XML, SOA, Semantics and Web Services Milestones
SET 2007 Closes
The SET 2007 conference ran 8-9 May 2007 in Zurich,
Switzerland. The conference theme is "Software Engineering Today" and presentations were in German or English. The three conference tracks included
Architecture Perspective, Management Perspective, and Process, Quality, and People Perspective.
XTech 2007 Closes
Conference chair Ed Dumbill announced the call for speakers for XTech 2007
(“The Ubiquitous Web”). The event ran 15-18 May 2007 in Paris, France. The
conference included tutorials and presentations for four tracks. The track themes are Applications (web applications, vocabularies, publishing, content
management, case studies), Browser Technologies (browsers, mobile, user interface), Core Technology (the heart of web technology, markup, protocols, semantics) and
Open Data (technology, experiences and policy behind open access to data).
Sybase iAnywhere Announces OneBridge and Afaria Interoperabiity for Secure Messaging
At Mobile Business Expo, Sybase iAnywhere announced OneBridge 5.5 and Afaria 5.5.
OneBridge supports more than 130 mobiles devices and extends enterprise applications and e-mail to mobile workers. It is interoperable with Afaria, which provides
device and server security, encryption and decryption. Because OneBridge offers a hosted demilitarized zone (DMZ) proxy server, administrators don't need to open
inbound ports and firewalls to send communicate with mobile devices. The Afaria 5.5 Security Manager provides cryptographic modules that provide FIPS 140-2 encryption
enabling sensitive information to be extended to mobile devices.
W3C Publishes Web Services Policy Primer
Maryann Hondo (IBM), David Orchard (BEA), Toufic Boubez (Layer 7) and other participants of the Web Services Policy Working Group have contributed to an introductory
description of the Web Services Policy Language. The document is the first public draft of the Web
Services Policy 1.5 - Primer specification. The document describes how to declare and combines Web services capabilities and requirements as policy expressions.
The document also describes the policy data model, extension points and the dimensions of policy assertion.
|
Composite Information Server Garners Partner Support
Composite Software announced the Composite
Information Server (CIS) 4.0 has enjoyed support among the community of SOA vendors and implementation firms. Composite provides tools and pre-built data services
for packaged applications that provide a jump start for SOA implementation. The Composite Information Server includes intelligent query optimization technology,
caching support, a metadata repository and multiple security solutions. The metadata functionality enables users to import model from modeling products such as ERWin.
BMC Software includes Composite Information Server in BMC Atrium and Cognos, Informatica and other companies embed Composite's technology.
Upswing in Adoption of DataDirect Shadow for SOA and Mainframe Integration
DataDirect Technologies announced an increase in customers using its software to enable mainframe applications to consume Web services. The Shadow z/Services™ WsC Web
Services Consumption tool is included in the
DataDirect Shadow RTE™ mainframe integration suite. The DataDirect Shadow product provides bi-directional support (Web services consumer and provider) for
mainframes and supports Web services security standards. |
|
Forum Systems and Radware Partner on XML Acceleration for Web Services
A partnership for joint development of smart networking solutions for XML-based web services was announced by Radware and Forum Systems. The partnership will
integrate Forum Systems XML acceleration and security technology with Radware's AppXcel application accelerator appliance. Radware will offer optional AppXcel
services that provide XML acceleration and secure, policy-based XML message handling. Other AppXcel services include SSL offloading, HTTP multiplexing and web
compression. The new integrated product offering includes features of Forum Systems Sentry and XWall products that includes a Web Services Firewall and intrusion
detection system.
SAP Adds SOA Consulting Services Portfolio
At SAP TechEd '06, SAP announced the worldwide availability of SAP consulting services for enterprises moving to adoption of a service-oriented architecture (SOA). The
new portfolio of SOA consulting services include SAP Business Strategy for SOA, Enterprise Services
Modeling, Organizational Planning and Governance for Enterprise SOA and Strategic Data Services for SAP NetWeaver ® Master Data Management. "We are providing
customers with the clear services that will enable their successful transition to enterprise SOA, delivering affordable value that will ensure they retain the agility
necessary to meet their business demands," said Bernd-Michael Rumpf, head of Global Field Services at SAP AG and CEO of SAP Systems Integration AG.
WebLayers Center 3.5 Provides Policy Libraries and Enterprise Infrastructure for SOA Governance
WebLayers has announced WebLayers Center 3.5, a vendor-neutral solution for defining, enforcing and auditing policies across the enterprise. The product offers a
policy infrastructure that includes policy libraries and support for the SOA lifecycle from design to deployment. The SOA Policy Library includes best practices that
encompass standards from the W3C and WS-I and the product is extensible to augment pre-built policies with custom policies. WebLayers Center 3.5 also includes
Management Dashboards with a set of drill-down statistical reports. Gregg Bjork, CEO of WebLayers commented about the need for an effective, independence governance
layer. He said “Recent market surveys show that 70% of enterprises deploying SOA are enforcing governance manually and only 17% characterized their SOA governance
strategy as sufficient."
OASIS Approves SOA Reference Model Standard
The work of the OASIS Reference Model Technical Committee has come to fruition with approval by OASIS members of a version 1.0 specification. The
OASIS Reference Model for Service Oriented Architecture V 1.0 - OASIS
Standard was approved 12 October 2006. The technical committee chair is Duane Nickull of Adobe and membership includes participants from Boeing, BEA, Fujitsu, General
Motors, NEC, Software AG and other organizations. The SOA-RM standard provides an abstract reference model for architects working on SOA design and development. In
developing the new SOA-RM standard, the technical committee addressed the issue of interoperability of existing ebXML and Web services specifications.
Web Services Security Conference 8-9 May 2007 in Baltimore
The 2007 Web Services Security Conference and Exhibition ran 8-9 May 2007. The venue was the BWI Airport Marriott and the Inner Harbor,
Baltimore, Maryland (USA). The conference featured a distinguished speaker list that includes Toufic Boubez (Layer 7), Jeremy Epstein (webMethods), Dan Foody (Progress
Software), Rajiv Gupta (Securent), Eugene Kuznetsov (IBM), David Linthicum (Linthicum Group), Paul Lipton (CA), Anthony Nadalin (IBM), Eric Newcomer (IONA), Mark O'Neill
(Vordel) and Mamoon Yunus (Forum Systems).
Call for Papers for SET 2007
The call for papers closed 1 December for the SET 2007 conference ("Software Engineering Today" ) scheduled for 8-9 May 2007 in Zurich,
Switzerland. The three conference tracks include Architecture
Perspective, Management Perspective, and Process, Quality, and People Perspective.
Liberty Alliance Publishes ID-WSF 2.0 Framework
The Liberty Alliance has released
ID-WSF 2.0, a framework for implementing secure, privacy-oriented Web services and SOAs. ID-WSF 2.0 supports Liberty Web Services standards for interoperable services
and Liberty People Service, a protocol for managing user relationship networks across applications. Liberty Alliance is a global organization for creating identity
standards with contributions from organizations such as American Express, AOL, France Telecom, Nokia and Vodafone. The Liberty Alliance project expects to reach a
milestone in 2006 of 1 billion Liberty-enable devices and identities.
Custom Integration Issues Dashing SOA and Web Services Expectations
IBM and BEA are releasing tools to minimize the amount of custom integration required for SOA implementation. A recent
SOA survey by Information Week reported 24%
of technology professionals said their SOA and Web services efforts "fell short of expectations". IBM and BEA Systems have announced new high-level SOA management tools
that include metadata repositories that will simplify applications and service integration. BEA is also emphasizing Business Process Management (BPM) as a key technology
for enlisting business users in SOA adoption. 82% of the Information Week survey respondents reported their company is somewhat aggressively or aggressively
pursuing SOA.
StrikeIron and Xignite Expand Partnership for Financial Web Services
StrikeIron, Inc. and Xignite expanded their partnership to enable Xignite to resell StrikeIron's
OnDemand Web Services for Excel. Xignite will use the Microsoft Office plug-in to create Excel workbooks that connect to Xignite Financial Web Services. As a result
of a two-year partnership, StrikeIron Web Services Marketplace distributes more than 35 of Xignite's financial web services. Xignite currently has more than 200 direct
and reseller customers.
SOA Governance Company Infravio Acquired by webMethods
webMethods is expanding its SOA Governance capabilities by acquiring
Infravio, Inc. for $38 million. SOA governance throughout the entire SOA life cycle enforces policies for the use of services. It promotes collaboration between
developers, IT staff and business users. Infravio's software products have been in use for Fortune 1000 customers, including Allianz Life, Level 3 Communications,
Lockheed Martin, The McGraw-Hill Companies, MCI-Verizon, Providence Health System, and Sprint-Nextel. The acquisition closed in
September 2006.
BEA Announces SOA for Executives Services
BEA Systems announced a suite of SOA consulting and educations services designed specifically for senior IT executives. Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) for Executives
is intended to overcome inhibitors to SOA adoption. It provides a set of services to overcome a lack of training, organizational barriers, building a governance model and
defining metrics for measuring SOA. SOA for Executives includes a two day client working session, a
cost and benefits workshop and several education courses. BEA will debut the education courses at BEAWorld 2006 in San Francisco.
OASIS Members Approve Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM) 1.1 Standard
OASIS members AmberPoint, BEA Systems, BMC Software, CA, Dell, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, IBM, Oracle, SOA Software, Sonic Software, TIBCO, and others have
contributed to development of a web services architecture for managing distributed applications. The new
Web Services Distributed Management (WSDM)
version 1.1 standard enables the use of web services for creating management applications. It supports management integration and provides the ability to control
resources through a single interface. WSDM 1.1 integrates the W3C WS-Addressing specification and the OASIS WS Resource Framework and WS-Notification specifications.
Call for Speakers Closes for RailsConf 2007
O'Reilly Media announced the call for speakers closed 27 November 2006 for RailsConf 2007, to be held in Portland, Oregon May 17-20, 2007. The conference invited speaking proposals
from Rails hackers, rubyists, trainers, web developers, entrepreneurs and other practitioner who will present to an audience of
Rails developers and IT professionals.
Infravio Publishes Guide to SOA Governance and Lifecycle Management
Infravio announced the availability of its comprehensive guide to SOA Governance and Lifecycle Management. The guide is designed
for enterprise architects, SOA practitioners, IT staff, software developers. It explains the link between SOA adoption and governance and illustrates policy management
across disparate groups and various stages of SOA development and deployment.
W3C Publishes News Editions of Four Core XML Standards
The World Wide Web Consortium published new editions of four XML specifications. The new editions include Extensible Markup Language
(XML) 1.0 (fourth edition), Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.1 (second edition), Namespaces in XML 1.0 and Namespaces in XML 1.1. The Extensible Markup Language (XML)
Conformance Test Suites currently test conformance with older versions of those specifications.
Liberty Alliance Announces Global eGovernment Group
Liberty Alliance, the global identity consortium, announced the formation of an eGovernment group. The Liberty Alliance eGovernment Group
will work to speed the adoption of open standards and secure identity-based services in the public sector. Governments around the world
have adopted Liberty Alliance specifications for federated identity. Liberty Federation consists of the ID-FF and SAML specifications.
ADP to Buy Web Services Company Employease
Automatic Data Processing,
Inc., a leading provider of payroll services, has agreed to purchase Employease, Inc., which has been a partner since October 2004. Employease offers Internet-based
payroll and human resources services. ADP recently announced plans to spin off its brokerage services units.
c360 and StrikeIron Announce Partnership for Microsoft Dynamics CRM
StrikeIron and c360 Solutions announced a collaboration to enhance a c360 product for the Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform. c360 will integrate the
StrikeIron Address Verification Web Service with the c360
Productivity Packs for Microsoft Dynamics. The Address Verification Web Service is part of the StrikeIron Marketplace, which includes more than 75 web services.
Forum Systems Releases Sentry SOA Gateway 6.1 with Policy Handling
Forum Systems, a provider of accelerator technology for XML, web services and SOA, announced version 6.1 of its Sentry SOA Gateway. The new version includes an integrated
Policy Handling System capable of enforcing multi-faceted policies across the enterprise.
Forum Sentry 6.1 supports clustering and
synchronization and authoring, dissemination, revision and roll back of application integration policy configurations. It also accelerates XML processing, and provides
real-time monitoring of policy compliance across the SOA.
IBM's Purchase of Webify is 3rd SOA Acquisition
IBM, one of the pioneers of web services and service-oriented architecture, has acquired its third SOA-technology company. IBM
acquired Webify, which offers SOA technology solutions for healthcare and compliance with the the
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). IBM previously acquired DataPower, an XML accelerator appliance vendor, and Bowstreet, a company that offers
portal technology. IBM will integrate Webify into the IBM Software Group under the WebSphere brand.
Partners Form Open Service Oriented Architecture (OSOA) Alliance
BEA, Cape Clear, IBM, Iona, Oracle, Progress Software, SAP, Sun, Software AG, Sybase and other partners have formed an alliance. The group will produce royalty-free, open
specifications for technologies used in service-oriented architectures. The two main projects of the
Open Service Oriented Architecture (OSOA) Collaboration are Service
Component Architecture (SCA) and Service Data Objects (SDO). SCA will provide a model for creating service components and assembling them into business solutions. SDO
provides application programmers a uniform data access solution for data from heterogeneous data sources, including SQL databases, XML data sources, Web services, and
enterprise information systems. Java and C++ SDO specifications are now available.
IBM Unveils RFID System for Tracking Pharmaceuticals
IBM unveiled an RFID tracking system for pharmaceuticals. The system blends software and services to support the tracking of drugs as they move through the supply
chain. Each RFID tag contains a unique identifier tied to descriptive information such as dosage and strength, lot number, manufacturer and expiration date.
Call for Papers Closes for XML Data Services Workshop (SEIW 2007)
The Call for Papers closed November 17, 2006 for the Second International Workshop on Services Engineering (SEIW 2007). The workshop will be held 16 April 2007 in Istanbul, Turkey, in conjunction with The 23rd International Conference on Data
Engineering (ICDE 2007).
Call for Papers Closes for PLAN-X 2007
The call for papers and demos has closed for the PLAN-X 2007 workshop. It will run January 20, 2007, during the ACM POPL 2007 conference in Nice,
France.
XAware Announces Webinars in SOA Education Series
SOA software provider XAware conducted a series of SOA web seminars in August and September 2006. The
initial webinar about ACORD standards played August 10. The three remaining seminars focused on Service-Oriented Architecture. XAware provides SOA solutions for insurance, financial markets and government.
Intalio BPMS 4.2 Supports Zero Code Development and One-Click Deployment
Intalio, an open source company that specializes in business process management software, has released
Intalio BPMS 4.2. The Eclipse-powered product
embeds the Orbeon PresentationServer, which is an AJAX implementation of the W3C XForms standard. It includes a native OASIS Business Process Execution Language (BPEL)
server and a native OMG Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) designer. Intalio BPMS 4.2 provides zero code development and one-click deployment for processes that
include web-based workflow and Web Services orchestration.
ALT Mobile Announces XML Studio v6
ALT Mobile announced the availability of version 6 of its flagship
XML Studio product, a toolkit for enterprise, Web
2.0 and mobile application developers. Version 6 supports XML visualization using ALT Mobil's HyperDOM technology, with a local Java API and an XML-RPC API for XQuery
programming. Version 6 also includes XML analytics and reporting, an AJAX transaction manager and tight integration with a variety of XQuery engines. <alt> XML Studio v6
is available for Mac OS X, Windows XP and Red Hat Linux. The cost is $1000 for a commercial license and $100 for a personal license.
Survey Reports Surge of SOA and Problems with Standards
Evans Data Corporation announced the Spring 2006
Web Services Development Survey, which includes findings from a survey of almost 400 managers and developers. SOA implementations increased 85% in the year since the
prior survey, with 24% of respondents currently implementing SOA. Thirty percent of the survey respondents reported using more than 20 services in a year. A quarter (25%)
of respondents said the leading problem in implementing web services is changing or undefined standards. Twenty-five percent of respondents said the inability to confirm
the identities of online users is the biggest security problem for web services.
BEA Releases Portal, Application Server and Developer Software
BEA Systems announced the general availability of three new versions of WebLogic products. The company released BEA
WebLogic Server 9.2, WebLogic Portal 9.2 and BEA Workshop for
WebLogic 9.2. WebLogic Portal 9.2 adds support for AJAX, Web Services for Remote Portlets and portal propagation. BEA Workshop for WebLogic Platform 9.2 is an
Eclipse-based environment that provides tools for developing web services, SOA components and web applications. WebLogic Server adds high-availability features for
clusters.
RealNetworks Launches Rhapsody Web Services and Announces Competition
A provider of digital media services, RealNetworks, has announced a set of web services and a competition to promote use of those services. The
Rhapsody® Web services APIs and RSS feeds provide access to free playback of
songs and Internet radio stations. They will enable web developers to integrate them directly into blogs, web sites and mashups. The competition for creation of the most
innovative Rhapsody Web Jam will run until October 16, 2006.
Aberdeen Study Shows 90% SOA Adoption Rate in 2006
An Aberdeen Group benchmark report of 120 IT and business professionals found 90% of companies have adopted, or will adopt,
service-oriented architectures. The report indicated
growing acceptance of SOA by large enterprises and noted most Enterprise SOA developers prefer full function development suites that include enterprise service buses
(ESB). The report also notes integration costs are consuming abut 40% of IT budgets.
MyEclipse 5.0 to Link NetBeans with Eclipse
A preview release of Genuitec MyEclipse 5.0 environment will link NetBeans
with the Eclipse open source IDE. MyEclipse 5.0 provides an environment for enterprise and Web application development. To simplify development of Web services, it
includes a series of wizards and interfaces. It supports various developer technologies such as AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), JavaServer Pages, Struts and
Matisse4MyEclipse, an interface builder based on NetBeans Matisse.
Apresta Expands Enterprise Data Access Capabilities to Include Motorola Q
Apresta announced users of the Motorola Q smart
phone can gain real-time access to data from enterprise databases, ERP suites, CRM applications and other systems. The Motorola Q runs handheld applications for
Microsoft Windows 5.0. Apresta gives users access to data formatted for Motorola Q, Blackberry, Treo and other handheld devices. It can connect to multiple remote
computers, organize and aggregate data from disparate systems and the present the data on the handset. Apresta is compatible with any Microsoft Mobile Windows device,
including Pocket PC for Compaq, Dell, Hewlett Packard, smart phones, the Research in Motion (RIM) platform and the Palm Treo.
SCO Announces Developer Contest and $1000 Bonus to Mobile Application Developers
The SCO Group has invested heavily in a software developer kit (SDK) for creating applications for wireless handset devices. To encourage developers to use its
EdgeBuilder SDK, SCO has announced a developer challenge and
a $1000 bonus for developers who attend EdgeBuilder SDK training. The training will be offered at the annual SCO Forum conference, August 6-9 at the Mirage Hotel in Las
Vegas. The winner of the EdgeClick Developer Challenge will receive $100,000 or a BMW automobile.
BEA and Ingres Join Forces to Pursue Enterprise SOA Opportunities
Middleware vendor BEA and Ingres, an open-source SQL database company, announced a partnership to provide tools for
enterprise SOA software development. Ingres 2006 is an enterprise class database manager. BEA will enhance its Workshop Studio 3.1 developer tools
suite to support Ingres 2006. BEA Workshop Studio 3.1 works with the Eclipse development environment and provides WYSIWYG editors and AppXRay technology. It also includes
the EJB3 O/R Mapping Studio.
Java 6 Beta Includes Web Services Stack and Java DB
Sun announced the release of Java Standard Edition (SE) 6 Beta 2. Java SE 6 includes a visual layout component for Swing development and a lightweight Java DB. It
includes support for the Web Services stack, including JAXB, JAX-RPC, STAX, Web Services Message Security and Web Services Metadata.
Download Java SE 6.
Partners Announce Formation of Working Group for Open Message Queuing Standard
JPMorgan Chase and Co., Cisco Systems, Envoy Technologies, Inc., iMatix Corporation, IONA® Technologies, Red Hat, Inc., TWIST Process Innovations and 29West announced
the formation of a working group to develop the Advanced Message Queuing Protocol
(AMQP) specification. AQMP will interoperate with messaging and Web services specifications such as JMS, SOAP, WS-Security, and WS-Transactions, making it suitable for
use in a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). AMQP is a binary level protocol that consists of a functional layer and transport layer supporting a plug-in architecture.
Google Pages Crimeware Captures Information for Accessing Financial Accounts
Websense reports an instance of
Google Pages
crimeware. The Google Pages web site is hosting malicious software that permits theft from online accounts of financial
institutions. The crimeware includes a keylogger that logs keystrokes when someone connects to a financial institution's web site. This enables thieves to steal banking
credentials and access the account.
Software for XQuery Development
Darin McBeath announced the release of xqLib, vendor-neutral software for developers needing
XQuery capabilities. xqLib is an open source library and main program that includes commonly-used features for XQuery, including a data formatter. xqLib is licensed with
the Apache License, version 2.0.
Startup WSO2 Achieves Milestones: First SOA Application Server and Intel Funding
WSO2, a start-up company funded by Intel Capital to develop open source platforms for web services, has announced new open source server software. WSO2 announced
Tungsten, a lightweight
application server that fully supports web services standards. The WSO2 team includes key contributors to Web services standards and the Apache Software Foundation web
services community. Sanka Samaranayaka, Ruchith Fernando and Dr. Sanjiva Weerawarana of WSO2 will participate in the W3C Web Services Policy Working Group.
WSO2 Tungsten supports AJAX administration and interoperability with .NET, J2EE, CICS and
IBM WebSphere. Built on Apache Axis 2, Tungsten integrates Apache Axiom, Apache Rampart and Apache Sandesha.
Airbus Moving to Web Services and SOA
Aircraft manufacturer Airbus is moving to web services to replace several applications as the first step of a planned move to a service-oriented architecture. Airbus
will install the travel management services component of mySAP ERP 2004 to replace internally-developed applications. The company hopes Web-based travel management will
reduce costs in managing 180,000 trips per year. It plans to fully integrate mySAP ERP 2004 over a number of years. Airbus has been using
mySAP Supply Chain Management
to manage 2 million spare parts for 3700 Airbus jets flying globally.
Exposing Myths about Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
Jeffery Kaplan of THINKstrategies has identified eight of the most
common myths about
software-as-a-service (SaaS). He explains the emergence of a number of companies in the SaaS space and suggests SaaS will have a major impact on the software industry.
Kaplan writes SaaS is not only for corporations so we'll see an increase in the number of personal users. He predicts web services and SOA will contribute
significantly to the success of SaaS and cause established software vendors to revise their business models.
SOA Software Announces Parasoft Partnership and Raises $11 Million Venture Capital
Following of the heals of the acquisition of Blue Titan,
SOA Software has
entered into a partnership with Parasoft to release an integrated SOA test suit. It also raised $11 million in fourth round venture capital. The company intends to go public after a year of 450% growth. Last year's sales totaled $30 million and it has
acquired Flamenco, Thought Digital, X4ML and Blue Titan in the past 18 months.
Infravio Embarks on SOA Governance and Interoperability Tour
SOA governance company, Infravio, Inc., is on a tour of the European and US
conference circuit promoting the SOA Link initiative and the company's expertise. Infravio will demonstrate its technological advances in SOA registry/repository and
governance. The event producers include Burton Group, Gartner Research, Goldman Sachs and ZapThink.
MapInfo 8.5 Upgrade Adds Web Services Capability
MapInfo Corporation has released MapInfo Professional version 8.5, a location intelligence application that enables users to exploit Web services for content. MapBasic provides web
services connectivity that enables users to analysis dynamic data from Internet sources. Using the MapInfo Envinsa platform and Envinsa Online Services, users can attach
latitude and longitude information to data, whether from enterprise
data sources or web services. MapInfo upgrade and video.
3rd Int'l Workshop on XQuery Implementation, Experience and Perspectives
On 30 June 2006, the 3rd Int'l Workshop on XQuery Implementation, Experience and
Perspectives (XIME-P 2006) workshop ran in conjunction with ACM SIGMOD 2006. Don Chamberlin provided the opening keynote. The location for XIME-P
2006 was the Renaissance Chicago Hotel.
BEA Announces Kodo 4, EJB3 Java Persistence and 14% Jump in License Revenues
BEA Systems announced the general availability of Kodo 4.0 and a tech preview of BEA WebLogic Server. Kodo and WebLogic Server support Enterprise Java Beans 3.0
(EJB3), EJB Java Persistence APIs, Web Services Metadata
(JSR-181) and StaX (JSR-173).
In a statement about BEA's first quarter earnings, BEA Alfred Chuang emphasized BEA's focus on SOA. Chuang cited "SOA is going to be the dominant architecture for the
next generation of enterprise IT systems. BEA's laser focus, across our product lines, is on SOA." For the first quarter 2006, BEA's total revenues were $323.2 million,
up 15% from Q1 2005. First quarter license revenues increased 14% to $132.4 million.
Amtrak Selects webMethods for Web Services Update to IT Infrastructure
Amtrak's move to SOA (service-oriented architecture) is expected
to provide better service and make the organization more agile. Amtrak is the U.S. passenger rail service that serves 500 destination in 46 states. It will use the webMethods Fabric(TM) product suite as a tool for integrating IT systems and exposing application
features as web services.
Amtrak will use webMethods Enterprise Services Platform to develop a common set of services. It will integrate back office systems, self-service kiosks
and a mainframe-based reservations system.
Web Services Addressing Advances to W3C Recommendation Status
The W3C approved Web Services Addressing 1.0, including
the core specification and SOAP binding, as a W3C Recommendation. The Web Services Addressing 1.0 specification defines a transport-neutral solution for addressing
objects in web services applications. It specifies the use of endpoint references (EPRs), a collection of abstract properties, as an entity, processor or resource to
which web services messages are addressable. Endpoints support dynamic generation of service endpoint descriptions and referencing of service instances.
Sun Announces Java Platform, Enterprise Edition 5
Sun announced the Java Community Process has approved the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition 5 (Java EE 5) specification. The new release includes 23 JSR-related technologies and
specifications, including seven web services JSRs, six component model JSRs, and three management technology JSRs. Java EE 5 builds on Java Platform, Standard Edition
(Java SE) and includes major changes to the programming model.
Liberty Alliance Announces Workshops on Federated Identity for Web Services
The Liberty Alliance Project, a consortium developing standards for authentication and federated identity, announced a series of developer workshops. The workshops, for
developers of identity-enabled Web services, will include case studies and discussions of Liberty's open identity specifications. The first in the series was held
June 12, 2006 at the San Francisco Hilton.
Workshop registration is free.
OASIS Ratifies Business-Centric Methodology Standard
Members of the OASIS standards consortium approved
the 1.0 standard for Business-Centric Methodology (BCM). The new BCM standard represents a set of layered methods for sharing e-business information in an interoperable
manner. BCM includes conceptual, business, extension and implementation layers. It uses ontologies to characterize communities of interest.
W3C Publishes XQuery Update Facility Working Draft
The W3C XML Query Working Group has published a working draft of the XQuery Update Facility.
Operating on an instance of the XQuery
Data Model, the XQuery Update Facility will be able to insert, delete and modify nodes. Previously the XQuery WG had published a working
draft for XQuery 1.0 and XPath 2.0 Full Text, which provides for full text search for tokens and phrases.
Infravio X-Registry Platform 6 Provides Cross-Lifecycle Policy Authoring
Following on the heels of the announcement of the SOA Link initiative, Infravio has announced
the release of Infravio X-Registry Platform 6. Miko Matsumura, Infravio VP of Technology Standards and Chairman of the OASIS SOA Adoption Blueprints TC, indicates the new
version is "the most significant product release in the history of the company. It contains a groundbreaking treatment of cross-lifecycle SOA Governance Policy
authoring and 30 person-years of product development above and beyond the award winning X-Registry Platform 5."
Layer 7 Releases New Operating System for XML Gateways and Firewalls
Layer 7 Technologies released a cluster-capable 3.5
operating system for its SecureSpan family of XML Gateways and Firewalls. The
SecureSpan XML Gateway, based on Tarari hardware, provides identity bridging
for B2B and SOA portal environments. The SecureSpan 3.5 Security operating system provides cluster-wide policy replication, monitoring, PKI management and session
persistence. It also
provides XSLT acceleration and automatic stateful failover.
SOA Software Companies Announce SOA Link™ Governance Interoperability Initiative
A group of vendors who offer Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) software products have launched an initiative to promote end-to-end SOA governance interoperability. Infravio, Inc. organized the new
SOA Link™ initiative with the participation of fifteen
other founding members. The SOA Link founders include AmberPoint, Composite Software, Forum Systems, Infravio, Intalio, IONA, JBoss, Layer 7 Technologies, LogicBlaze,
NetIQ, ParaSoft, Reactivity, SOA Software, SymphonySoft, webMethods and WSO2. The purpose of the initiative is to encourage interoperability among SOA Governance
products, including registries, repositories, policy authoring and runtime monitoring systems. SOA Link™ does not mandate an API for interoperability but organizations
purchasing software from one of the participating companies are assured of interoperability with software from other SOA Link™ participants.
Introduction to OGSA Webcast (April 26, 2006)
SOA, web services and grid services share common technologies such as TCP/IP, XML messaging and WSDL. The Global Grid Forum (GGF) developed a specification for the
Open Grid Services Architecture (OGSA) based on those technologies. The GGF OGSA Working Group will host a free webcast on Wednesday 26 April 2006 at 2:00 pm EDT. The webcast will discuss the OGSA, the evolution of grid computing and how
service-oriented grids fit into the enterprise. The presenter is Professor Andrew Grimshaw of the University of Virginia.
Registration for "Defining the Grid: An
Introduction to the Open Grid Services Architecture" is free.
Mercury Interactive Acquires SOA Software Vendor Systinet
Systinet, one of the leading SOA software vendors, is the target of an planned
acquisition by Mercury Interactive. Mercury offers business technology optimization (BTO) software and plans to marry the Systinet SOA software with its
Mercury BTO Enterprise™ products. Systinet addresses web services discovery and security issues with its registry and policy management software. Although Mercury
Interactive has been experiencing 22-24% annual growth, it received a notice of delisting by NASDAQ in January 2006 due to delayed financial statements and required
filings.
Progress Software Releases Stylus Studio 2006 XML Enterprise Edition
DataDirect Technologies, a Progress Software company, has released the Stylus Studio 2006 XML integrated development environment. It includes editors for XML, XQuery,
XML Schema Editor, DTD and XSLT. It also includes an XSLT Debugger, XML Mapping, and Legacy Data Conversion and Web Service Tools. It supports the Saxon 8.6 processor
and an XML schema wizard for converting X12 and EDIFACT messages to XML. An evaluation version is available for
download.
Eclipse Debuts Web Tools Platform 1.0
The Eclipse Foundation has released a Web Tools Platform (WTP) for J2EE and Web developers. WTP version 1.0 builds on the extensible Eclipse framework and provides
infrastructure for the Eclipse SOA Tools Platform. Leading J2EE vendors, including BEA, Borland, IBM, JBoss and ObjectWeb, have endorsed the Web Tools Platform
(more)
Ipedo Releases Version 4.1 of XIP Enterprise Information Integration Platform
Ipedo released version 4.1 of Ipedo XIP, which can dynamically map web services and
other XML data sources to SQL tables. XIP is based on Ipedo's Dual-Core Query Architecture and it complies with SQL/XML capabilities of the SQL:2003 standard. XIP creates
Web Services Tables by processing Web Services Description Language (WSDL) files to create a virtual relational table. Web Services Tables are accessible using standard
SQL, permitting business intelligence tools and other database clients to consume web services data as relational data.
Candidate Recommendations for XPath, XSLT and XQuery
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announced eight candidate recommendations for XPath 2.0,
XSLT 2.0 and XQuery 1.0. XSLT and XQuery processors are available from companies such as IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Sun, DataDirect Technologies and Altova. There are also
open source implementations for several programming languages. There are more than 40 XQuery engines and processors listed in the
SQLSummit.com catalog.
Saxonica Announces the Release of Saxon 8.6
Michael Kay of Saxonica announced the release of Saxon 8.6, a leading XSLT, XPath and XQuery processor. Version 8.6 conforms to the W3C XPath 2.0, XSLT 2.0 and XQuery
1.0 Candidate Recommendations. Saxon-B is an open-source product that's downloadable from
http://saxon.sourceforge.net/. The schema-aware commercial Saxon processor is available at
http://www.saxonica.com/.
Survey Indicates DBAs and Developers Marrying Web Services and Databases
Evans Data Corporation recently surveyed 400 database
administrators (DBAs) and developers and found increasing integration of databases with web services and XML. More than 58% of the DBAs reported they are using web services
to expose database information. The method used most often is stored procedures (22%), followed by SQL queries (18%) and XML queries (15%). The study also found 44% of
DBAs are using XQuery, or plan to do so in 2005.
XML Query Milestones
The members of the W3C XML Query Working Group can celebrate several milestones this year. XQuery can trace its roots to the Quilt Language and a November 1998 W3C query
languages workshop. After almost five years, XQuery 1.0 has attained Candidate Recommendation status. Another milestone was the release of version 0.7.0 of the
XML Query Test Suite (XQTS). In a related matter, Oracle began shipping its XQuery engine.
Altova Releases Tool for Semantic Web Development
Altova SemanticWorks 2006 is a new tool for visual development
using the Web Ontology Language (OWL) and Resource Description Framework (RDF). It enables developers to edit RDF document instances, RDF Schema vocabularies and OWL
ontologies. It supports exporting files from RDF to N-triples, context-sensitive help, and syntactical and semantic checking for conformance with RDF, RDFS, OWL LIte,
OWL DL and OWL Full,
OASIS Forms Technical Committee to Develop Standard for Transaction Processing
The new OASIS Web Services Transaction (WS-TX) Technical Committee will develop a
standard for web services transaction processing. The new WS-TX specification will evolve from three existing specifications: Business Activity Framework (WS-BusinessActivity),
Web Services Coordination (WS-Coordination) and Atomic Transaction (WS-AtomicTransaction). Participating companies include Actional, Adobe, BEA Systems, Cast Iron
Systems, DataPower, Fujitsu, Hitachi, IBM, IONA, Microsoft, Oracle, Reactivity, Ricoh, SAP, SOA Software, Sonic Software, Systinet, TIBCO, and webMethods. OASIS
previously released a specification for distributed transaction processing. OASIS published the Business Transaction Protocol (BTP 1.0 ) specification in 2002.
Survey Indicates Global 2000 Adopting Web Services Transaction Processing
A webMethods survey of SOA and web services
adoption patterns in Global 2000 companies found 80% of the respondents currently deploy web services within their enterprise. Half of the respondents were running web
services that processed 10,000 transactions per month, with 6% processing more than one million transactions per month. Respondents indicated a lack of business case analysis
tools was a key challenge to SOA development and adoption. The survey of webMethods' Global 2000 customers produced 480 responses.
US Internal Revenue Systems Releases New XML e-File Schemas
The US Internal Revenue System (IRS) has updated its Modernized e-File (MeF) system with two new XML schemas for electronic filing by political organizations. The schemas
for forms 8871 and 8872 took effect October
7, 2005.
IDC Expects Office Software to Drive Adoption of Web Services
IBM and Microsoft started beating the drum for web services in 2000, but IDC reports web services deployment in Canada has not lived up to the early hype.
David Senf reported "IDC Canada research shows that the main reason why organizations
across this country are not deploying Web services more quickly is that they are unable to see the business value in doing so." He predicts the pace of web services adoption
will increase because more desktop productivity software will build upon XML and web services. He suggests IBM Workplace, Microsoft Office and OpenOffice will be used
more for creating business-specific applications that will integrate with web services.
Jonathan Robie to Present "XQuery: Freeing XML and Relational Data for the Web"
DataDirect's Jonathan Robie, a co-inventor of XQuery, will present a
web seminar on using XQuery and the XQuery API for Java (XQJ)
for purposes such as publishing, report writing and web services. The seminar will run Thursday, 23 March 2006 at 10:00 am, Eastern Standard Time (GMT -05:00, New York). It
will also run at 2:00 pm. Registration is free.
Free Webinar on SOA Governance and Runtime Enforcement
A free web seminar about SOA security issues will run on March 22, 2006. Presenters include Miko Matsumura of Infravio, Andrew Nash of Reactivity and Jason
Bloomberg of ZapThink. They will discuss SOA governance and the importance of identity, security and policy enforcement. The webinar runs Wednesday, March 22, 2006
from 1-2 p.m. Eastern Time. To register browse to
http://www.infravio.com/news_events/infravio_reactivity.html.
Free W3C Web Services and Semantics Seminar
The W3C is sponsoring a free seminar about web services and semantics on
March 6, 2006 in Paris, France. The seminar will include a morning of presentations followed by a lunch buffet. Speakers include Hugo Haas, Hervé Ruellan, Timo Skytta,
Alain Léger, Denis Lacroix, Yves Lafon, Eric Prud'hommeaux and Philippe Le Hégaret. The seminar runs 9:00 am - 1:00 pm at the Palais
Brongniart.
Galileo Web Services Integrate Travel-Related Services
Organizations that need travel client application access to the Apollo and Galileo reservation systems can use
Galileo Web Services (GWS) from Cendant. The Galileo Web Service APIs enable
developers to integrate disparate data at the desktop because they encapsulate multiple services. GWS encapsulates a Reservation Builder Web Service, Trip Planner Web
Service, Flight Information Web Service, Itinerary Web Service and Travel Codes Translator Web Service.
Axizon, Inc. Releases Tiger XSLT Mapper
Professional Edition
Axizon Tiger Team released an XSLT mapper that supports sorting, grouping,
import and export of XSL templates, automatic generation of mappings and styles
from input and output XML instances. It's available as a standalone application
and as an Eclipse plug-in. A 15-day free evaluation version is available for
download.
SOA Repository Wars Heat Up with Fujitsu and Software AG Release of CentraSite
Fujitsu and Software AG have teamed to release an SOA repository known as
CentraSite. The product, formerly known as Integration Metadata Repository, enables users to store web services and SOA metadata and components in a UDDI-compliant
repository. CentraSite permits integration of Fujitsu's Interstage Business Process Manager and Software AG's Enterprise Information Integrator and Enterprise Service
Integrator software.
IBM Acquires SOA Appliance Vendor DataPower
IBM and DataPower Technology, Inc. have entered into an agreement for IBM's acquisition
of DataPower. IBM has been a leading proponent of service-oriented architectures. DataPower is a leading vendor of security gateways and content processing appliances.
DataPower will become part of the IBM WebSphere product line. In a similar move, Intel acquired Sarvega in August.
Scientigo Claims XML Infringes on its Patents
Scientigo, a company that specializes in business process automation software, expects organizations using XML to enter into an intellectual property licensing agreement
with Scientigo. The company asserts that XML violates its patents , including one about
modeling, storing, and transferring data in neutral form. The Scientigo patents date to 1997, whereas XML was derived
from the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). Charles Goldfarb invented SGML in 1974 and it became an
international standard in 1986.
Call for Papers for PLAN-X 2006
The call for papers for PLAN-X 2006, the ACM SIGPLAN Workshop on Programming
Language Technologies for XML, closes on October 10, 2005. The PLAN-X workshop
provides a forum where programming language researchers can exchange ideas about
languages, databases, document processing and other subjects. The workshop will
run January 14, 2006 in conjunction with the POPL 2006 conference in Charleston,
South Carolina. Deadline for demo submission is 31 October 2005.
BEA WebLogic Server 9.0 Delivers Top Performance in
PushToTest App Server Benchmarks
BEA reported favorable results from
benchmarks conducted by PushToTest, a maker of open-source test automation
software. It reported BEA WebLogic Server 9.0 delivered the best performance
among application servers running PushToTest's SOA benchmarks. For a comparison
of application server performance, PushToTest tested with BEA WebLogic Server
8.1, BEA WebLogic Server 9.0, JBoss Application Server 4.0.1, Oracle Application
Server 10g (OAS) and IBM WebSphere(R) Application Server V6.0. The PushToTest
software used for testing, the SOA Scalability and Developer Productivity
Knowledge Kit, is available for
download from the company's web site. It includes complete source code for
each use case and test scenario, with Testmaker and XS Test scripts to expedite
scalability testing.
Nexternal Releases XML Tools for e-Commerce
Nexternal Solutions released a suite of
three XML tools
for data integration with its e-commerce system. The InventoryUpdate tool
enables merchants to receive inventory information from other systems. The
OrderQuery and CustomerQuery tools enable merchants to export information from
the Nexternal system. Nexternal's web commerce software integrates with FedEx
Ship Manager Direct, UPS OnLine Tools, USPS Web Tools, and DHL ShipIt software.
Parasoft SOA Test Software Revenues Jump 300%
Tools vendor Parasoft Corporation reported a 300% increase in license
revenues from its SOA Test product, formerly known as SOAP Test. The increase
in SOA Test sales contributed to Parasoft experiencing a 140% increase in
2nd Quarter revenues over the same period last year. SOA Test automates Web
services testing with functions such as WSDL validation, server functional
testing, WS-Security testing, security penetration testing and performance
testing. It supports HTTP 1.x, HTTPS, TCP/IP and JMS protocols and runs on
Solaris, Linux, Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
Websense Reports Surge in Hackers Using Free Web Sites to Distribute Malware
Websense reports a surge in the number of free personal
web sites distributing malicious software, such as spyware and key logging
programs.
During 2005, Websense detected more than 2500 instances of sites
distributing malicious code, such as Trojan horses and key logging
software. In the first two weeks of July 2005, it detected more than 500
personal web sites distributing keyloggers, Trojan horse downloaders and
other malware. The sites hosted web logs (blogs), photo albums, greeting
cards, scrapbooks, music and other popular "personal" uses.
Systinet Reports SOA Governance Products Contribute to
Record Growth
Systinet reported its Registry and other SOA governance products contributed
to record growth
for the first six months of 2005. The company released Systinet Registry version
6.0 in
June. This year Systinet reported major successes in forming strategic
alliances, including partnerships with HP and BEA.
Semantic Web Conference to Run October 6-7 in
Munich, Germany
Registration is open for the
Semantic
Web Days conference in Munich, Germany. The conference will run 6-7 October
2005 at the Bürgerhaus Conference Center. The program includes sessions about
ontologies, semantic web technologies and geospatial information processing.
Speakers include Massimo Marchiori, Silvie Spreeuwenberg, Ivan Herman, Christian
Drumm and Prof. Dr. Michael Schroeder.
Conference coordinators are the European
Network of Excellence REWERSE (Reasoning on the Web with Rules and Semantics)
and the European Network of Excellence Knowledge Web (Realizing the Semantic
Web).
DataPower Integrates Autonomic Computing
with XML Security Gateway
DataPower has
married an
XML Security Gateway with IBM Autonomic Computing technology. Integration of
the DataPower XS40 with the IBM Autonomic Management Engine and
Common Base Event will enable enterprises to automate web services security
functions and build self-managing SOAs.
The XS40 gateway provides security with wire-speed performance and includes an
XML firewall and algorithms for threat protection, denial-of-service protection,
SOAP filtering,
fine-grained access control, schema validation, digital signatures, XML
encryption and XML/SOAP routing.
Source: Data from Quocirca Grid Index Report (April 2005)
Expert Panel Discusses SQL/XML, XQuery and
Databases
WebServicesSummit.com released podcasts (MP3 audio) of an
expert panel
discussion about SQL/XML, XQuery, native
XML databases and XML-enabled databases. The panel included Ron Bourret (XML-DBMS), Dana Florescu (Oracle), Michael Kay
(Saxonica), Jonathan Robie (DataDirect Technologies) and Michael Rys
(Microsoft).
Semantic Web Conference to Run October 6-7 in
Munich, Germany
Registration is open for the
Semantic
Web Days conference in Munich, Germany. The conference will run 6-7 October
2005 at the Bürgerhaus Conference Center. The program includes sessions about
ontologies, semantic web technologies and geospatial information processing.
Speakers include Massimo Marchiori, Silvie Spreeuwenberg, Ivan Herman, Christian
Drumm and Prof. Dr. Michael Schroeder.
Conference coordinators are the European
Network of Excellence REWERSE (Reasoning on the Web with Rules and Semantics)
and the European Network of Excellence Knowledge Web (Realizing the Semantic
Web).
GSA Certifies DataPower Gateway for U.S.
Government Web Services Security
The US General Services Administration
(GSA) approved the DataPower XS40 XML Security Gateway for use under
the E-Gov E-Authentication Initiative. The government added the XS40
gateway to the Approved E-Authentication Technology Provider List for
government agencies implementing E-Authentication. The XS40 has also been
certified by the Department of Defense Joint Interoperability Test Command
(JITC).
Tri-XML 2005 Scheduled July 28-30 in North
Carolina's Research Triangle Park
The three-day
Tri-XML 2005 conference will run July 28-30 at North Carolina
University. The event includes more than 30 sessions with content for
skill levels from novice to expert. Speakers include Mitch Amiano,
Jonathan Bruce, Conrad D'Cruz, Chris Dix, Boris Khurgin, Wendell Piez,
Lynne Price, Jonathan Robie, Alex Shilkrut and Michael Thomas.
Stratus Switches B2B Infrastructure to Enterprise Service Bus
Stratus Technologies, Inc., a provider
of fault-tolerant computer servers and technologies,
has migrated to Cape Clear Software's Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
as a replacement for its legacy business-to-business (B2B) systems.
Stratus is using Cape Clear's ESB to provide real-time process monitoring
and automation of business processes such as invoicing, order
confirmation, shipment, and pricing.
Sun Unveils New Web Services
Registry
Sun has announced a new services registry. The
Sun Service Registry is based on the ebXML 3.0 specification and it
supports UDDI 3.0. It's included in the Java Web Services Developer Pack
that's downloadable from the Sun web site.
Markup Technology Unveils Public Pipeline
Server
Markup Technology has made a demonstration of its pipeline technology
available on the Internet with a Public
Pipeline Server. Markup Technology's XML Pipeline Framework is an
enterprise-class XML development framework that delivers high
performance for data collection, transformation and distribution.
Nokia's Symbian-based Phones to Support Web Services
Nokia committed to mobile Web services technology with a 2002 announcement of an MM7 interface. It has recently committed to
adding Web services support to the Symbian OS. "By 2006 all Nokia
smart phones will be web services enabled," said Timo Skytta, director of web services at Nokia.
eSigma Unveils Business Process Search Engine
The eSigma.com site is a focal point for business process discovery. Use it if you want to publish or discover web services. After registering with eSigma, you fill in a form to be included in eSigma's UDDI registry.
WS-I Releases Security Document
The Web Services Interoperability Organization membership formally approved the release of
“Security Challenges, Threats and
Countermeasures”. The document was produced by the WS-I Basic Security Profile Working Group to identify vulnerabilities when building web services. It enumerates candidate technologies for security countermeasures, such as
Secure SSL, XML DSIG/Encryption, X.509 certificates and so on.
DataDirect Announces Public Beta Release of XQuery
Jonathan Robie announced the public
beta of DataDirect XQuery supports the 11 February XQuery specification and the early draft review of the Java API for XQuery (XQJ). DataDirect has also provided tutorials for XQJ and XQuery.
XML Summer School
This five-day residential course
runs 24-29 July 2005 at Wadham College, University of Oxford. The speaker lineup includes Liora Alschuler, Tim Bray, Tony Coates, Bob DuCharme, Michael Kay, Eve Maler, Dave Pawson, Jeni Tennison and Lauren Wood.
XTech 2005 Conference Concludes
PlanetXTech offers aggregated coverage of the XTech
2005 conference in Amsterdam.
GlobusData Releases queryXML™
GlobusData announced the release
of the queryXML engine that supports using
the qxLanguage queries over XML documents. The query language (qxLanguage)
is compliant with XSLT and XPath compliant and it provides queries using
SQL-like constructs. The queryXML software is available as a DLL for
Windows operating systems, as an online tool and as a web service.
Web Presence Report Card for Software, IT Research and Media Web Sites
Ken North Computing released a 31-page
white
paper with rankings for web sites belonging to computer and software
companies, open source initiatives, media organizations, and companies
that provide information technology (IT) research. Section 5.3.1 discusses
sites that focus on XML and web services. Sections 5.4 and 5.5 provide data
about commercial and open source software web sites.
