Don’t Forget CA
The scope of Web services and service-oriented architectures (SOAs) became much broader last week, as BEA Systems and Computer Associates
staked out their paths for distributed computing.
Why SOAs and Web services? Consensus around the software industry is that customers are seeking cost-effective fixes for their integration issues en masse. SOAs and Web services facilitate that, analysts say.
For BEA, the path comes in the form of Liquid Computing, an ambitious effort to provide best-of-breed enterprise in real-time fashion. The San Jose, Calif., company’s strategy is rooted in providing SOA
CA, meanwhile, is taking a different tack. The Islandia, Calif., company has vowed to render its entire product portfolio — some 1,200 bits of software — as services in an effort to provide clear window management into customers’ data centers.
BEA and CA are looking challenge in a field full of foes, including Microsoft and IBM
, as well as smaller specialty vendors offering anything from SOA enablement (helping enterprises craft SOAs) to metadata management, security and monitoring.
In terms of getting its message out, IBM is the leader. The Armonk, N.Y., company issued its first SOA software component in April and chased it with SOA design centers and assessment services in May.
A Liquid Strategy
BEA CTO Scott Dietzen is quick to concede IBM’s first-to-market status, but said his company’s ability to offer “best-of-breed” software makes it a strong contender. Dietzen discussed Liquid Computing in a recent interview.
“Rather than integrate systems in an ad-hoc way, Liquid Computing says we can create a new fabric modeled after the Web and designed for integration and for building these composite applications very easily,” Dietzen said. “XML and Web services is the foundation for the vision, but orchestration such as business process management or workflow and portal are the overlays
that deliver the value on top of infrastructure.”
Liquid Computing, then, is about being able to build service that overlay and touch multiple apps because typical customer service scenarios may touch five, 10, or 20 different systems.
Dietzen said BEA is working on Project Quicksilver, a Web services message broker, or enterprise service bus (ESB), that boasts a shared messaging layer for connecting applications and other services throughout an enterprise computing infrastructure.
Demonstrated at BEA EWorld, Project Alchemy is the company’s mobile version of Liquid Computing, an SOA platform for “occasionally connected” users who are traveling.
“If it’s possible to innovate your way to success, then BEA has a bright future,” said Redmonk analyst James Governor, who attended BEA Eworld.
Governor was particularly by the company’s transformation from a one-track-minded Java software company to a more open vendor looking to support heterogeneity.
“The inflection point that was really interesting is this notion of compatibility, this notion of loosely coupled approaches to architectural development,” Governor said. “Seems to me they were making a statement that BEA is no longer the Java company and that Java is now the implementation platform for all of the specs they are going to support.”
Big Blue’s Liquid View
Asked about BEA’s announcements and strong entrance into the SOA space, Bob Sutor, director of marketing, WebSphere Software Foundation at IBM, said it came as no surprise.
“The strength of our story has not diminished with anything that they announced,” Sutor said of one of IBM’s major application server rivals. “I think you’re going to see a lot of people join the party. People are recognizing a little more openly that SOAs are the way to go. Frankly, it’s from the acceleration of the growth of the use of Web services. It probably has something to do with the IT market rebounding.”
Sutor reserved judgment until he sees the actual products. Ditto for CA, which issued Web services management news after the company’s purchase of startup Adjoin, and HP, with its purchase of Talking Blocks.
Sutor is confident that IBM’s WebSphere Foundation is extremely strong. “This is just the beginning of our rollout. You’re going to continue to see how this applies to SOA and legacy transformation, or security and management and SOA and development.”
Microsoft’s Indigo Monster
While SOA might seem old hat to Big Blue because they have been talking about it for months, the truth is that there are no clear leaders at this point. In many ways, the market has hardly gotten off the ground, and Microsoft has yet to officially come to the table with anything other than promise.
But when it does deliver, look out. Though in early stages, the company has a solid vision for SOA based on Windows, which analysts are loathe to ignore or condemn.
The Redmond, Wash. software giant is working on Indigo, a communications component of its next-generation Longhorn operating system, which is the company’s interoperable SOA for Web services.
“Indigo is not going to wait for long,” Governor said. “Otherwise Microsoft would be badly behind the curve. Customer adoption is happening now. Now the market is ready for the marketing message.”
You could argue endlessly about whose platforms will work with what and who is leading in the early SOA market. The fact is Microsoft, BEA and IBM have compelling stories.
Please see page 2 to learn what CA and other players are planning for the space.
One vendor frequently slips under the radar, but CA may have a great chance at wrangling a large chunk of the Web services market. CA is intent on providing management and security for Web services and SOAs in the data center, rather than focusing on the platforms the way rivals do.
According to Dmitri Tcherevik, vice president of Web services, office of the CTO at CA, CA is well positioned in carving out a complete niche for Web services and SOA management. This is due to the new ability of its CA Web Services Distributed Management platform’s to support more than just Web services in the data center.
The software, culled from the company’s purchase of Adjoin last year, now supports EDI
“They [Microsoft, BEA, IBM] enable companies to deploy a Web services platform, we ensure that they can use them, especially in the age of government and industry regulations,” Tcherevik said. “You cannot deploy a Web services solution unless it is managed and secured.”
WSDM has already realized significant revenue since its launch in December. To build on that, the company also unveiled Web Services Performance Index, a public service that monitors and reports on public and private Web services remotely. Users can check the results on a live Web site.
CA’s message was enough to impress ZapThink analyst Ronald Schmelzer, who attended the event last week. The analyst said the performance index could be a crowd pleaser for enterprise looking for more intelligence into their own systems.
Moreover, because of the increased focus on security, Schmelzer said CA has opportunities to grow.
The Others
Other vendors have shown glimpses of SOAs, as well. HP last week announced Real-Time Information Director in a partnership with BEA; Oracle unveiled an SOA developer kit some months ago.
But Schmelzer said it’s unclear just how those companies’ offerings will fit into the market.
“HP has no application server, no messaging and no development tools,” the analyst said. “They have management although it’s not quite clear how that’s been made into a product. They talk about SOAs, but the only thing we can think they have them for is professional services. I guess HP Services will help you build them.”
“Oracle’s stance here is very odd,” he continued. “Oracle has an application server and developer tools but I don’t know why you would use, outside of a data-oriented SOA, Oracle to build a composite application that connects your mainframe to a portal.”
Analysts and officials from leading vendors agreed that one of the things that makes the space so compelling is the wealth of startups that are focusing on specialty areas.
For example, Amberpoint and Actional ply their trades in the monitoring space, while Cape Clear, IONA, Systinet, Infravio and DataPower work in the so-called “SOA enablement” sector. Of course, the security space shows no shortage of promise, with Oblix and Westbridge Technologies toiling along to compete with CA.
How many of these get snapped up is anyone’s guess, but it’s likely that as sure as the SOA market will generate big money — IDC recently predicted $11 billion by 2008 — there will be serious consolidation.
Vendors Jockey for Position in SOA Race
