SOA Governance

The Multi-Domain Registry/Repository

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 09:30:00 EDT

Now think about how organizations are starting to rely on Cloud-based services, such as Amazon S3 (storage) and Force.com (sales force automation). These services are not on-premises SOA service, so they are not in the SOA registry/repository. But the organization relies on these services! This means that the registry/repository does not contain a full compliment of the services which are used by an organization.

SOA World Power Panel on SYS-CON.TV

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 05:00:00 EDT

At its long-running "SOA World Conference & Expo" event, held twice a year ever since the year 2000, SYS-CON Events prides itself on inviting knowledgeable and articulate industry executives to participate in its Power Panels - simulcast at every show direct from the keynote hall. In this wide-ranging SOA Power Panel at the 15th International SOA World Conference & Expo in New York, moderated by Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan, the participants are Anne Thomas Manes (Burton Group), Suresh Chandrasekaran (Denodo Technologies), Miko Matsumura (Software AG) and Mark Krzysko (US Department of Defense).

Managing Data Integrity in SOA and SaaS Based Environments

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 02:00:00 EDT

Next in the complexity chain are distributed systems. In a distributed system, there are multiple databases and multiple applications. In order to maintain data integrity in a distributed system, transactions across multiple data sources need to be handled correctly in a fail-safe manner. This is usually done via a central global transaction manager. Each application in the distributed system should be able to participate in the global transaction via a resource manager. This is achieved using a 2-phase commit protocol as per the XA standard. Most databases and custom applications have the ability to participate in a global transaction. Many packaged applications can also participate in a global transaction via EAI adapters. In reality, in most environments, some of the applications may support participation in a global transaction via 2-phase commit, some may support only single phase commit transactions and some may not support any transaction capability at all.

Information Management Paybacks Surge

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:40:00 EDT

Potentially massive savings can be had from thwarting legal discovery fulfillment problems in advance by governing and managing information. In a sponsored podcast, I recently examined how the well-managed -- versus the haphazard -- information oversight approach reduces legal risks. Yet these same management lifecycle approaches bring long-term payoffs through better analytics, and regulatory compliance, while reducing the cost of data storage and archiving.

More Ways to Solve Cloud Goverance Emerge

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:30:00 EDT

For all the buzz about cloud computing, there remains a key challenge for companies: regulatory compliance and governance issues. Left unaddressed, these issues could derail the long-term growth of cloud adoption. That's why more companies are coming to market with ever-evolving solutions that aim to take the pain out of controlling the cloud. Now, Cambridge, Mass.-based WebLayers just updated its flagship automated governance software, WebLayers Center 5.0, with new features that aim to mitigate the risk and cut the costs of developing in the cloud.

ZapThink Expands Its Footprint Into South Africa

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:45:00 EDT

ZapThink today announces the availability of a series of SOA training and certification courses in Johannesburg, South Africa, run in conjunction with realIRM. ZapThink will run its four-day Licensed ZapThink Architect (LZA) Boot Camp, providing in-depth, hands-on training and certification on Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and taught by notable SOA expert Jason Bloomberg as well as a one-day LZA renewal course and ZapThink's popular SOA Governance Training & Certification courses.

Cloud Governance Awakens

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:00:00 EDT

As we predicted earlier in the year, cloud computing is starting to take hold, especially if you believe the marketing literature of vendors and consulting firms. Yet, we are seeing an increasing number of Cloud success stories, ranging from simplistic consumption of utility Services and offloading of compute resources to the sort of application and process clouds we discussed in a previous ZapFlash. Perhaps the reason why usage of the Cloud is still nascent in the enterprise is because of an increasing chorus of concerns being voiced about the usage of Cloud resources:

SOA is Dead, No Wait, It's Alive

Wed, 27 May 2009 22:00:00 EDT

I'm currently reading Influencers, in which the authors make a great point that with innovation, the messenger is as important as the message. Theres a story of a researcher who attempts to get farmers to use a more disease resistant strain of corn, but the farmers dont view this person as experienced and dont want to risk their crop. So, the researcher sets out to find that one person who will try the new strain of corn, thereby, setting an example for all the other farmers. So, the researcher finds this farmer that dresses in Bermuda shorts and drives a Cadillac, who is open to innovative farming techniques and who successfully uses the new strain of corn to grow a bumper crop.

Gladwell, Basketball, and Music

Tue, 19 May 2009 10:00:00 EDT

I was discussing the recent Malcom Gladwell basketball piece with a friend of mine. In this recent piece, published in the New Yorker, the writer and a guy he interviewed draw a parallel between basketball strategy and the biblical tale of David and Goliath. My friend told me that he's developed a similar insight, one with a parallel between music and the biblical story of Moses receiving The Ten Commandments.

The Web Service “My Feeds” is a Game Changer

Wed, 08 Apr 2009 22:00:00 EDT

The use of APIs pervades the emerging world of cloud computing. People find they can mix and match information from all sorts of sources to create an application that specifically meets their needs. Indeed, companies such as The Web Service are in the business of providing you with key business data through Web service-based APIs, along with other players out there. However, a missing piece has been the ability to leverage your data through such an API without forcing you to get into the API enablement business. Considering this: The Web Service has launched a new service called My Feeds, and it's clearly changing the game around Web-delivered information.

SOA and BPM: It's the Business, Stupid

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:15:00 EST

After years of being admonished to focus on the business first, most IT execs still can't stop talking about the speeds/feeds, bugs/features, and bullet point aspects of their latest technology. They have to stop doing this.

SOA Pattern of the Week (#1): Service Façade

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:54:00 EST

One of the fundamental goals when designing service-oriented solutions is to attain a reduced degree of coupling between services, thereby increasing the freedom and flexibility with which services can be individually evolved. Achieving the right level of coupling “looseness” is most often considered a design issue that revolves around the service contract and the consumer programs that form dependencies upon it.

SOA World Focuses on Enterprise-Wide SOA and Cloud Computing Solutions

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:36:00 EST

If you've been following me on Twitter, or through my other blogs, you already know that I made it to the SOA World Conference & Expo in San Jose, CA, which was collocated with Cloud Computing Conference & Expo. I did the keynote on Wednesday and then stayed around for some of the sessions and some networking. Overall, SOA World was well attended and the expo hall was full of SOA vendors.

Getting a Handle on SOA Risk

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:00:00 EST

Services have a lot of potential for providing value to the enterprise, but their use also brings a level of risk. Some of these risks are financial, while others are operational. Fortunately, all of this risk can be satisfactorily mitigated through appropriate governance activities. Simply put, governance is the process of risk management. Without proper governance, services may be built that are missing the basic functionality required, that only satisfy one use (a waste of the cost and resources involved in creating a service), or that require costly modifications to be reused.

Executing an SOA Governance Plan

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:00:00 EDT

Over the past several years, there has been much fanfare regarding the promise of SOA. However, as with any IT-related solution, it is not a magic bullet or cure-all for IT integration. In fact, SOA does not solve business process problems, but rather identifies both the good and bad organizational processes. In most instances, SOA will require additional front-loaded costs until a critical mass of services are developed for reuse.

SOA and Services as a Service

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:00:00 EDT

While the number of SaaS providers grows, as well as enterprise acceptance, we are really not breaking new ground. In essence, today's SaaS providers offer visual systems, meaning they communicate with a human being. They also provide a single visual interface, and the users have to take both the data and behavior as provided. We could call this an enterprise application that’s not much more than a Web site, or an old-Web technology.

AgilePath Announces SOA Playbook Acceleration Solutions

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:00:00 EDT

AgilePath announced a series of new SOA Playbook Acceleration Solutions. AgilePath's SOA Acceleration Solutions are a suite of integrated offerings that include targeted SOA training, SOA workshops, and SOA XPE 'sprints' focused on delivering rapid results for key SOA focus areas, all within the overall structure of AgilePath's patent pending SOA Playbook methodology.

The Eight Most Important Best Practices in SOA Governance

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 14:15:00 EDT

The technologies used by IT to create SOAs are maturing. They are found to be robust and reliable. SOA governance provides a framework for making and applying the decisions that determine how the SOA will be designed, developed and operated. Work with real enterprises deploying SOAs to solve real business problems has led to the development of a set of best practices spanning SOA. This paper presents the eight best practices for SOA governance.

SOA Governance: Balancing Flexibility and Control within an SOA

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 13:30:00 EDT

SOA has become a strategic imperative for organizations today. Without a SOA strategy, you risk being outpaced and outperformed by competitors who are better equipped to serve customers, seize opportunities and respond to change. This paper highlights the concept of SOA governance and provides a framework for blending the flexibility of a SOA with the control, consistency and predictability of traditional IT architecture.

Vordel 5.1 Puts Policy Control at the Heart of XML Networks

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:45:00 EDT

Vordel unveiled version 5.1 of its XML network infrastructure products, to accelerate, manage and protect XML applications. Vordel 5.1 addresses the need for lifecycle management of policy across the SOA. By combining the central management of SOA policies with distributed enforcement across a network of XML gateways, organizations generate increased returns on IT architecture and maximize their SOA investments.

Koç Allianz Selects Software AG for SOA Governance

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:15:00 EDT

Software AG announced that Koç Allianz has selected CentraSite from Software AG to support the company's process reengineering efforts. Established as a partnership between the Koç Group and Allianz, Koç Allianz is one of the largest insurers in Turkey with nearly one million customers. In order to better serve customers, Koç Allianz has made a commitment to both Web-based applications as well as a service-oriented architecture (SOA) as this will allow the insurer to more quickly address marketplace requirements. As a top-ranked solution for SOA governance and service lifecycle management, CentraSite will be used to centrally manage these Web services along with their underlying metadata and service policies as a means for streamlining reuse, improving developer productivity and reducing IT costs.

Capturing the Aspects of SOA Service Ownership

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:15:00 EDT

As the field of service-oriented architecture (SOA) evolves, it brings interesting challenges that should be addressed in order to drive its adoption and realize the benefits it has been promising. It took a while for many to understand that SOA is not purely a technology issue.

WSO2 Extends SOA Governance With Identity Solution 1.5

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:00:00 EDT

WSO2 announced that it has extended its support for service-oriented architecture (SOA) governance through enhanced authentication. Version 1.5 of the WSO2 Identity Solution for strong Web authentication based on open standards and open source is now generally available and adds support for OpenID, a feature for decentralizing single sign-on. Additionally, WSO2 has joined the OpenID Foundation and is a founding member of the Information Card Foundation, which was launched June 23, 2008.

AmberPoint Joins SAP Co-Innovation Lab

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:15:00 EDT

AmberPoint announced that it has joined the SAP Co-Innovation Lab, where it will work with SAP to provide best practices for integrating its service-oriented architecture (SOA) runtime governance solutions with SAP enterprise services. AmberPoint intends to work with the SAP Co-Innovation Lab team to demonstrate and extend its SOA runtime governance capabilities by highlighting new use cases and scenarios, as well as identifying and sharing best practices showing how AmberPoint's solutions complement SAP solutions.

Early Adopters View Governance as Key to Creating Sustainable SOA Implementations

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:45:00 EDT

A new global survey issued by Software AG suggests that enterprise adoption of service-oriented architecture (SOA) has 'crossed the chasm'. Users also identified SOA governance as a key component of sustainable implementations with holistic, lifecycle approaches viewed as a core requirement. However, the overall maturity of their adoption was regarded as moderate with the state of their governance practices considered lacking.

Software AG and the Hasso Plattner Institute Demonstrate SOA's Green Potential

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 14:45:00 EDT

Software AG and the Potsdam-based Hasso Plattner Institute for Software Systems Engineering (HPI) announced the successful completion of a one-year research project examining the impact of service-oriented architecture (SOA) governance on Green IT practices. Working together, the two organizations developed methods and tools for optimizing resource sharing of IT services, thereby reducing energy consumption and lowering hardware costs.

MuleSource Releases Open Source SOA Governance Platform

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 09:30:00 EDT

MuleSource announced general availability of Mule Galaxy Enterprise, a new production-ready solution for storing and managing SOA artifacts offering new enterprise-class features such as clustering for high availability, an extensible query engine, and more. Mule Galaxy Enterprise, the open source SOA governance platform with integrated registry and repository, builds on the success of the Mule Galaxy Community Edition, released in January 2008.

WSO2 Boosts SOA Governance with Version 1.7 of Open Source Enterprise Service Bus

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:15:00 EDT

WSO2 announced the availability of the open source WSO2 Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), Version 1.7 to support enterprises' heterogeneous, high-volume service-oriented architecture (SOA) demands. The WSO2 ESB 1.7 offers enhancements to stability, scalability and availability - resulting in incredible scalability and error-free connections for high-volume SOA environments, even on standard hardware. Version 1.7 of the WSO2 ESB now integrates closely with the integrated, full-featured WSO2 Registry 1.1 for true, enterprise-class SOA governance.

SOA Governance: Start Small and Build Incrementally

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 12:45:00 EDT

If governance were a house, you would be left with the options of either building it from the ground-up or attempting to haul a complete house in on a large truck. While the latter is possible, it is fraught with difficulty. The house does not lend itself well to transport. It may become damaged during the move. It may not fit on your lot or connect smoothly to your utilities, requiring modifications to be made on the spot.

The Art & Science of SOA: How Governance Enables Adoption

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:00:00 EDT

Melding a stable enterprise architecture with the right level of technical and organization transparency involves two different perspectives. An architect can lay a SOA foundation that enables development teams to build new functionality leveraging Web Services. However, without a librarian's perspective, the interaction between service providers and consumers sharing SOA assets can lead to your SOA projects stagnating. In this session, you?ll learn how Volvofinans brought together these two perspectives to accelerate SOA adoption.

Layer 7 Technologies Enhances Field Collaboration for SOA

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 11:45:00 EDT

Layer 7 Technologies announced it has joined the HP Internet Software Vendor (ISV) Marketplace Referral Program to facilitate the companies' collaboration in the field and accelerate the adoption of joint solutions.

SOA Software and iTKO LISA Announce Combined SOA Governance and Validation Solution

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 11:00:00 EDT

SOA Software and iTKO announced a combined solution for continuous management and quality assurance across the entire design, development and change lifecycle of SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) applications. The integrated offering includes iTKO's LISA Testing, Validation and Virtualization suite, and SOA Software's Policy Manager and Service Manager solutions.

Layer 7 SOA Appliances and Gateways to Help Secure and Govern Sun SOA Implementations

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:45:00 EDT

Layer 7 Technologies announced a collaboration with Sun Microsystems to help secure and govern Web services built using the Sun Java Composite Application Platform Suite (Java CAPS). Sun customers will be able to purchase Layer 7 products globally through Sun Professional Services.

Web Service Virtualization for SOA Runtime Governance and Control

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:00:00 EDT

Managing Web Services in production is no easy task. Ensuring that services follow corporate security and SOA governance requirements, monitoring compliance with individual SLAs, preventing one client from degrading the performance of others and ensuring services built today will work in the future are a few of the challenges. Web service virtualization provides a separate layer that isolates business and operational rules, enabling you to quickly configure virtual Web services while enforcing business and operational policies. This services layer augments Web services management (WSM) tools and registries, making all the services in the enterprise more efficient and consistent.

AgilePath Announces New SOA Governance Solutions and Services

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:30:00 EDT

AgilePath announced its CEO, Eric Marks, has completed his 3rd SOA book focused on SOA governance. The new book is entitled 'SOA Governance: Evolving Governance in the Services-Driven Enterprise,' published by John Wiley & Sons, and is slated for release in August 2008. In addition, AgilePath announced several new SOA governance solutions to build on the strong demand for its vendor-neutral SOA consulting services.

AmberPoint Extends SOA Governance to SaaS and Packaged Applications

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:30:00 EDT

AmberPoint announced that it has extended the reach of its runtime SOA governance software to include enterprise applications from software vendors and Software as a Service (SaaS) providers. SOA-based systems are heterogeneous composite applications that often include packaged applications - such as customer relationship management (CRM) suites, order management systems and billing systems - as well as hosted applications that are provided on demand. Through its non-invasive SOA runtime governance technology, AmberPoint is able to monitor these prominent participants in SOA systems.

SOA Software Announces SOA Development Governance Product

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:30:00 EDT

SOA Software announced the availability of Repository Manager 6.0 (previously Logidex). Repository Manager 6.0 enables enterprises to understand what services and other software assets exist, where they're located and how each fits into a company's business and technical landscape. By providing a context for understanding and assessing existing software assets, Repository Manager 6.0 enables customers to rapidly develop, govern and deploy services within the SOA service lifecycle.

Layer 7 Technologies Expands SOA Into Belgian Market

Wed, 28 May 2008 15:30:00 EDT

Layer 7 Technologies announced its go-to-market partnership with Steria Benelux. Steria will act as a channel partner for Layer 7's SOA gateway products in Belgium to offer leading SOA security, governance solutions and support to its current and prospective customers.

SOA World - Growing an SOA Garden

Fri, 23 May 2008 14:30:00 EDT

Adopting SOA is a lot like gardening. It takes time, skill, a lot of hard work, and the process can be messy and even a bit frustrating at times. I know you've probably heard tons of different analogies that attempt to put SOA and governance into everyday terms and I'm sure that growing the SOA 'garden' through governance won't be the last.

Long-Tail SOA and the Mythology of Re-Use

Thu, 22 May 2008 10:30:00 EDT

Not all services are created equal. It would be great if implementing SOA were simply a matter of applying a standard design pattern to all services. Once IT had identified and codified an optimal design standard, services could be stamped out in assembly-line fashion until the IT landscape had been transformed. Unfortunately, we don't live in a cookie-cutter service Utopia.