Service-Oriented Process

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Service-Oriented Process

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.

Vers une harmonisation des politiques d’accès

Pour Ronald Schmelzer du cabinet Zapthink, spécialisé dans XML et les services web, « XACML fournit les moyens de définir et d’échanger les règles de sécurité de façon standardisée »

Read more at: 01Net.fr (French)

Why The Web Won’t Replace EDI

By switching to AS2, Wal-Mart can reach smaller suppliers, thereby extending its network. “AS2 reduces the cost for mid-size companies to participate,” Jason Bloomberg, analyst for research firm ZapThink, said. “AS2 is a way to make EDI more economical.” For companies like Wal-Mart, new business-to-business technology, such as XML (extensible markup language), offers little that can’t be immediately gained by Internet-enabled EDI, he added.

Read more at: InternetWeek

ZapNote: Grand Central

Grand Central Communications offers a private Web Services network that can connect multiple business partners over the Internet in a standards-based, loosely coupled fashion. Similar to the EDI value-added networks from earlier generations, Grand Central offers connectivity, security, and reliability to its participating customers. However, the similarity ends there. By leveraging the full power of Web Services and Service orientation, Grand Central enables multiple participants to connect with each other in a secure, easy to configure, easy to maintain fashion.

OASIS Stamps Approval on ebXML CPPA

Not all analysts harbor the same optimism for ebXML, however. If ebXML’s function sounds a lot like Web services, it’s because it’s true. That is one of the reasons why ZapThink Senior Analyst Ron Schmelzer told internetnews.com many industry analysts are skeptical as to how readily ebXML will be adopted. While Sun and major players are backing it, Schmelzer said Microsoft and IBM prefer to support Web services standards, which are more general in nature, to the B2B-oriented ebXML protocol.

That said, Schmelzer said “a lot of us analysts think ebXML will find its way in the Web services arena” but how that might happen is unclear.

Read more at: Internetnews.com

Service-Oriented Management Technology Landscape

Web Services management applications provide software that helps companies manage the systems and applications that underlie their Web Services implementations. The Web Services management products on the market today offer functionality in five basic categories: system management, lifecycle management, business management, security management, and the most important, Service-Oriented Architecture enablement.

The latter category is especially important because many Web Services management products provide the critical infrastructure necessary for companies to take their fine-grained, atomic Web Services and other data sources and encapsulate and compose them into coarse-grained business Services that make up a Service-Oriented Architecture. Such architectures offer far more long-term business value than the point-to-point applications of Web Services common today.

Service-Oriented Management

Web Services management applications provide software that helps companies manage the systems and applications that underlie their Web Services implementations. The Web Services management products on the market today offer functionality in five basic categories: system management, lifecycle management, business management, security management, and the most important, Service-Oriented Architecture enablement.

The latter category is especially important because many Web Services management products provide the critical infrastructure necessary for companies to take their fine-grained, atomic Web Services and other data sources and encapsulate and compose them into coarse-grained business Services that make up a Service-Oriented Architecture. Such architectures offer far more long-term business value than the point-to-point applications of Web Services common today.

Service-Oriented Process

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.

“Peregrine’s EDI Customers Stable, But Need Backup Plan”

But what if the Peregrine’s stock, which has lost two-thirds of its value in the past week and is currently trading for less than $1, continues its slide and the company declares bankruptcy? “I am 90% confident that if that happened, a Sterling or GE would step in and rescue any stranded customers,” says Ron Schmelzer, senior analyst for consulting firm ZapThink LLC, Waltham, Mass.

Read more at: ECOM World