SOA Tools and Best Practices

From its inception through 2002, the primary application for Web Services in the enterprise was to simplify point-to-point integration between systems, thereby reducing the cost of integration. This application of Web Services, however, only scratches the surface of the true potential of Web Services — enabling companies to build agile business processes and IT systems that can respond to change through the use of loosely coupled, standards-based Service-oriented architectures.

The business value of such architectures in terms of the business agility they provide is substantial, but as of early 2003, only a few early adopter enterprises have built such architectures, partly because few tools for building Service-oriented architectures are available on the market, and furthermore, there is little understanding of the best practices companies should follow to build such architectures. This report seeks to clarify the requirements for realizing the value of Web Services by providing a set of emerging best practices as well as an analysis of the tools that are currently available for building Service-oriented architectures.

SOA Tools

From its inception through 2002, the primary application for Web Services in the enterprise was to simplify point-to-point integration between systems, thereby reducing the cost of integration. This application of Web Services, however, only scratches the surface of the true potential of Web Services — enabling companies to build agile business processes and IT systems that can respond to change through the use of loosely coupled, standards-based Service-oriented architectures.

The business value of such architectures in terms of the business agility they provide is substantial, but as of early 2003, only a few early adopter enterprises have built such architectures, partly because few tools for building Service-oriented architectures are available on the market, and furthermore, there is little understanding of the best practices companies should follow to build such architectures. This report seeks to clarify the requirements for realizing the value of Web Services by providing a set of emerging best pra

SOA Best Practices

From its inception through 2002, the primary application for Web Services in the enterprise was to simplify point-to-point integration between systems, thereby reducing the cost of integration. This application of Web Services, however, only scratches the surface of the true potential of Web Services — enabling companies to build agile business processes and IT systems that can respond to change through the use of loosely coupled, standards-based Service-oriented architectures.

The business value of such architectures in terms of the business agility they provide is substantial, but as of early 2003, only a few early adopter enterprises have built such architectures, partly because few tools for building Service-oriented architectures are available on the market, and furthermore, there is little understanding of the best practices companies should follow to build such architectures. This report seeks to clarify the requirements for realizing the value of Web Services by providing a set of emerging best pra

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 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.

Web Services Management

Download File

Actional, AmberPoint eye Web services management

“It’s clear that things are exploding in this space, but what’s happening now is that every company has a different marketing message and it’s confusing,” said Jason Bloomberg, principal analyst at ZapThink.

Bloomberg said that management really involves four distinct areas: traditional systems management for availability and performance, life cycle management for rolling out new Web services and versioning, business management to give a dashboard view of criteria such as how many orders processed, and services-oriented architecture support to piece together many fine-grained Web services into one coarse-grained component.

Read more at: InfoWorld

What’s Hot with Web Services?

Download File

Securing & Managing XML & Web Services in the Enterprise

There are two related forces that are transforming information technology today: the rapid growth of XML traffic on the network, and the widespread adoption of Web Services as a way of reducing the cost of integration and moving traditional enterprise architectures to flexible, Service-oriented architectures. Enterprises must plan ahead if they want to be able to manage the XML and Web Services on their networks. Even more importantly, enterprises must take care to provide uninterrupted security for their IT environments. In the face of these changes, XML and Web Services introduce new security concerns for the IT manager, and new technology tools, including XML firewalls, offer the missing pieces of security that today’s enterprises need.

ZapNote: WestGlobal

Many vendors approach the problem of managing Web Services from the technology perspective. After all, Web Services expose IT resources in an IT infrastructure. WestGlobal, however, takes the perspective of the business user. Their view is that Web Services expose business functionality that serves the needs of the enterprise’s lines of business. Therefore, WestGlobal’s management platform enables business managers to control how well an enterprise’s Web Services infrastructure is meeting business requirements such as customer satisfaction, revenue generation, and cost savings. After all, the business should drive the technology, not the other way around.