ZapThink » Polar Lake http://www.zapthink.com Sharpening Your Vision of the Future of IT Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:12:55 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 ESB market report http://www.zapthink.com/2006/10/26/esb-market-report/ http://www.zapthink.com/2006/10/26/esb-market-report/#comments Thu, 26 Oct 2006 00:10:00 +0000 admin http://test.zapthink.com/?p=2008 As the larger vendors have added ESB capabilities to their offerings, the pureplays have broadened their capabilities as well. "Look at Sonic Software," said Bloomberg. "They're still leading with their ESB product, but Progress Software [Sonic's corporate parent] has reorganized. It's significant that Progress has realized SOA is more than ESB. They have the Neon legacy integration, they have XML tooling. SOA requires a lot of different pieces. Sonic's leading standalone ESB product is really not standalone anymore. Companies want a more comprehensive solution."

According to ZapThink's Bloomberg, "A key part of the SOA infrastructure has to do with the intermediary capability for loose coupling of services. If your existing middleware can't do that, bring in some intermediary. If you have the need for additional integration infrastructure, get an ESB. If you already have that infrastructure you can use an intermediary, like SOA Software's Network Director. The question is, do I need messaging infrastructure in addition to intermediary capabilities?"

"What we're seeing from ESB vendors as well as consultants building SOA solutions, is that the bloom is off the ESB rose," said Bloomberg. "Clearly the role of ESB is no longer thought of as a key piece of SOA infrastructure, but rather one piece of many moving parts to get SOA to work."

Read more at: SearchWebServices]]> “The real question is, how can an ESB help with a SOA implementation plan, which is the challenge a lot of enterprises face,” said Jason Bloomberg, a senior analyst at ZapThink LLC in Waltham, Mass. “Companies need to think through a plan, identify the business problem, figure out how to build services, then figure out the infrastructure. They may or may not need an ESB.”

As the larger vendors have added ESB capabilities to their offerings, the pureplays have broadened their capabilities as well. “Look at Sonic Software,” said Bloomberg. “They’re still leading with their ESB product, but Progress Software [Sonic's corporate parent] has reorganized. It’s significant that Progress has realized SOA is more than ESB. They have the Neon legacy integration, they have XML tooling. SOA requires a lot of different pieces. Sonic’s leading standalone ESB product is really not standalone anymore. Companies want a more comprehensive solution.”

According to ZapThink’s Bloomberg, “A key part of the SOA infrastructure has to do with the intermediary capability for loose coupling of services. If your existing middleware can’t do that, bring in some intermediary. If you have the need for additional integration infrastructure, get an ESB. If you already have that infrastructure you can use an intermediary, like SOA Software’s Network Director. The question is, do I need messaging infrastructure in addition to intermediary capabilities?”

“What we’re seeing from ESB vendors as well as consultants building SOA solutions, is that the bloom is off the ESB rose,” said Bloomberg. “Clearly the role of ESB is no longer thought of as a key piece of SOA infrastructure, but rather one piece of many moving parts to get SOA to work.”

Read more at: SearchWebServices

]]> http://www.zapthink.com/2006/10/26/esb-market-report/feed/ 0 SOA Planning and Design…It’s Still the Wild West http://www.zapthink.com/2005/08/21/soa-planning-and-designits-still-the-wild-west/ http://www.zapthink.com/2005/08/21/soa-planning-and-designits-still-the-wild-west/#comments Sun, 21 Aug 2005 00:08:00 +0000 admin http://test.zapthink.com/?p=1538 Read more at: InfoWorld Blogs]]> SOA planning and design has received almost no press when you consider the amount that�s out there about the technology. I�ve taken a run at a planning methodology with my �12 Steps to SOA,� written 4 years ago now, and there are others out there as well including approaches from Zap Think, and even vendors such as Polarlake. However, typically these types of publications take a back-seat to the ESB vs. Fabric debate, or even who invented a buzzword. Not productive.

Read more at: InfoWorld Blogs

]]> http://www.zapthink.com/2005/08/21/soa-planning-and-designits-still-the-wild-west/feed/ 0 Service-Oriented Process http://www.zapthink.com/2003/04/17/service-oriented-process-2/ http://www.zapthink.com/2003/04/17/service-oriented-process-2/#comments Thu, 17 Apr 2003 00:04:00 +0000 Ronald Schmelzer http://test.zapthink.com/?p=ZTP-0125 Download File

]]> http://www.zapthink.com/2003/04/17/service-oriented-process-2/feed/ 0 Service-Oriented Process http://www.zapthink.com/2003/04/16/service-oriented-process-3/ http://www.zapthink.com/2003/04/16/service-oriented-process-3/#comments Wed, 16 Apr 2003 00:04:00 +0000 Ronald Schmelzer http://test.zapthink.com/?p=ZTR-WS108 However, automating business processes has historically been a difficult-to-achieve goal for most enterprises due to the flexibility of their IT infrastructure. Fortunately, businesses have a solution in Service-Oriented Process: a separate abstraction layer for business process definition and execution that leverages the capabilities of Service-oriented Architectures. Service-Oriented Process provides businesses an approach to tying business requirements to the Service model represented in the SOA metamodel, thereby providing a flexible approach towards implementing architectures that promote business agility.]]> Key Findings:
  • Service-Oriented Process is Key to Meeting Business Agility Requirements
  • Service-oriented process includes orchestration, choreography, composition, workflow, transactions, and collaboration of Web Services.
  • The market for Service-Oriented Process solutions will grow from $120 Million in 2003 to over $8.3 Billion by 2008.
  • The standards landscape will converge on a single choreography, orchestration, and process flow specification in the next 12-18 months.
  • By 2005, over 70% of Web Services implementations will be process-driven.
  • Services must be developed devoid of process in order that they can participate in an SOA that meets the goals of business agility
  • Service-Oriented Management techniques can assist in managing discrete services as well as end-to-end business processes.

Table of Contents:

  • I. Report Scope
  • II. The Context for Service-Oriented Process
    • 2.1. What are Business Processes?
    • 2.2. Why is Process Important to the Enterprise?
    • 2.3. Connecting Business Requirements to IT Capabilities Through Process
    • 2.4. Organizational Roles and Business Process
  • III. Fundamentals of Business Process
    • 3.1. Business Process Terms and Concepts
    • 3.2. Business Process Definition
    • 3.3. Process Execution
    • 3.4. Transactions and Exception Handling
    • 3.5. Process Monitoring and Management
    • 3.6. A History of Business Process Management and Workflow Solutions
  • IV. Applying SOA to Business Process: Service-Oriented Process
    • 4.1. Web Services and SOA Approaches for Process Definition and Execution
    • 4.2. Workflow
    • 4.3. Transactions
    • 4.4. Reliability
    • 4.5. Guidance on the Specifications
  • V. Connecting the Dots: Process, Management, and Integration
    • 5.1. Proper Mindset for SOA: Process-Orientation
    • 5.2. Asynchrony and Coarse-Granularity: Enabled by Process
    • 5.3. Fulfilling the Requirements for Loose Coupling with Service-Oriented Management
  • VI. Market Opportunity for Service-Oriented Process
  • VII. Future Trends for Service-Oriented Process
    • 7.1. Smarter Invocation of Services
    • 7.2. Portals and Processes
    • 7.3. Enterprise Applications and Processes
    • 7.4. Processes and Peer-to-Peer Implementations
  • VIII. Conclusions
    • 8.1. Key Notes
    • 8.2. Decision Points
    • 8.3. Figures
    • 8.4. Tables
  • IX. Glossary
  • X. Profiled Vendors

Download File

]]> http://www.zapthink.com/2003/04/16/service-oriented-process-3/feed/ 0 Service-Oriented Process http://www.zapthink.com/2002/08/23/service-oriented-process/ http://www.zapthink.com/2002/08/23/service-oriented-process/#comments Fri, 23 Aug 2002 00:08:00 +0000 Ronald Schmelzer http://test.zapthink.com/?p=ZTB-0111 However, automating business processes has historically been a difficult-to-achieve goal for most enterprises due to the flexibility of their IT infrastructure. Fortunately, businesses have a solution in Service-Oriented Process: a separate abstraction layer for business process definition and execution that leverages the capabilities of Service-oriented Architectures. Service-Oriented Process provides businesses an approach to tying business requirements to the Service model represented in the SOA metamodel, thereby providing a flexible approach towards implementing architectures that promote business agility.]]> Business processes have always been an important, if understated, asset of enterprises. The nature and methods by which a company runs its business changes on a daily basis at various different levels in the company — from high-level strategic changes to lower-level implementation details. As a result of these changes, enterprises constantly struggle to make their businesses more responsive to business changes by connecting their business requirements to their IT and human capabilities.

However, automating business processes has historically been a difficult-to-achieve goal for most enterprises due to the flexibility of their IT infrastructure. Fortunately, businesses have a solution in Service-Oriented Process: a separate abstraction layer for business process definition and execution that leverages the capabilities of Service-oriented Architectures. Service-Oriented Process provides businesses an approach to tying business requirements to the Service model represented in the SOA metamodel, thereby providing a flexible approach towards implementing architectures that promote business agility. Download File

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