Novell Releases SOA Suite That Supports Linux
(San Francisco) - Novell has released Novell exteNd 5.2, a Web services-based service-oriented architecture (SOA) suite with Linux support. Novell exteNd 5.2 enables developers to visually design and deploy Web services-based applications, and to integrate diverse systems to build composite applications on a broad range of application servers. Novell also unveiled plans to support and eventually bundle the JBoss Application Server with exteNd.

exteNd offers visual Web services development tools that hide the complexity of J2EE from Linux users. exteNd 5.2 now has Linux support from the desktop to the server, which should speed development and deployment of composite applications on Linux. It supports SUSE, Red Hat Linux, Windows, NetWare, and Solaris.

Novell exteNd 5.2 is available immediately, with pricing starting at $50,000 per CPU. A free 30-day evaluation is available for download at www.novell.com.

Microsoft Releases New SharePoint Products and Technologies Toolkits
(Redmond, WA) - Microsoft has released two new Web Part toolkits and a Web services toolkit for Microsoft SharePoint Products and Technologies that enable them to connect systems from multiple vendors using XML Web services standards. Available at no charge on GotDotNet.com, and complete with source code, the two Web Part toolkits facilitate the integration of Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 and Windows SharePoint Services sites with information line-of-business applications from SAP AG and other vendors.

Microsoft's WSRP Web Part Toolkit for SharePoint Products and Technologies leverages the Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP) specification to enable developers to build portlets that interact with other portal sites, regardless of the business system they use.

Adding to the several means already available for integrating SAP functionality into SharePoint Portal Server environments, Microsoft has also released its Web Part Toolkit for SharePoint Products and Technologies for SAP iViews. This capability is especially useful for developers and system integrators creating composite applications that combine SAP resources with other application, people, team and knowledge resources within SharePoint sites and enterprise portals.
www.microsoft.com

Lenders First Choice Selects Fiorano ESB to Enable Real-Time Operations
(Los Gatos, CA) - Lenders First Choice (LFC), a national provider of title and settlement services, has selected Fiorano ESB as a platform to enable seamless process integration and real-time agility.

LFC deals with numerous third-party vendors to access, analyze, and update title information. The information bought from these vendors had to be extracted and synchronized with the LFC internal databases, after which it was published to the LFC Web site and CRM systems.

Fiorano's combination of integration, business process management, and service-oriented architecture alleviates this problem, allowing dynamic runtime changes in business processes and dramatically reducing the overall costs of integration.
www.lendersfirstchoice.com, www.fiorano.com

Network Director 3.0 Transforms Services Chaos
(San Francisco) - Blue Titan Software has announced the immediate availability of Network Director 3.0, their Enterprise SOA Fabric. The new release enables Fortune 500 enterprise architects to better control their rapidly growing SOA deployments. Network Director customers have already scaled Network Director deployments beyond 50 million service requests per day, while managing hundreds of service endpoints supporting thousands of shared services.

Network Director 3.0 introduces deep, proactive monitoring of all enterprise shared services and increased flexibility and ease in global policy provisioning and SLA management. It delivers broader reach, faster and broader provisioning of services, increased service reuse, and proactive management of the entire service network. It also facilitates simple, unified SOA adoption across the global enterprise with proven interoperability across any enterprise service bus, flexible non-SOAP message routing, while facilitating deployment on any J2EE-compliant runtime.
www.bluetitan.com

British Columbia Attorney General Streamlines Legal Proceedings
(Vancouver, BC) - Layer 7 Technologies, a provider of Web services security and policy management solutions, announced that the British Columbia Attorney General has implemented SecureSpan to streamline legal proceedings. SecureSpan is a centrally administrable, standards-based solution that manages end-to-end security and integration policies across Web services transactions. The Ministry was tasked to establish an electronic filing system that would provide secure access to confidential legal data and availability among multiple parties. SecureSpan incorporated Web services and increased overall productivity, established legal process efficiencies while allowing information to be managed with current IT investments.

The Attorney General's office manages confidential information through an Integrated Justice System (JUSTIN) comprised of centralized databases. Layer 7 enabled the Ministry to expand access of critical information through Web services while maintaining tight control of how data is accessed. Through the SecureSpan Gateway, appropriate legal parties associated with the Ministry can request information that is transported through Web services.
www.layer7tech.com

Active Endpoints and JBoss Inc. Announce Comprehensive BPEL Development and Deployment Platform
(Shelton, CT) - Active Endpoints, Inc., has joined the JBoss Marketing Affiliates Program. This partnership will allow Active Endpoints and JBoss to offer a complete services-oriented integration platform to organizations that wish to create composite applications using the BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) standard.

Through the partnership, Active Endpoints will optimize its ActiveWebflow server technology to support the JBoss Application Server's capabilities, such as clustering, connection pooling, and management. The combined solution, ActiveWebflow Enterprise for JBoss, will include ActiveWebflow Professional, ActiveWebflow Server for JBoss, and ActiveBPEL Engine
www.active-endpoints.com,
www.jboss.com.