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Web Services
Technical PerspectiveSOA is Hard to Do Aberdeen Finds SOA adoption is a little like love and marriage suggests Peter S. Kastner vice president of enterprise integration for the Aberdeen Group. It starts out with the glow of romance and ends up with a reality that while it is far from perfect it doesn't mean it can't be made to work. As the lead for Aberdeen's fact-based research on SOA the analyst looks at data he has gathered from a thousand-plus companies and concludes that if 2005 was the year of SOA romance by the end of 2006 the honeymoon is over. The promise of SOA cost-savings remains its biggest lure he said looking over the research he has gathered during six trips out into the field where he visited IT professionals who are actually trying to make SOA work. The cost of integrating applications is roughly 40 percent of the IT budget Kastner said. That's 40 percent of a $1.3 trillion global IT budget. It's just an enormous factor in overall costs. Millions of lines of COBOL code are becoming more and more expensive to maintain he said adding that in many corporations COBOL has reached the breaking point and beyond. more > Ten Companies Where SOA Made a Difference The year 2006 was a busy one for SOA proponents; many service-oriented architectures moved from the pilot stages to live deployments. Many companies have been able to demonstrate value from their SOA efforts; here are some outstanding examples I reported on in this blogsite throughout the year. Abstracting enterprise information from underlying systems. eBay employs SOA. as a software-based integration tier to manage more than two petabytes of data; or 200 times the size of the Library of Congress. eBay is made up of more than six million lines of code and the company rolls out more than 100 000 lines of new code every two weeks. In addition there are 30 000 software builds per week. We leverage both component-oriented and service-oriented architecture technologies says James Barrese vice president of systems development at eBay. eBay has built a service architecture and uses it to enable integration across disparate technology stacks. For example we have enabled open interoperation between our C++ and Java technologies via services. more > SOA: Redrawing the Business Processes Security doesn't get enough attention in SOA warns Dennis Gaughan senior analyst at AMR Research. Early efforts tend to focus on defining service and messaging interfaces or on separating business and data logic from each other and from execution and presentation. But as services become widely used and adopted retrofitting them to accommodate access control and authorization becomes very difficult. Ask anyone in charge of constructing an SOA (service-oriented architecture) and they'll tell you that the hardest part isn't the technology; it's redrawing the business processes that provide the basis for the architecture -- and the often contentious reshuffling of roles and responsibilities that ensues. more > Does SOA Really Exist? RedMonk's Cote' apparently has been doing a lot of thinking about how much of SOA is marketecture and how much is the real deal. The answer lies somewhere in between he concludes. The technical ideas are great. It's the further evolution of OO. In fact it's almost the child of distributed OO and HTTP/XML. Somewhere along the lines WS-* came in and kidnapped that child. However he notes (and despite my constant harping on this blogsite) SOA is still mainly about technology not the business. Cote' observes that the 'solutions'/business side of the fence has hijacked it as a marketecture gold-mine. There's a sort of paradox here as SOA is supposed to be in terms of business and solution…but I think it's largely failed in that Holy Grail task of bringing the propeller heads and the suits together. more > Build an SOA application from existing services Due to global networks heterogeneous information systems and the need for agility conventional architectures have evolved. The tasks of building entirely new applications making specific adaptors for legacy systems or rewriting existing applications are now obsolete. Largely promoted by Web services connectivity the service-oriented architecture (SOA) is now considered the preferred approach to designing an information system. SOA proposes to provide existing functions of an information system as services that can be accessed in a loosely coupled way independently from the technical platform. An application is seen as an orchestration of requests for those services. That is why an SOA generally comes with workflow or orchestration concepts. more > Server Virtualisation and Service Oriented Architecture Seen as Key Technologies for Achieving IT Fl A new report Achieving IT Flexibility just published by Butler Group Europe's leading IT research and advisory organisation identifies Server Virtualisation and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) as two of the key technologies for organisations seeking to create a more flexible IT environment. However whilst interest in both technologies is very high the implementation experience is very different. As part of the research for the report Butler Group's detailed IT flexibility study of 80 organisations* showed that 69% of respondents had already deployed or trialled a Server Virtualisation solution. By contrast although 60% of organisations were evaluating or adopting a SOA strategy only 8% had deployed live services. Tim Jennings Research Director with Butler Group and lead author of the report commented: The outcomes of hardware flexibility are primarily cost savings and efficiency whereas software flexibility is the main instigator of new business value. Organisations must focus on their SOA efforts if they are to benefit from greater flexibility. more > Mainframe SOA Best Practice To ensure the success of your mainframe SOA initiatives it's important to be able to support both bottom-up and contract-first design approaches. With the former businesses may see an opportunity to jumpstart the SOA quickly packaging bite-sized chunks of mainframe code as Web Services and pushing them out to the rest of the organization to do with them what they will. But experience shows that the contract-first approach - basically Web Service design informed by business processes - is a best practice that will yield optimal results. The Myth and Pitfalls of Instant SOA Let's look at the difference between the two methodologies. With the bottom-up tactic generally adopted for instant SOA the mainframe developer wraps pieces of mainframe functionality as isolated Web Services and basically throws them over the wall to be accessed by various end-user applications and systems. This sort of point-to-point delivery of unassembled building blocks puts far too much of a burden on the rest of the organization to try to understand what a company's mainframe developers already know about the mainframe's proven applications and data. As a result the service consumer has to interact with the mainframe developers to understand the underlying mainframe functionality. This eliminates the timeconserving benefit that probably drove the initial adoption of the bottom-up approach - and puts the lie to instant SOA. more > Web Services Components The Quickest Path To a SOA SOA enables the development of business systems and processes with loosely coupled components. The emergence of the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) over the past two years has spurred the deployment of componentized applications based on a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). SOA enables the development of business systems and processes with loosely coupled components (often called services) facilitating business agility. Much of the industry's focus has been on the architecture of the underlying ESB infrastructure that supports an SOA. Standards adoption has made it easier to learn new tools but basic ESB infrastructure improvements haven't significantly reduced the effort involved in deploying and managing new business processes. That's because an ESB is simply a platform that unifies the advantages of multiple previous generations of middleware. This article illustrates that a comprehensive model for service components - the application-level modules wired together over an ESB to support SOA - facilitates rapid deployment of componentized extensible agile business processes. more > SOA TECHNOLOGY CHANGES INTEGRATION It may be hard to teach an old dog new tricks but legacy applications are a different story. Companies are using new technologies to integrate old applications into service-oriented architectures (SOAs). Such was the case with Varco Pruden Buildings Inc. commonly known as VP Buildings a Memphis Tenn.-based manufacturer of steel buildings. The company handles financials and inventory with an ERP system from PeopleSoft now owned by Redwood City Calif.-based Oracle Corp. Issuing inventory or recording when materials were used in a project was becoming a labor-intensive effort and was affecting sales and purchasing processes according to Alan Anderson director of application development with VP Buildings. Workers were physically writing down the supplies used in a day. An inventory clerk would then manually enter the data into PeopleSoft. The manual process meant a multi-day lag time with issuing inventory and it needed to be automated Anderson said. Hoping to speed up and automate the process the company first tried a traditional route. more > .NET SOA Deployment aims to capture new business in Norway Flexibility often equals opportunity in today's business climate. So Vital Forsikring ASA Norway's largest life and pensions insurance company turned to Web services and an SOA to capitalize on an opportunity created by new pension legislation in that country. Vital Forsikring headquartered in Oslo serves the life and pension insurance needs of more than 6 800 corporate clients and 700 000 individual customers and has annual revenues of $27 billion. It is a subsidiary of DnB NOR Norway's largest financial services group. more > CIO Jury: SOA ready for prime time Businesses are gearing up to adopt service-oriented architecture (SOA) citing tangible benefits resulting from a more agile and responsive IT infrastructure. Two-thirds of silicon.com's 12-strong CIO Jury IT user panel said they have already moved to or are planning to move to a SOA platform in the next year. This follows a benchmarking report from Aberdeen Group this week that said 90 per cent of organisations have adopted or are planning to adopt a SOA - although it warned doing so can eat up 40 per cent of a company's IT budget. more > Service-Oriented Architecture on the Rise The direction of the enterprise software integration market is changing. Organizational expectations for I.T. have shifted from cost savings and business automation to creating an agile enterprise that can adapt to changing business dynamics compliance rules and outsourcing. This has given rise to the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) ideal an agile I.T. architecture which can adapt and respond to changing business dynamics quickly and nimbly resulting in sticky customers cost-effectiveness and increased return on investment. Now organizations see IT as providing a competitive business advantage -- but only when maximum agility is achieved; otherwise I.T. is yet another growth bottleneck. Using SOA implementations that go well beyond what people typically think of as `Web services ' organizations are now fusing their business processes to build an agile enterprise by creating composite applications on Web services often delivering these through enterprise portals. more > The Truth About SOA In which we pour some cold water on the hype and answer your questions about why how and when you should (or should not) start thinking about implementing a service-oriented architecture more > Oh SOLA mio Merrill Lynch invested billions of dollars in an environment that processed 80 million CICS transactions daily every day. Jim Crew a 14-year veteran and his development team needed a solution for legacy app integration. At Merrill Lynch the majority of the business runs on the mainframe Crew says. It's difficult to reuse those billion-dollar investments in newer distributed applications. The right way is to do it using Web services.” Using X4ML which Crew developed Crew and his team made the mainframe part of Merrill Lynch’s SOA. Fast forward a few years and Merrill Lynch has exposed 420 CICS apps as services. “When we did performance testing there was a tenfold improvement in performance time and the number of transactions we could process ” Crew says. more > Getting Ready for SOA The concept of the service-oriented architectures (SOAs) represents the future of enterprise software - and it has already begun to effect a change in the dominant computing paradigm as dramatic as previous shifts from mainframe to client/server. Professionals have to be prepared for the change. SAP has all moved into enterprise service-oriented architectures (enterprise SOA) for its new feature sets - and with good reason. In a recent Gartner study 75 percent of companies surveyed said they plan to use service-oriented architectures for upcoming CRM ERP or SCM initiatives. Sooner or later IT departments may begin planning for the migration to these new platforms - if they haven’t started already. But do professionals know their enterprise IT plans for SOA ERP migration or ERP consolidation? In order to participate actively knowledgeably and effectively in those plans and ensure that the needs of their departments are served optimally its important for them considering the main features of SOA. more > How The Hartford does SOA At the end of this decade The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. which was founded in 1810 will celebrate its 200th corporate birthday and it will also be a 10-year milestone for its in-house SOA practice. SOA is more than standards technology or vendor products including ESBs said Benjamin Moreland director of foundation services in the enterprise architecture group at The Hartford. Having worked more than five years on the design of SOA applications that are now serving the needs of the company and its independent agents he shared his experiences perspectives and recommendations at the Burton Group Catalyst Conference earlier this month. What we have learned at The Hartford is SOA is much much broader than standards and technology he said. Our emphasis is on enterprise architecture. We have never done SOA for the sake of doing SOA because it's the next hype from IT. We've always been driven from a business perspective. more > Sun Betas Aim to Simplify Java Development Web Services Sun Microsystems has announced the release of preview versions of the Java Platform Enterprise Edition 5 software development kit and the NetBeans Enterprise Pack 5.5 Software. Sun announced beta versions of these technologies on Feb. 21 saying these offerings feature technologies that provide developers with the next-generation Java platform and tools for building and deploying Web services and SOA (service-oriented architecture) applications. Moreover the new betas feature contributions from the open-source GlassFish Project and NetBeans communities the company said. And the news comes on the heels of several recent developer-oriented announcements Sun has made including the launches of NetBeans 5.0 Java Studio Creator 2 Java Standard Edition 6 (aka Project Mustang) Java Studio Enterprise 8 and Sun Studio 11—all of which are also now available at no cost to developers the company said. Graham Hamilton a vice president and fellow on the Java platform team at Sun based in Santa Clara Calif. said the Java EE Platform 5 is a major revamp of the enterprise developer programming model that radically simplifies Java EE development especially for Web services and transactional components. more > Web services spec is approved OASIS on Wednesday announced the approval of the WS-Security 1.1 specification as an OASIS Standard. The approval gives the specification OASIS's highest level of ratification. WS-Security is always mentioned as one of the more high-profile Web services specifications among the many that are out there. WS-Security provides functions such as integrity and confidentiality in messages implementing higher level Web services applications according to OASIS. Included in version 1.1 are extra profiles for Kerberos Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) SOAP with Attachments and Rights Expression Language. OASIS listed vendors collaborating on the specification which reads like a Who's Who of computer vendors. The list includes: Actional Adobe AmberPoint BEA Systems BMC Software Computer Associates EMC Forum Systems Fujitsu Hewlett-Packard Hitachi IBM Intel Microsoft Neustar Nokia Oracle Reactivity RSA Security SAP Sun Microsystems Tibco VeriSign and others. more > Microsoft Allows Production Use For WinFX Workflow Web-Services Code Microsoft has given solution provider partners and ISVs the green light to use WinFX workflow and Web services code in production well before Windows Vista ships. The Redmond Wash. software giant on Wednesday announced the availability of GoLive licenses for the Windows Communications Foundation formerly code-named Indigo and the Windows Workflow Foundation both of which are server-side technologies. The two core WinFX technologies are significant enhancements in the Windows Vista upgrade. While the industy awaits the delivery of Vista in late 2006 ISVs and channel partners can begin deploying the workflow and Web services technology on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 as well as Windows Vista beta code. more > Coral Bridges Islands Of Web Services Moving a company to a service-oriented architecture can involve barriers not only of technology but of politics as well. Human resources departments are understandably cautious for example about exposing their roles to applications running in other departments let alone the Internet at large. That’s why Web services testing tool maker Mindreef created Coral a role-based collaborative environment unveiled on Dec. 5 that permits people from across an enterprise to participate in the construction and maintenance of Web services regardless of their technical skill level. The browser-based platform runs atop Apache’s Tomcat servlet engine and Microsoft’s SQL Server Desktop Engine (MSDE) both included in the platform’s price of US$499 per concurrent user per year (there’s a two-seat minimum). more > BEA Retools for Web Services Once upon a time the World Wide Web was all about the pages back when HTML and good page design were the primary concerns. Then it became all about the applications as Web developers moved to robust Web development languages and the powerful application servers that drove them. Nowadays it's all about the services. So it's no surprise that AquaLogic Service Bus 2.0 and WebLogic Server 9.0 the two most recent releases of the core products in BEA Systems Inc.'s Web application platform are tightly focused on Web services and building and managing an SOA (service-oriented architecture).Released in August WebLogic Server 9.0 has many of the standard upgrade features one would expect from an application server such as improved scalability and reliability and expanded standards support. But it also includes several changes that make it a friendlier base platform for Web services. more > Creative Differences Just because marketing departments and IS departments traditionally behave like oil and water doesn't mean that the two functions can't coexist . . . in a perfect world. Way back in the mists of time The IT shop discovered the Internet and realizing developing Web sites took next-to-no effort began doing so with gusto. All was rosy until some time down the track the marketing people caught on to what IT was up to. Horrified to learn the IT folk had been representing the company to the world marketing then seized control of the Web site and - brooking no argument - began issuing memos and directives insistently asserting ownership. An uneasy peace reigned until the marketing folk began to realize savvy Internet users would not stand for Web pages that merely mirrored printed brochures. Forced to accept they could not turn the Web into an interactive medium on their lonesome marketing turned to IT for help. Thus the Internet forced a meeting of the minds between two arms of the organization whose paths previously had rarely crossed. The CIO who back then most often reported up the chain through operations or finance and the marketing director who typically reported to the president or CEO suddenly found reasons to work together. more > IONA and Satyam Computer Services Partner on SOA Web Services Partnership Enables Customers to Realize the Performance Advantages of Service Oriented Architecture. IONA Technologies a world leader in high-performance integration solutions for mission-critical IT environments and Satyam Computer Services Ltd. a leading global consulting and IT services company have announced the two companies have entered into a wide-ranging technology marketing and sales agreement. In the initial stages of the partnership IONA and Satyam will engage in joint sales and marketing activities with the intent of identifying projects where Web services-based integration can be used to bring together disparate systems and deliver powerful Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) deployments to its customers. Satyam has identified Artix IONA's extensible Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) as a robust ESB foundation to support some of the SOA projects for customers in its Enterprise Integration practice. The intention for both organizations is to broaden the scope of the relationship across various vertical markets such as banking and financial services government healthcare insurance and in particular telecommunications. more > The Web as a platform Developing for the Web is going to be in this summer but what is the right approach? As a gross over-generalisation software developers don't care much for the latest trends in fashion. Give them jeans and t-shirts socks with sandals and the majority will be as happy as pigs in mud. What they do care about is being up to date with development trends that will give them an edge. This could be learning the latest and greatest language having a working knowledge of a dying art form like COBOL or Fortan scanning vendor Web sites for obscure but useful research papers and taking part in beta and alpha programs. there is one trend that is starting to take shape it is the Web as a platform. Whether it’s word processor replacements office suites or even content management systems that act like operating systems through a browser the future certainly looks bright for applications that can be accessed from anywhere via the Web. And when you start talking to someone about how this is all happening you won’t go for long without hearing about AJAX. AJAX is the new black. (Or as Will Farrell’s character says in the movie Zoolander It's so hot right now .) more > The Role of Web Services in Mergers and Acquisitions Witnessing the flurry of Web Services activity over the past few years companies are turning to this technology for more than internal integration. They have discovered that the benefits of seamless interoperability platform independence speed and cost can apply to merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions as well. Web Services provides a cost-effective way for IT to help achieve corporate merger goals and to contribute significantly to fast reliable merger synergies. A growing number of companies are using Web Services after a merger for the following reasons: Strategy alignment: Web Services forms the foundation of many business and IT strategies to support customers partners and internal integration. As a result the use of Web Services to heighten M&A synergies may be aligned with current IT strategy investments. more > Cutting IT cost will hamper productivity: Accenture The quest to contain spending on information technology frequently backfires forcing companies and governments to instead increase expenditures on IT maintenance repairs and other unproductive practices according to the results of a global study released today by Accenture. Accenture's ‘IT Investing for High Performance’ study surveyed CIOs from more than 300 Fortune 1000 companies and similar-sized organisations. The survey is part of Accenture’s ongoing effort to identify the common underlying behaviours and characteristics of high performance businesses. Accenture defines high performance businesses as those that consistently outperform their peers in revenue profit growth and total return to shareholders. more > Web services ease mainframe integration Skeptics claim that SOA is just another acronym for the same old promises of more flexibility and greater agility through re-use of technology components. Object Oriented (OO) architectures and then Component Based Development (CBD) promised levels of re-use but neither were applicable to legacy applications because of assumptions about technology and interface paradigms that did not fit. In addition competing standards reduced the opportunity for reuse between diverse organizations teams and packages. Service oriented architecture (SOA) does not presuppose an OO or CBD model and applies equally to procedural programming and other paradigms for application construction. SOA offers technology-agnostic re-use. The appeal of SOA is that it embodies good practice but it does not set out to standardize to a level sufficient for implementation. SOA is a concept not a technology and allows the concept to be applied regardless of middleware. SOA is useful to formalize the conceptual bridge between legacy and contemporary technologies like J2EE and .NET. There is almost universal agreement that SOA is a good model for application composition and re-use and this is leading to adoption in many forward-looking organizations. more > Web Services Deliver Speed Interoperability Carrier opts for scalability modularity in its quest to improve ratings time to market. Computers are supposed to shorten or take over routine tasks for us freeing human brains and hands for creative projects beyond the capabilities of machinery. Frequently however users find themselves at the mercy of their mainframes desktops and laptops performing repetitive input chores and time-consuming database maintenance functions. Now a technology that takes advantage of automated Internet resources is allowing carriers to skip the middlemen and take the data directly where it needs to go - the agent and the consumer - without costly delays. more > McAfee Shares Internal Web-Services Security Tool Security firm McAfee is offering one of its internal tools to the enterprise community for free with the aim of increasing Web services security and protection. Coming out of the company's security services group Foundstone Professional Services the WSDigger is an open-source tool that helps identify vulnerabilities in Web services implementations. The tool is unique said Foundstone Inc. consulting director Mark Curphey because it finds holes and flaws in implementations that have already been built. Other security tools focus more intently on providing protections while implementations are under development. more > Microsoft Surprises with Linux 'Hands-On Lab' Is Microsoft toning down its aggressive anti-Linux campaign or is the software giant realizing that playing nice can have the same effect? While the answer is unclear Microsoft Corp. surprised many of the attendees at its annual worldwide partner show here this weekend by allowing a third party to present a hands-on lab that allowed attendees to play with a range of Linux desktop software. Titled Linux and Open Source: Understanding the Competitive Challenge and run by Don Johnson an electrical engineer from Techstream Inc. the lab let attendees many of whom were not familiar with Linux experiment with KDE (K Desktop Environment) as well as see the Apache Web server in action. more > Registry + Repository = SOA Platform There's a deafening buzz in service-oriented architecture around repositories which appear to be emerging as a core component of SOA. What is actually emerging says Miko Matsumura is an integrated registry-repository model which could serve as the core technology of what amounts to an SOA platform. “Up to now SOA has mostly been about point-to-point Web services integration ” Matsumura tells SOATrends. “If you’re connecting one point to another point there’s no need for any kind of platform. It’s really just a cat’s-cradle kind of series of connections between everything and everything else. But people are starting to get interested in connecting things in a way that creates direction coherence or intention.” more > To your health: Web services Seattle’s 17-hospital Providence Health System is leveraging Web services to transform how it operates according to a recent piece in Healthcare Informatics. It brought in Cupertino-based Infravio Inc enable application integrations using the approach. That has enabled the organization to link many of its in-house legacy systems into a single patient portal which has enabled online bill paying among other services. Moreover Providence has integrated its ambulatory electronic medical record (EMR) into its emergency department and acute care physician portal. Docs can get a comprehensive view of the complete office EMR dynamically created on the fly for them when they log into the portal says Michael Reagin Providence’s director of research and development . I’m a firm believer in Web services. more > XML viruses threaten Web services security Gone are the days when it was enough to scan your computer and e-mail attachments for malicious files. As XML traffic over the Internet increases the threat of viruses worms and malware is crossing over into the world of Web services. On Monday Layer 7 Technologies Inc. added Cupertino Calif.-based Symantec Corp.'s AntiVirus Scan Engine to its SecureSpan Gateway product. Under the partnership SecureSpan which enforces security policies for Web services can now forward any malicious SOAP attachments to the AntiVirus Scan Engine which in turn rejects or quarantines any infected files before they can penetrate an application. more > Architects cite complexity and reuse as key challenges Integrating enterprise applications can be a complicated and messy affair but increasingly IT architects are beginning to turn to Web services for help. Attendees at the recent Gartner Application Integration and Web Services Summit touted Web services for enabling loose coupling and greater flexibility amongst systems. However many companies are still relying on traditional enterprise application integration (EAI) which some fear can be a cause of vendor lock-in. Jennie Balcom an enterprise architect at Meridian Miss.-based Pioneer Inc. is working with all the agricultural and nutritional business units of her company to set a foundation for understanding and connecting their processes. more > Understanding oupling in the Context of an SOA Since the beginning of computing we've been dealing with the notion of coupling or the degree to which one component is dependent on another component in both the domain of an application or an architecture. Lately the movement has been towards loose coupling for some very good reasons but I'm not sure that many architects out there building SOAs understand the motives behind this. Breaking this concept down to its essence we can state that tightly coupled systems/architectures are dependent on each other thus changes to any component may prompt changes to many other components. Loosely coupled systems/architectures in contrast leverage independent components and so can operate independently. However it's not as simple as all that. more > Java .NET Tackles Mainframe Integration Web services could give new life to old-fashioned screen scraping styles of client-to-mainframe integration. Anura Guruge an independent web services and legacy apps consultant from Gilford N.H. contends that after massive spending in the mainframe software sector in the years leading up to Y2K there has been “apathy’ in such spending largely due to budget constraints. But he added a new wave of web services-based approaches can be used to extend mainframe assets throughout the enterprise which is is sparking new interest in IT pros that can deliver mainframe modernization he said. more > It's Time for Web Services That Are Useable Attachmate Says Up to this point Web services have been talked about in terms of how they can technically connect different systems and architectures. But what's missing from this debate according to Attachmate is how end users themselves can benefit from Web services technology. Making it easier for employees who aren't technologically sophisticated to make and reuse composite applications in a services oriented architecture (SOA) is the focus of Attachmate's new Synapta product strategy which it officially unveiled for the first time yesterday. more > An Extensive Examination Of Web Services: The Utility of Web Services When faced with a task it is important to choose the right tool for the job. Web services are the right tool for some jobs and the wrong tool for others. In my opinion Web services are an ideal candidate for tasks that need to accomplish one (or both) of the following: Data transfer between disparate systems Provide a platform-independent interface to hide complexity for a system that is utilized by many clients To see why Web services are an ideal fit for these types of challenges let's consider two different scenarios and see how Web services can be utilized. more > Eliminate integration headaches with a service-oriented architecture With all the attention that service-oriented architecture and Web services are getting I thought I'd fast forward to a time when every organization has implemented SOA and Web services to some extent. What would business be like without IT integration? What if your CEO could acquire another firm and integrate its information and operations into the existing business and IT architecture without the integration challenges? What if the acquired firm's business processes could seamlessly integrate with yours with zero latency? What if there was no integration effort required at all? What if the IT systems were preintegrated where they could exchange information without any incremental integration expense and effort? more > Sorting out Web services security standards One of the most active parts of the XML Web services community is the groups developing security standards. Today we have more than 40 security standards in various stages of specification at several different organizations as well as various implementations in similar states of completion and conformance. On the one hand this is good news because good security is crucial to the widespread adoption of XML Web services. One of the expected benefits of XML Web services is a more direct connection between back-office systems and a larger group of potential customers by providing a common set of Web middleware that removes barriers to connecting. In order for this to happen without undue risk security standards are needed that can provide assurances about identity message content and data protection. more > Integration—the web services way Today’s organisations need applications and services that are as nimble as the business climate they operate in. Until now few could afford to “rip and replace” as often as was required to move to a more flexible services-based architecture. Today’s organisations need applications and services that are as nimble as the business climate they operate in. Until now few could afford to “rip and replace” as often as was required to move to a more flexible services-based architecture. more > Enabling SOA Through Web Services As service providers open up their networks the differentiator will be how quickly they can put new services into place to respond to trends and how quickly and effectively they can open up their infrastructure to partners content providers and even consumers. The problem traditionally has been that changing one interface could break thousands of others thus making IT departments somewhat gun-shy about modifying adding or deleting services in existing frameworks. That is changing with the XML and TCP/IP-based protocol interfaces of Web Services. Already Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) has been widely used to enable software modules to interact through Web Services Description Language (WSDL). more > Binary XML is fast in theory but may be slow in adoption As any coder can tell you XML documents are verbose. If you wanted to design a language for high-speed processing and transactions you could probably do better than XML. But the question is: Could a new format or standard achieve the widespread popularity of XML? As Rich Salz chief security architect for Cambridge Mass.-based DataPower points out XML is similar to English. It’s not the most precise language in the world but it’s the one most programmers speak. If you want to talk to programmers English is good to know. If you want to develop Web services XML is good to use. more > 'Applistructure' important task for firms says AMR The merger of enterprise applications with underlying infrastructure will be one of the most important tasks for companies to complete over the next two years according to analysts AMR Research. AMR has termed the requirement as applistructure . The analyst said demand for applistructure is being driven by Web services and SOAs. To deliver applistructure an integrated and complete set of applications and infrastructure are established. The components may come from different suppliers but are managed and guaranteed by a single one. more > BEA powers business innovation WebLogic BEA Systems has announced that it has signed several significant deals in the fiscal quarter ended October 31 2004 with customers in target industries selecting BEA WebLogic Platform 8.1 products as a foundation for Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) that supports innovative business services and productivity-enhancing applications. more > IBM Brings Web Services and SOA Technology to CICS IBM's venerable CICS transaction monitor has been around for 35 years and is ready to assume the challenges of age of Web services and service-oriented architecture (SOA). IBM announced CICS Transaction Server for z/OS V3.1 which now supports Web Services along with CICS Transaction Gateway V6 which fits into a J2EE environment. CICS has traditionally enabled companies to collectively process billions of transactions per day and has been the platform of choice in many transaction-intensive environments such as credit-card processing operations. The new releases will allow mainframes to process Web services in new ways. more > Integration’s dividends make for a tough sell When N.E.W. Customer Services of Sterling Va. set out to handle extended warranty programs for retailers and manufacturers it turned to WebMethods’ integration tools to connect its systems with those of its customers and service partners. The result was faster service improved management reporting and new offerings. We can now let our customers’ customers schedule warranty service in real time says Jay Jaiprakash chief architect and integration manager. more > Build Tools for .NET Applications Rebuild menu items in Visual Studio .NET to be sufficient. But most developers quickly outgrow this option when faced with the necessity to come up with a reproducible build process for complex software. The ideal build system can take all the bits it needs directly from your source code control system compile individual libraries in a specific order create a test database from SQL scripts run smoke tests rebuild documentation zip up the results and place them on an FTP server and send e-mail to your entire team. And that's just a simple example of the sort of process you might put together. more > Performance technology drives long-haul Web apps No matter how hard programmers work coding a Web application the public Internet just isn’t up to handling the global demands of corporations needing high volume transaction processing argues Brian de Haaff director of product management for Palo Alto Calif.-based Netli. He sums up the basic perception of Web performance outside the data center: “The farther you are from the application the worse your performance is and sorry that’s just the way it is.” more > Web services link information gap Web services technology is bringing harmony to the Internet's chaotic collection of databases. ''The problem of disparate data in the industry started when they invented the second computer -- data sharing is a huge problem '' said Roy Trivett chief executive officer of Vancouver-based Web services software developer Imagis Technologies Inc. ''With Web services the technology allows companies to define bridges between old and new systems.'' Various systems and databases speak different digital languages and building translation systems that could understand all of them would be a nightmarish task. That's where Web services come in. In simple terms the idea behind Web services is to use standardized XML language to send information between different databases or programs. Using this approach wildly different systems equipped with software to translate to and from standard XML can swap data. more > CICS Transaction Server Adds Web Services Support IBM last week rolled out a new version of its CICS Transaction Server software that will let users extend mainframe data to service-oriented architectures. CICS Transaction Server for z/OS v3.1 will allow CICS to function as both a provider and consumer of Web services said Phil Hanson IBM CICS product manager. CICS which celebrated its 35th anniversary this year provides high-volume transaction processing for mainframes. The upgrade will let Cobol C and C++ automatically convert between XML and their language structures IBM said. more > IBM Global Services unveils SOA Management Practice There's no trend in enterprise computing with more potential to achieve an actual paradigm shift than the advent of service-oriented architectures (SOA). The idea of making IT functionality available as discoverable services on a network allows for so much more flexibility than traditional system architectures that many companies are now well into the design phase of an SOA. That's a challenge IBM Global Services is taking on with a newly created practice aimed at helping enterprises migrate to service-oriented architectures. Unveiled this week Big Blue's new SOA Management Practice will seek to help customers with Web services management capabilities as they scale to enterprise-wide SOAs. more > Illusory connectivity: Web sites to databases Ellis Admire director of emerging technologies at Direct Holdings parent company of catalog fashion retailer Lillian Vernon found himself in a tough spot about four years ago when it became clear the company needed to jump into Web retailing in a big way. His options were to create a freestanding site with its own processes or try to unify a Web site with “50-plus years of business processes ” Admire says. Although the former choice would have been easier Admire says he realized it would be a nightmare in the long term. When it comes to tying Web sites to databases for Web services there are many options and that’s the problem. more > Starwood Hotels Moves To Web Services Switches Outsourcers For nearly four years Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide has been converting its IT environment to a services-oriented architecture while the hotelier's core centralized reservation system remained a legacy mainframe-based application. Gateways sitting in front of the mainframe would translate the older COBOL data for use in Web services so it could be called by the newer more nimble applications around it. Those problems should soon be a thing of the past. more > WS-Management’s success depends on wide deep vendor support Microsoft is pushing a new version of its Web Services for Management Extension (WMX) standard. But more work and industry support will be needed before WS-Management can help you manage web services. more > Web Services Edge Cuts Both Ways FTC spyware suit highlights need for standards-backed protection against abuse. Perhaps I'm getting too good at seeing the glass as one-tenth empty instead of nine-tenths full—but I'm wondering you see what someone might pour into that remaining empty space. Web services technologies offer exceptional power for crafting enterprise IT architectures but I sometimes wonder if they have what it takes to survive out there on the street: There are plenty of people with their own ideas for what to add as a final unwelcome ingredient to the services cocktail. more > Server Versions of Microsoft Apps Speak to Web Services Future If you believe Web services are a big part of Microsoft's future then creating server versions of its core desktop applications makes a very nice baby step. Tell me that Microsoft is building server versions of what until now have been desktop applications and the first thing that comes to my mind is Web services. That may not be what Microsoft is planning to ship with Office 12 but the rumors we're hearing are nevertheless exciting. more > Scalable: Managing Web Services Demands New Approach Depending on how they're crafted software services can scale up to meet demanding business requirements or fail to meet that most important test of performance. The trick is in managing them well. You need to be able to say where the services are and know how to manage them says Toby Redshaw corporate VP of IT strategy architecture at Motorola which is two years into building a services-oriented architecture. Motorola is using AmberPoint Inc.'s Management Foundation product to monitor the performance level of its Web services and Systinet Corp.'s Registry a Yellow Pages-like directory of Web services based on the Universal Description Discovery and Integration standard. more > IBM Releases DB2 Information Integrator IBM has released the DB2 Information Integrator which includes search technology that will bring order to the often-jumbled data sources of corporate intranets company officials said. The latest version of the information integrator formerly code-named Masala will make it dramatically easier to access information of all different kinds whether it is in e-mail repositories or in databases or image libraries said Jeff Jones director of strategy for IBM's DB2 Universal Database. more > Microsoft open sources Web authoring application Continuing its flirtation with open source Microsoft (Profile Products Articles) Corp. on Monday posted the code of a little-known collaboration application to open-source development site SourceForge.net. Microsoft is sharing the source of FlexWiki a program for creating Web sites called wikis that allow users to add and edit content. It is Microsoft's third open-source code contribution but the first time the company is sharing code for an actual application said Jason Matusow director of Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative. more > Ivory keys in mainframe apps to Web services GT Software next week will formally unveil its platform for outfitting mainframe applications with Web services functionality and linking legacy data into SOAs (service-oriented architectures). Conforming to Web Service Interoperability Organization (WS-I) standards GT’s Ivory Web Services provides a programmatic solution without requiring programming for deploying Web services applications GT said. Developers can include legacy applications in an SOA generating Web services for mainframe applications and data and consuming other Web services. more > Symantec Holes Open Up Firewalls to Attacks Symantec Corp. has warned of a string of security holes in its Firewall/VPN Appliance and Gateway Security products less than a month after its last firewall security problems. Three new bugs could allow a remote attacker to shut down a firewall appliance identify active services in the WAN (wide area network) interface and alter the firewall's configuration Symantec said in a Wednesday advisory. more > Cape Clear Neon in Web services deal Cape Clear Software and Neon Systems Inc. on Wednesday announced they are working together to integrate their respective technologies and allow users to quickly integrate mainframe applications and data through the use of Web services. Under the terms of the agreement the two companies will more tightly bind Cape Clear's Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) with Neon Systems' Shadow z/Services product. This will allow mainframe-based applications to be offered as services over a network more reliably and cost effectively according to officials from both companies. more > PeopleSoft Moves Ahead Unveiling Major IBM Alliance Joint work with IBM is part of strategy to deliver apps that let customers use Web services to build adaptable service-oriented architectures. One thing Craig Conway has no shortage of is resolve. The CEO of software vendor PeopleSoft Inc. kicked off the company's user conference in San Francisco by unveiling a hugely expanded relationship with IBM making it clear that while Oracle's relentless attempt to acquire his company shows no sign of slowing PeopleSoft is moving full-steam ahead. PeopleSoft is not slowing down and we are not changing our commitment to customers Conway said. more > WS-JustSayNo There's a whole group of specifications put out by an ever-changing (but usually including Microsoft or IBM) mix of industry partners that are designed to add new fetures to Web services. With names like WS-Addressing and WS-Security they're collectively called the WS-* specifications. You may not have noticed but a couple of new WS-* specifications came out lately: WS-Enumeration for getting items from a list of data held by a Web service and WS-Transfer for sending a small set of standard verbs over SOAP. more > Flexibility Finances Keys to Web Services Adoption Web services are one of IT's most promising advances but they have yet to enjoy their predicted widespread adoption. What's the holdup? Some say Web services lack the mature robust standards and security needed to support higher adoption rates. But standards and security play a small role in the delay if any at all. Current standards are sufficient to do most of the Web services work anybody wants to do. The security is adequate too. You can implement encryption authentication authorization and other security services today. more > Web Services Spec Could Lead to Others If BEA IBM SAP and Sun are right their WS-Addressing specification will lay the foundation for a whole host of Web services specifications particularly those for security transactions asynchronous interactions and reliable communications. The new spec submitted to the World Wide Web Consortium in August describes where to find a Web service. It defines Web services “endpoints ” which are the initial locations and destinations of Web services. Such locations and their notations go beyond URLs or even the more generic uniform resource identifiers or URIs in that WS-Addressing specifies how to find specific Web services messages and how those messages are interrelated said Marc Goodner technology architect at SAP AG. more > BEA Ships WebLogic For ISVs BEA Systems Inc. is now shipping a scaled-down version of its WebLogic Platform to be marketed toward independent software vendors. Accompanying the pared-down suite is a pared-down price of US$17 000 per server processor compared with the $90 000 per processor cost for the enterprise edition. The pricing is for a limited-use license that can be used only with the ISV’s packaged applications according to BEA. more > Linux Aims For The Desktop Security and pricing concerns are causing companies to consider alternatives to Windows but adoption of the open-source operating system has been slow Linux software has found lots of friends in IT departments and research labs that like its low price flexibility and crash-proof reputation. Now tech companies such as Novell Red Hat and Sun Microsystems are beginning to market those same virtues on the computer desktop where Microsoft's Windows has a virtual lock on sales. There's an open window of opportunity but few customers seem to have noticed the breeze. more > Unprecedented Security Network For Olympics Recent leaps in technology have paired highly sophisticated software with street surveillance cameras to create digital security guards with intelligence-gathering skills. ATHENS Greece (AP)--If you're planning on attending this month's Olympic Games you'd best be careful what you say and do in public. Software will be watching and listening. Recent leaps in technology have paired highly sophisticated software with street surveillance cameras to create digital security guards with intelligence-gathering skills. more > Unprecedented Security Network For Olympics Recent leaps in technology have paired highly sophisticated software with street surveillance cameras to create digital security guards with intelligence-gathering skills. ATHENS Greece (AP)--If you're planning on attending this month's Olympic Games you'd best be careful what you say and do in public. Software will be watching and listening. Recent leaps in technology have paired highly sophisticated software with street surveillance cameras to create digital security guards with intelligence-gathering skills. more > We Must Beat Spyware As a major threat to the effective functioning of the Internet spyware must be confronted by both industry and the government. If worms and viruses weren't enough there's a new threat: spyware. This menace is defined as any software intended to aid an unauthorized person or entity in causing a computer—without the knowledge of the computer's user or owner—to divulge private data. more > SAP Turns to Pattern Development As it moves toward a service-oriented architecture that encompasses its enterprise applications and its NetWeaver integration platform SAP AG is rewriting its proprietary Web Dynpro user interface development technology to incorporate pattern-based development. more > Next Dev Wave: Software Factories Microsoft Corp. is pursuing a strategy that would make software development easier by enabling developers to create applications in an assembly line fashion. more > HP Lines Up More Resources Behind Linux JBoss app server and MySQL database will work together on ProLiant blade servers. Hewlett-Packard has expanded its support for Linux by guaranteeing that the JBoss application server and the MySQL open-source database will work together on its ProLiant blade servers running that operating system. more > Windows XP Service Pack 2: The 10% Problem AssetMetrix an asset-monitoring service provider says its research shows XP Service Pack 2 will cause problems with about one in 10 PCs that use the operating system. Upgrading to Windows XP Service Pack 2 will cause problems with about one in every 10 PCs running the operating system according to research published Tuesday by a Canadian asset-monitoring service provider. more > At 35 The Internet Remains A Work In Progress Rsearchers are experimenting with ways to make the Net faster and increase its capacity. NEW YORK (AP) -- Thirty-five years after computer scientists at UCLA linked two bulky computers using a 15-foot gray cable testing a new way for exchanging data over networks what would ultimately become the Internet remains a work in progress. more > ACLU Sues To Block Michigan State Police From Matrix Database Former Michgan Gov.. William Milliken is among three individuals also suing; they say the agency is illegally sharing information about individuals. DETROIT (AP) -- The American Civil Liberties Union and a former Michigan governor are suing to halt the Michigan State Police's participation in a multistate crime and terrorism database saying the agency is illegally sharing information about individuals. more > Red Hat Readies New Open-Source Products It's expected to launch a Java application server packaged with its enterprise edition of Linux. Red Hat Inc. is expected to expand its open-source offerings at LinuxWorld on Tuesday with the launch of a Java application server packaged with its enterprise edition of the Linux operating system InformationWeek has learned. more > Lydian Trust: It’s the application framework What we’re doing is building an app framework ” said John Stoddard CIO at Lydian Trust. “We include all of the basic functionalities security auditing Web-based schema validation self-documenting interfaces and even subscription capabilities where you can make a Web service so that if a request comes in it sets up a virtual tollbooth for every request that comes in.” more > A modern face for a Progress engine Web services and related Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs) are changing the face of corporate computing. They are also rocking the world of ISVs. The stories of enterprise users and ISVs are remarkably similar and the successes of ISVs -- whose software is so often part of the corporate mix -- have meaning for enterprise developers. Their embrace of Web services integration will come to simplify part of the IT department’s integration tasks over time more > SOA’s up The buzz surrounding Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) is that it will more closely align business and IT and in so doing make organizations themselves more agile flexible and thus more competitive. In a SOA applications communicate via a common service layer. While the notion is far from new it is another step in the evolution of component-based development. From a technology perspective isolating application functionality into separate reusable (and replaceable) components speeds development and deployment and reduces the cost and effort of maintenance. What has changed is that Web services are enabling the alignment of business components with the underlying IT components according to Michael Liebow IBM Global Services Web services vice president. more > NetJets flies with Web service-free SOA It is a little known fact as Cliff might say to his buddies at Cheers that you can build a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) system without using Web services standards including SOAP. more > Editor’s letter: SOA’s up or SOA what? The software community from Microsoft and IBM to the smallest of suppliers has been touting Service-Oriented Architecture aka SOA as a silver-bullet solution to the age-old problem of integrating dissimilar apps and software technologies. SOA defined simply as a loosely coupled collection of services is the latest in a proud line of technologies created through the years by some of the brightest minds in the business trying to solve the complex problem of integration. more > Scripting Language Tools Get Upgrades ActiveState and Zend Technologies both have updated their tools for open-source scripting languages. Scripting languages such as Perl or Tcl frequently are what make the disparate parts of corporate Web sites work together. Two companies that supply tools for open-source scripting languages upgraded their offerings this month. more > IBM Acquires Application-Management Vendor Cyanea Systems It will integrate Cyanea's technology into its existing middleware apps including those in its WebSphere Tivoli and Rational product lines. more > Microsoft To Issue Browser Patch Next Week The fix for Internet Explorer will finally plug the hole that hackers exploited in a sneak attack last month. Microsoft executives say a comprehensive patch for Internet Explorer will be released next week finally plugging the hole that hackers exploited in a sneak attack last month. more > Auto Industry Seeks To Improve Web Services Web-services protocols can benefit from ebXML's encryption reliability and security features. A project being undertaken by leading members of the auto industry next month could facilitate the convergence of much-needed capabilities found in the ebXML transaction standard into the three most widely accepted Web-services specifications. more > Relief as IT spend picks up You wouldn't call it a boom but IT executives are at least calling it a relief. After 18 months of false starts the long post-Y2K post dot-bust industry recession appears to be giving way to a period of solid if unspectacular growth. Vendors and analysts are reporting solid growth across all major industry sectors. more > Web Services: A Risky Investment in 2005 Since their inception Web services have promised to transform business. But that's not happening anytime soon given the complexity in deploying and managing Web services the current state of standards adoption and unresolved intellectual property issues. more > XML routers turbocharge Web services Although development around XML and Web services continues to be primarily a software story hardware specifically the XML router has a key role to play according to Girish Juneja co-founder of Sarvega Inc. Chicago. more > HP Scales Up StorageWorks for Linux Hewlett-Packard Co. is boosting its storage grid architecture by enabling applications to see a single file system image across connected servers and devices within Linux environments. more > AmberPoint revs up Web services management toolkit; lands more funding AmberPoint is on a roll. As one of the few real leaders in the Web services management space according to most of the analysts who cover this arena the firm recently announced that it is making available a new release of its software. more > Time to rethink XML schema? It is probably too early to say for sure but it appears that Web services standards are quietly changing the world of development. Web services represent a detente of sorts between two big developer camps -- IBM and Microsoft. more > Actional Launches SOA Web Services Management Platform Actional Corp. Monday announced a new version of its Web services management platform featuring SOA (service-oriented architecture) management and the management of other services. more > Fluid information architectures Mike Rowehl writes that Web services and service-oriented architectures sound cool but they do them little good when he can't get his address book sync'ed from his PDA to all the other devices he now uses. So he wonders when we'll truly see those long promised pluggable components that even a casual user can assemble into something usable: more > DataPower Reactivity add to their XML security line Amid the growing corporate interest in Web services-based infrastructures DataPower and Reactivity this week will introduce upgrades designed to help users boost XML security. more > PayPal opens Web services It seems that the business expansion strategy for successful portal-type sites is to open up to developers. We've seen this move from Amazon eBay and now from PayPal one of the e-commerce 800-pound gorillas. more > Spending explosion predicted for Web services Spending on Web services software is expected to rise tenfold to $11bn ($5.96bn) worldwide in 2008 as adoption of the technology moves from large corporations to mid-sized and small companies according to a report released on Tuesday by IDC. more > Web services and the mainframe The idea of using platform-independent Web services technology to provide access to back-end mainframe applications is picking up speed. Software vendors with experience in the Web services market are working to provide links to the mainframe either in their products or through tie-ins with vendors that have mainframe experience; meanwhile hardware/software vendors such as IBM and Unisys are promoting Web services on the mainframe. more > Effort To Build Enterprise Architecture At DoD The Defense Department isn't doing enough to implement its enterprise architecture Congressional auditors have told Congress. After three years of effort and over $203 million in obligations we haven't seen any significant change in the content of DoD's architecture or in DoD's approach to investing billions of dollars annually in existing and new systems the General Accounting Office said in a May 17 letter that was released Tuesday. more > You can never be too rich says Groove Networks IBM's announcement last week of plans to deliver software designed to create a centrally managed server hub for delivering enterprise apps to PCs seems to have fired up the old thick- vs. thin-client debate at least among analysts and the tech media. Industry mavens noted that Big Blue's new thin-client Lotus Workplace offering could loosen mighty Microsoft's tight grip on the desktop. more > Developers Must Smash the Glass House The term glass house connotes a data processing department holding corporate data hostage behind nearly impenetrable barriers. Anyone outside the glass house struggles to get access to key business data stored there. more > Working with Web Services It is about two years since web services were being aggressively touted as the next big thing. Vendor hype suggested they would transform IT business and the world .Because of the hype the reality of web services was sometimes forgotten. They are simply a series of protocols for the transmission of information from one piece of software to another. So in this respect it is an application integration technology similar to many that have gone before. more > SOA myths debunked Enterprise developers decision makers and industry analysts said that there is confusion when it comes to relating Web services and service-oriented architectures (SOAs). more > New W3C standard choreographs Web services dance Three or more e-business companies have Web services and they want to connect so what do they do? Send each other their WSDLs and hope for the best? more > Integration firms sharpen their tools Integration software giants IBM and Tibco are taking disparate paths to the next generation of tools for connecting and managing business processes. more > Compuware Enhances Uniface SOA IDE Compuware (NASDAQ: CPWR) introduced Compuware Uniface 8.4 the latest version of its unified development environment for designing building and deploying enterprise business applications. The vendor says enhancements to Compuware Uniface 8.4 “extend the product's ability to support organizations implementing a service-oriented architecture (SOA) approach in order to boost productivity ease integration efforts and maximize existing legacy investments.” more > It's Time to Actively Manage Your SOA If you were the CIO or chief architect at a company and I told you that you are already running multiple Web services how would you react? Pleasantly surprised? Shocked? Would you be upset? more > Oracle Ships Web Services Tools Oracle Corp. announced last week the availability of its latest Java and Web services development environment and said its Java application server continues to see strong sales. more > Help For Developers Who Aren't Steeped In Java Oracle is shipping JDeveloper 10g an updated development toolset designed to help programmers who aren't well-versed in Java build enterprise-scale Java apps and Web services. The development software is the final component of Oracle's 10g product lineup that includes Oracle Database 10g and Oracle Application Server 10g both of which debuted late last year. more > Review: Cape Clear SOA Editor Remember Web services? They got all the buzz a couple of years ago and then the enthusiasm died down a bit. But the end result was to have plenty of competent developers working on Web services and gradually a body of knowledge has built up around them. One tenet that many of the top Web services developers agree on is WSDL first : build the contract before you build the code. That can cause a small problem though if you don't have an editor that lets you easily create WSDL files. more > SERENA Offers Process Management for Managing Mainframe Development SERENA Software a supplier of software that automates change to enterprise applications has introduced an automated process management solution for managing mainframe development. The solution TeamTrack for ChangeMan combines the capabilities of SERENA TeamTrack with SERENA ChangeMan ZMF the company's mainframe software change management solution. TeamTrack for ChangeMan enforces consistent processes and promotes user accountability across the application life cycle resulting in communication and productivity improvements enterprise-wide. Through Team Track for ChangeMan SERENA offers a single process automation solution for mainframe environments. more > IBM Scales Down Mainframe Products For Midsize Companies In a move to both protect and grow its coveted mainframe installed base IBM on Wednesday introduced scaled-down versions of its zSeries and enterprise storage server that it hopes will appeal to a broader spectrum of midsize companies. more > Development Highlights from Around the Web Latest Additions: Shell Scripting with KDE dialogs: From developer.kde.org: Tutorial that describes how to use KDE dialogs in shell scripts with kdialog. It is presented as an example-based tutorial. Free Your C# Apps from .NET Platforms: From DevX.com: Visual Mainwin offers unprecedented platform flexibility allowing you to develop applications in C# and deploy and run them on J2EE. Learn how to take advantage of this freedom by building a C# Web service that you can run on platforms besides .NET and IIS. more > 2004 Innovators create applications that make a difference locally and globally While the dot-com boom and bust is now relegated to the dustbin of technological history Web applications are increasingly allowing business and government to improve service and significantly boost ROI. more > Noel-Levitz eases college recruitment process -- garners savings Competition among colleges and universities for the best and the brightest has never been stronger and institutions are always looking for an edge. It is the job of Noel-Levitz a unit of education funding provider SLM Corp. (better known as Sallie Mae) to provide that edge. The Littleton Colo.-based consultant has long aided university clients in student recruitment and retention financial aid market research publication and Web site development. more > School's integration team finds innovation without alienation How do you help a team of developers learn to work with Web services when the version of the tool they are using predates the XML technology and thus does not support it? more > Collection takes Web services route Meta data management is something of a new concept among financial service providers but it proved to be key to the success of a major IT innovation at CompuCredit. Last March the Atlanta-based specialty financial services and credit card company asked its IT organization to develop a way for its collection agents and customer service reps to use Web services to access and process data in real time. This January the group went into production with a solution: an information portal called the XML Business Gateway. more > XML tools: Who knows where or when? One of XML’s core strengths can also become a source of confusion. People have begun using the language for so many different things -- structured and unstructured content app integration and workflow -- that the ways in which developers work with it vary widely. more > B2B standard targets integration A standards effort that aims to do for business-to-business documents what the Dewey Decimal System does for library collections is gaining momentum. The proposed standard is called Universal Data Element Framework (UDEF). Its charter is to simplify messaging among partners suppliers and customers and reduce the work required to build interfaces between systems. more > Windows Linux Highlights From Around the Web I'm still working up the nerve to download XP Service Pack 2 Release Candidate 1 on my system at home. I'm not exactly running a multimillion-dollar business there but I've got what *I* consider to be some mission-critical apps at home -- that is I'd be ripping my hair out if they're not working. Some of my software isn't exactly brand spanking new and I still worry about that Windows XP SP2 could break existing applications problem. more > Sarvega adding security appliances to XML lineup Web services start-up Sarvega this week will introduce two security products that should help customers track changes within the security infrastructure and protect against denial-of-service attacks. The appliances - the XML Guardian Security Accelerator and the XML Guardian Security Gateway - support XML Digital Signature and XML Encryption standards which are digital forensic capabilities through Sarvega's XESOS operating system. more > Bringing Web Services Down to Mobile Java With the releases in February of new versions of its HotSpot JVM and Java Wireless Toolkit and the launch of the Java Verified application certification program Sun Microsystems Inc. claims to bring Web services to J2ME and to accelerate not only Java applications themselves but also the process of verifying compatibility with devices and carrier networks. more > Safeguarding Web Services Web-application firewall vendor Teros Inc. is adding Web-services security to its security application to prepare for the hack attacks that are bound to occur as companies deploy more Web-services-based applications. The Teros security gateway actively monitors Web traffic to learn the appropriate behavior of applications then suggests ways to secure Web-services apps so they don't fall prey to common input-based attacks. more > Teros enters XML security space Application firewall maker Teros Inc. said today that it is adding features to its Secure Application Gateway product line that will protect Web services. more > Zooming in on XAML Jim Allchin group VP of Microsoft's Platforms Group previewed Avalon the graphics subsystem behind Longhorn's new presentation technologies at the Professional Developer Conference (PDC) last October. There has been a lot of interest in Aero the new task-based (or iterative) user interface that is based on Avalon. more > Offshore Outsourcing Projected To Grow Does offshore outsourcing represent a corporate business decision or a strategy hatched from within IT departments? One suspects the former given that more enterprises continue to send application maintenance and development overseas. And this even though the quality of work performed by low-wage contractors is in many cases less than stellar. more > Army Turns To IT To Help Keep Morale Up Although President Bush next week will ask Congress for $401.7 billion in fiscal 2005 to fund the military a 7% increase over a year ago the Defense Department will have no shortage of ways to spend that money as the country continues its campaigns in Afghanistan Iraq and on the home front. As he looks to another year of the military operating on high alert US Army Community and Family Support Center CIO Rick Thomas is searching for ways to use IT to improve the quality of services his organization provides to soldiers and their families. ************* more > Finding the Web services 'sweet spot' When I tell customers that my company does Web services management the question I often hear is So what do you mean by Web services management? It's no wonder that there's so much confusion on this issue because the term management has been used to mean many different things. Two examples: business process management the active coordination and execution of business processes; and systems management the passive monitoring of performance and IT infrastructure). These are two very different meanings of the word management --and two very different markets. more > Web services: Coming to an organization near you Analysts at Bloor have recently been discussing the impact that XML has had on the business world. XML - standing for Extensible Markup Language - is a communications language that allows computers running on different operating systems and software to understand each other. It allows data interoperability between disparate systems. more > Web services standards set for Grid A group of software suppliers led by IBM and Hewlett-Packard (HP) Co. this week proposed new Web services specifications that officials said can be used to integrate Grid computing and Web services standards. The proposed standards dubbed WS-Notification and WS-Resource Framework are said to represent a common standards-based infrastructure that can support business applications Grid resources and systems management. more > Waking up from the Web services dream While working on developing a database that I can access while on the move I've learned about the difficulties of network connections and why synching is still king. What did you do for the holidays? Did you visit the relatives? How about skiing or snowboarding? Or maybe you raided your local retailers the day after Christmas. Not me. For a better part of my holidays I sat glued to my notebook preparing my custom-developed editorial constituent relationship management system for its next architectural revolution. more > Infravio Brings Web Services to Sabre Travel services company Sabre Holdings Corp. is delivering a large-scale Web services deployment project with the help of Web services management software from Infravio Inc. Officials at Sabre of Southlake Texas said they are using Infravio's new Ensemble 4 Web services management suite as the cornerstone of a new Sabre Web Services portal and an overall SOA (service-oriented architecture) model the company is implementing. more > DreamFactory readies browser tools for Web interfaces DreamFactory Software Inc. on Monday is shipping its DreamFactory 6.0 suite of browser-based tools for developing rich client user interfaces for enterprise Web applications powered by XML documents and Web services. The tools are intended to streamline user interface (UI) design enhance user experience reduce network traffic and lower development costs by enabling the aggregation of multiple data sources on a single browser page. No additional server software is needed. more > The Year of SCO SOA and Spam The act of proclaiming that the previous year was the “Year of the such-and-such” is required by industry pundits analysts and of course technology journalists. Most of the late 1980s and early 1990s for example were repeatedly proclaimed as Year of the LAN. Two years ago 2002 was the Year of Web Services. Before that 2001 was the Year of XML. Some also would describe it as the Year of .NET based on the hype surrounding the emerging platform. What about 2000? more > Developers will take a back seat to the business side While pondering what 2004 may bring I reviewed my Web services forecast from last year. I had predicted vendors lining up to support Web services during 2003 and we've certainly seen a steady stream of enthusiastic backing from major players like IBM and Microsoft all the way down to the small pure-play vendors. I had also warned you to expect more spats between major vendors and we witnessed IBM and Microsoft plus Sun and Oracle exchanging blows several times over standards proposals. I went out on a limb when I predicted increased mergers and acquisitions. Many experts at that time didn't agree but we saw a fair amount of consolidation in 2003. more > ASAP Takes Web Services Out of Time Bing! Time’s up and your Web service just hung waiting for a machine to return the results of a calculation or for several machines’ chain of responses or for some human input or for verification of a wireless client that keeps going in and out of contact. The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) is working on a specification for asynchronous Web services that work around or don’t fall apart when they face the HTTP protocol’s 60-second time limit. more > The pathway to a service-oriented architecture I recently read through a large collection of analyst reports on service-oriented architecture (SOA) that have been published in the last year. I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of agreement among these industry observers and their generally optimistic outlook for the uptake of this technology. SOA is not really new -- by some accounts it dates back to the mid-1980s -- but it's starting to become practical across enterprise boundaries because of the rise of the Internet as a way of connecting people and companies. more > Users Proceed Cautiously on Web Services Track IBM Microsoft Corp. and other vendors that have been pounding the Web services drum for more than two years claim that more and more of their customers are building Web services. And to a degree they're right. But the spotty levels of adoption by corporate users was plainly evident in a random poll of 15 IT professionals at Gartner Inc.'s recent Application Integration and Web Services Summit here. more > Gates: Blazing the Longhorn Trail The smoke having almost cleared from several years of antitrust proceedings Microsoft Corp. Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates is turning his attention to what he's calling seamless computing. The most influential figure in the software industry is confronting other challenges as well including following through on his company's Trustworthy Computing initiative to make Windows more secure. In addition Gates is shepherding a landmark Windows upgrade in Longhorn which is due in 2006 while fending off the Linux challenge and pushing Web services for application integration. Gates discussed these issues and more in an interview with eWEEK Editor in Chief Eric Lundquist at Comdex in Las Vegas last week. ************** more > Web services SOA ready for next step If the first step in Web services evolution was just getting one up and running the next step would appear to be figuring out how to maintain update and manage the XML standards-based technology. Brent Carlson vice president of technology at LogicLibrary Inc. (www.logiclibrary.com) a Pittsburgh-based maker of asset management tools is seeing a lot of activity in Web services. Even more significantly in his opinion he is seeing LogicLibrary customers making use of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) where Web services is one but not the only component. ************* more > Scouts Canada blazes trail in membership data access For most of the 19 years that Tom Obright has been with Scouts Canada the results of the September-to-November recruiting drive were not available until August of the following year. Not exactly real-time reporting or even right-time reporting. The nine-month lag in processing and reporting on data meant leaders couldn't perform basic analysis said Obright director information management for the Scouting organization. For example Scouts officials were unable to see the results of recruiting by postal code to know what percentage of boys and girls in a geographic area were getting an opportunity to join local Scouts groups. more > SOA Enablers: Retraining Tools and Technologies If any new initiative is to be successful it must let the developer community get its hands on tools and training. While SOA is an architecture developers need to have an understanding of how the application-building process must be changed to enable componentization. And of course each of the major vendors will want you to upgrade to its latest tools and platforms. SOA linchpin technologies according to Dave Cotter director of BEA Systems Inc.’s WebLogic developer marketing are XML Web services HTTP UDDI and WSDL. more > Microsoft to Acquire Web Services Tools? Microsoft Corp. might be looking to acquire technology to boost its Web services management capabilities. According to published reports Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer advised interested parties stand by for news about a possible acquisition in the area of development tools and XML Web services. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer Wednesday reported that Ballmer made the comments Tuesday during an onstage question-and-answer session at the Gartner IT Symposium in Orlando Fla. ********** more > Web services depression I just read a 97-page analysis of the current state of Web services technology. I am not certain the document is in the public domain so it can't be named but the source is reputable. The analysis highlighted the state of play in all the areas of activity where standards are being developed and to be frank it made depressing reading. Why? When all the information about Web services standards and their progress is put into the same place it becomes patently obvious that we are a long way along the road to having multiple 'standards' from multiple suppliers; too far along for easy conversion or re-routing to any alternative. more > Web services-enabled systems management eyed Computer Associates is developing subscription-based system management services that would be delivered via Web services company officials said this week. Through CA's plan users in a network could receive software upgrades and patches distributed via Web services. System administrators would set parameters via a portal interface according to Dmitri Tcherevik vice president and director of Web services at Computer Associates. It's management delivered as a Web service Tcherevik said. The technology to be based on CA's UniCenter code base currently is in the labs at CA. It also will incorporate the proposed WS-Manageability specification submitted to OASIS. more > Merrill Lynch Talks Up Web Services Programming experience in Java or C# aren't the only job skills that might be helpful for an IT manager plotting a service-oriented development strategy. IT executives at New York-based Merrill Lynch & Co. an early adopter of Web services have found that communications skills are especially important to spread the word about the Web services they're hoping their colleagues will put to good reuse. more > Web services pressuring middleware makers XML Web services and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) are challenging the survival of traditional integration middleware vendors contends Ron Schmelzer senior analyst at ZapThink LLC (www.zapthink.com) Waltham Mass. “It is quite likely that the entire category of integration middleware as a separate product market will disappear by 2007 ” he told XML Report. more > IBM Microsoft Show Off Advanced Web Services Technologies IBM and Microsoft Corp. staged a demonstration here last week to show how the advanced Web services specifications that they have developed will make it easier for companies with disparate systems to securely and reliably engage in electronic business transactions. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and IBM Senior Vice President Steve Mills who heads the company’s software group pledged to seek vendor and customer feedback on their advanced specifications for security reliable messaging and transactions before submitting their work to a standards body. more > It’s All About the Relationship Internet-based systems and applications are fueling the growth and complexity of database systems according to Richard Bolesta brand manager for Computer Associates International Inc.’s Unicenter software. “Before the Internet a company might process one order for 1 000 items ” said Bolesta. “Now it’s not uncommon for companies to process 1 000 orders for a single item and collect detailed information about customers.” more > Consultancies aim to ease Web services woes A couple of years ago in the hype over Web services IT leaders were told that their prayers would at last be answered. A simple set of XML-based protocols would enable IT to create reusable application building blocks that could be recombined ad infinitum slashing application-development and maintenance costs. And because Web services components were accessible over HTTP they would herald a new era of zero-cost business integration. Of course that hasn't happened. more > Standard for graphing Web services transactions emerges The Business Process Management Initiative (www.BPMI.org) is seeking to bridge the gap between business and technical users and various XML-based standards for business process modeling of e-Business Web services. To that end the BPMI Notation Working Group has released the first version of its Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) for public comment and input. more > Web services and the data center of tomorrow part one The data center of the future will be very different than the one you use today. Most experts expect it to be grid-like self-healing and able to more quickly assign resources to business problems as they arise. But where do Web services fit into the data center of tomorrow? Will they be at the core of things or relegated to the sidelines? In large part that will be decided by computing behemoths like IBM Microsoft and Sun. In this first part of a two-part column on the topic we'll look at how Web services fit into IBM's vision of the data center. more > Longhorn and the battle for Web services IBM Sun Microsystems and BEA Systems are each courting developers to help ensure that their server software is the preferred choice for implementing business applications. But in Redmond Wash. the folks at Microsoft are again working hard on a plan to outflank their Java rivals. This time it’s a software tool that will supposedly ease the creation of heavy-duty Web services applications. The product which in some way shape or function has been in the works for a couple of years will provide a sticky middleware layer specially created to work with Microsoft products. (More details are expected at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference in October.) more > Web Services Reliable Messaging Unless the message exchanges of Web services are made reliable organizations will not be able to trust them for deployment in industrial-strength business. In this paper Prasad Yendluri Principal Architect at webMethods explains why there is a need for a reliable messaging solution that is independent of the underlying transport protocol used to transmit the messages and gives an analysis of emerging Web services reliable messaging standards and the work done in this space previously by RosettaNet BizTalk and ebXML that forms the basis for the advancements in the Web services domain. more > New hackers take on Web services Are you ready for the next generation of XML Web services hacks? They will include “Web service-enabled application attacks ” according to Steve Orrin CTO at Sanctum Inc a Web application security software vendor in Santa Clara Calif. With recent evidence of how much potential damage can be worked into a standard e-mail with attachments the vulnerabilities of SOAP messages in Web services is not difficult to imagine. Orrin uses the example of an entity expansion attack where the hacker would find a Web service that echoes back user data. A SOAP request can then be crafted that results in it sending back data from the application server. more > Can C/C++ ‘‘do’’ Web services? Developers working with J2EE and .NET technologies are swimming in a veritable flood of tools for creating Web services. Yet the majority of core enterprise applications are written in C C++ or COBOL. Many of the world’s critical performance-oriented apps are written in C++ but for developers called upon to expose the functionality of those applications as Web services the tools gush has been more of a trickle. Component specialist Rogue Wave Software added to the flow last week with Version 1.2 of its Lightweight Enterprise Integration Framework (LEIF). First announced in February LEIF is designed to allow developers to integrate existing or new C++ client and server applications with .NET and J2EE applications and Web services. more > SCO Advances SCOx Initiative With Web Services Development Environment At SCO Forum 2003 SCO announced key components of its SCOx Web services initiative the SCOx WebFace Solution Suite 4.0 the SCOsms Web Services API and SCObiz Web Services APIs. Also announced was a strategic alliance with Ericom Software. more > Gartner: Web services projects roll along While the sluggish U.S. economy is slowing Web services development it has not stopped it by a long shot according to a survey this summer by Gartner Inc. (http://www.gartner.com) a Stamford Conn.-based consulting firm. The Gartner Dataquest survey of North American enterprises found that while more than 48% of the firms surveyed had cut spending on Web services the belt tightening was not so severe that projects were discontinued. While almost half the respondents were more > Web Services Via Micro Focus Net Express For COBOL Jorgen Thelin's had a little quiz up about Guess the Programming Language for full access to XML Web Services - well using Microfocus NetExpress even Cobol can become Web Services enabled... I remember a german product being available aprox. 2 yrs ago providing the same functionality (I saw their presentation on the XML Web Services Conference 2001 where I spoke)... unfortuantely I cannot remember their name nor product at the moment... I'll enqueue a lookup-batch in my brain-background processor. more > Perspective on XML: What is this ‘agility’? A hot buzzword these days is “agility.” The pitch is that software development can be more like a maneuverable motorcycle than a lumbering locomotive. Locomotives proceed only along the fixed track laid for them and their huge inertia makes any sort of adjustment very difficult. Motorcycles on the other hand can start quickly and zip smoothly past obstacles in the road. Software engineering doctrine advocates heavy process where analysis feeds design more design and yet more design and only then does one contemplate implementation testing and finally maintenance. Some people call this approach BDUF short for “Big Design Up Front.” In its strictest forms it is nicknamed “waterfalls ” a term that has become rather derisive. more > Microsoft Announce Core Office 2003 Products as Complete Microsoft have announced the completion of the core products in the new Microsoft Office System. “Support for XML and other industry standards enables seamless communication between Microsoft Office programs and applications from independent software vendors and lays a foundation for the addition of real-time data and Web services for even greater business value.” more > New tools evolve from Web services SOA From Web services and Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) will emerge a new kind of application development using tools called “personal service builders ” predicts Jonathan Sapir president at InfoPower Systems Inc. Deerfield Ill. His company is currently Alpha-testing a personal service builder and deployment platform it designed to allow computer-savvy business users to take simple applications and publish them as Web services. more > Microsoft WSE V.2: Signs of Web services to come Microsoft announced yesterday the availability of a new Web services preview that adds enhanced support for TCP and HTTP as well as asynchronous and synchronous communications. The release dubbed Microsoft Web Services Enhancements (WSE) Version 2.0 also eases the task of setting security policies for Web services according to Rebecca Dias product manager for advanced Web services at Microsoft. more > .Net Highlights from Around the Web Summaries of the latest .NET articles from around the web. more > |
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