The Smart SOA approach

IBM SOA entry points are well-defined, repeatable, projects focused on people, process, information, reuse and connectivity that businesses are already using to create value against their specific objectives. And the entry points provide a set of options that suit your needs and your environment. They don’t advocate a particular starting point based on product heritage like some vendors might. IBM continues to enhance the entry points with product-level enhancements within each entry point, as well as the introduction of the SOA Sandbox — downloadable software, tutorials and quick-start guides for developers offered free of charge.

IBM is also rolling out SOA configurations for leveraging existing and packaged applications, SOA security and management, as well as configurations specifically for IBM System p™ servers to help reduce deployment time for common SOA use cases. In addition, IBM has professional services geared toward getting you started.

SOA and Web 2.0 are not an “either-or” proposition; they exist along side each other within organizations. In fact, IBM is incorporating support for Web 2.0 in a whole host of software traditionally associated with SOA. Web 2.0 extends SOA by enabling the creation of user-created applications, a rich user experience, user-customized information services, and simple access to services. IBM allows users to pursue their initiatives using SOA and Web 2.0 — not one or the other.

• WebSphere MQ now has an HTTP Bridge that enables developers using AJAX and RESTful web services to leverage a reliable delivery platform that reaches over 80 platforms.
• WebSphere Portal brings together collaboration and content tools for easy access and user interaction with SOA extended by Web 2.0 through a series of Accelerators.
• WebSphere Commerce has interactive AJAX interfaces and an AJAX shopping cart that keep customers on the path to purchase.
• WebSphere Application Server Web 2.0 Feature Pack extends SOA by connecting external web services, internal SOA services, and JEE objects into highly-interactive Web application interfaces.
• WebSphere DataPower SOA Appliances offer advanced monitoring and management, deep-content routing, bridging, and application-layer threat protection that help simplify how IT bridges their enterprise SOA and Web 2.0 applications.

Process integrity is the ability to conduct reliable business activity in a secure, scalable SOA environment with seamless integration at every level. IBM has built process integrity into its offerings with the thoroughness it deserves, taking into account the specific needs of transaction integrity, information integrity and interaction integrity. Unlike vendors who are only able to provide integrity in certain aspects of an overall process, IBM addresses process integrity at all levels of the SOA environment:

• Transaction integrity: Executing transactions consistently with the ability to recover as required:
• WebSphere Process Server provides flexible execution of business processes driving long-running transactions and has enhanced human task support.
• WebSphere Message Broker has improved Web services support, support for large file processing, and connections to applications through standardized adapters.
• WebSphere ESB has a new service retry capability.
• WebSphere DataPower Integration Appliance XI50 provides a hardware-based connectivity option with extended support for WebSphere MQ and WS-Reliable Messaging as well as streamlined multi-step transaction processing.
• WebSphere MQ provides robust, reliable transactional messaging with improved support for Web Services and is extended for faster access to data with Low Latency Messaging.
• Interaction integrity: Providing users with up-to-date, secure access to information and content:
• New WebSphere Portal accelerators (for self service, collaboration, and enterprise suite) deliver personalized, role-based access in a secure, transparent manner across multiple sources—within a portal framework that is highly secure and scalable.
• Lotus Forms delivers dynamic access to critical processes to ensure interaction completeness.
• Information integrity: Ensuring reliable, complete and manageable information:
• Information integrity makes consistent, accessible, trusted information readily available at all stages of the process.
• Enhancements to the popular IBM Information Server deliver improved deployment capabilities and innovative use of metadata to speed the development cycle, while a new version of IBM IMS provides SOA-enabled integration from a scalable, available, safe, and easily managed data-server environment.
• Quality of Service: Tivoli Composite Application Manager for SOA now shows where bottlenecks are occurring in service flows so that they can be quickly isolated an addressed before customers are impacted.

Is your IT infrastructure ready to support that next incremental SOA deployment? Are you ready to grow? Are you achieving the value you thought you would? IBM can assist you in answering nagging questions about your SOA health by acting as a trusted, experienced guide toward the Smart SOA approach. IBM SOA Healthchecks can help you examine how well you are doing within SOA projects to identify current problem areas, as well as recognize areas that need to be addressed for future SOA needs.

We are announcing two new Healthcheck workshops:

• Application and Services Healthcheck Workshop for SOA assesses the effectiveness of the reuse of applications and services, the ways in which services are used, and the security of SOA services.
• Infrastructure Healthcheck Workshop for SOA assesses infrastructure flexibility, middleware support for SOA, and service management.

Proven SOA governance techniques can help your organizations gain oversight and control of your SOA projects and your services, as well as promoting effective reuse. These techniques can help your organizations to develop a customized approach to SOA governance and to then efficiently guide the service life cycle through design, development, quality testing and eventual retirement. These techniques can also help you to promote reuse by providing access to information about the service, such as quality of service, fees, descriptions and locations.

• WebSphere Service Registry and Repository now has WebSphere Business Services Fabric integration, along with numerous usability and consumability enhancements.
• Rational Asset Manager is designed to support service development and deployment. Two Rational testing products, Rational Tester for SOA Quality and Rational Performance Tester Extension for SOA Quality, have new support for various service interfaces and for secure services.

Get the news directly from top IBM executives on October 9th — register for the live webcast "Accelerating Business Agility with the Smart SOA approach".