cycle management,” Bloomberg said. “The issue now is one of execution: Can Infravio’s leadership raise WebMethods’ SOA efforts to a leadership position, or will WebMethods’ EAI ball and chain swamp Infravio’s vision? Only time will tell.”

Read more at: eWeek

WebMethods on SOA Governance Tear

Jason Bloomberg, a senior analyst at Zapthink, told internetnews.com that Infravio’s technology addresses critical SOA governance issues.

But he also cautioned that, as with any acquisition, the deal will only improve webMethods’ offering if it executes properly.

“Can Infravio’s leadership raise webMethods’ SOA efforts to a leadership position, or will webMethods’ EAI ball-and-chain swamp Infravio’s vision? Only time will tell,” he said.

Read more at: InternetNews

WebMethods Acquires Infravio, Boosts SOA Portfolio

“As a proprietary EAI (enterprise application integration) vendor, they really have little choice but to tell the SOA story, and in fact, they’ve been doing a reasonably good job telling that story, given that what they’re really selling is an integration infrastructure,” Jason Bloomberg, analyst for ZapThink LLC, said in a email.

In acquiring Infravio, WebMethods has the opportunity to make a strong push into the SOA market.

“Infravio is at the eye of the SOA storm, focused on registry/repository, SOA governance, and service lifecycle management,” Bloomberg said. “The issue now is one of execution: can Infravio’s leadership raise WebMethods’ SOA efforts to a leadership position, or will webMethods’ EAI ball-and-chain swamp Infravio’s vision? Only time will tell.”

Read more at: TechWeb