IT Connection Product Assessment reports provide in-depth analysis of more than 200 products and services. Each Product Assessment report includes expert analyst advice and recommendations on what to look for when making buying decisions. Click here to view sample reports.
IBM WebSphere
IBM provides an exceptionally wide array of SOA software, service and support offerings, many of which fall under the WebSphere brand or IBM’s Global Services divisions. (12/16/2008)
Microsoft BizTalk Server
Microsoft offers a set of service-oriented software (SOA) products and technologies including BizTalk Server, Visual Studio, the .NET Framework, and a number of related products, all under a branding framework called “Real World SOA.” (6/24/2009)
Red Hat JBoss
Red Hat’s JBoss family of middleware products constitutes a competitive offering within the SOA market. The company offers a legitimate, though incomplete, SOA suite that leverages its open source community and subscription-based business model. (5/15/2009)
SAP NetWeaver
SAP fields its SOA suite software under the general brand of NetWeaver, which is billed as a foundation upon which SAP customers can build services-based, enterprise-scale business solutions. (6/24/2009)
Sun Java Composite Application Platform Suite
Within the service-oriented architecture (SOA) marketplace, Sun offers a wide array of software products and associated support, educational and professional services, covering a range of horizontal SOA solutions. (12/17/2008)
TIBCO ActiveMatrix
Building on its storied enterprise application integration and high performance messaging background, TIBCO has amassed a sizable and varied SOA product portfolio. Most of its SOA solutions relate to or hinge upon its ActiveMatrix product family. (12/16/2008)
Application servers are a key element within a SOA implementation, providing the foundation upon which most applications are deployed. They are comprised of server software designed to deliver applications to clients (computers, mobile devices). These servers are typically bundled with broader development, deployment and management tools. On their own, they focus on standards support for application containers such as Java and .Net and provide clustering, fail-over, load balancing, and distributed deployment services.
Business Process Management
Though there is still a thriving market for pure-play business process management (BPM) solutions, most SOA suites come with a fully capable BPM product tied closely with application deployment, orchestration and integration servers. A typical BPM solution within a SOA suite supports process design, execution and optimization tools, including the following activities: process modeling, design and development; process discovery, monitoring and optimization; process rules development and execution; and business process execution.
Composition and Development Tooling
Many SOA elements such as BPM solutions, application servers and ESBs include their own development tools in support of product-specific programming needs. However, most SOA suites also provide an overarching, general, integrated development environment (IDE) that can support, augment or replace these more specialized development tools. A typical SOA IDE can deliver server side or client-side applications, the latter, often supporting rich Internet application (RIA) technologies such as AJAX.
Enterprise Service Bus and Integration
Business activity monitoring (BAM) concerns the monitoring of and reaction to business processes and the events stemming from those processes, often in real time. Most BAM solutions are tied closely with or included as a part of a BPM solution. BAM products help customers ensure alignment between key performance indicators (KPIs), which have been declared during process development and the performance of running processes. As such, these products must perform data and event collection and event analysis, utilizing correlational techniques to uncover dependancies. Users interact with BAM products through visualization dashboards and actionable alerts, though which processes can be modified or enacted.
Management, Governance and Security
While individual SOA suite products (such as portal, BPM, rules, BAM) provide pointed management, governance and security capabilities, organizations require a broader set of management tools capable of providing an overarching layer of security and access control as well as fundamental monitoring and governance of running composite applications. They are often sold as either suites or as a loose collection of products.
Portal, Presentation, and Access
Within a SOA implementation, the method of choice for deploying data and application logic is the portal. Portals consist of a run-time environment upon which portlets are executed and user access is granted, as well as a portlet composition and management interface. Increasingly, SOA practitioners are deploying applications both within portals and as stand alone applications utilizing RIA scripting technologies such as AJAX. Web 2.0 applications are increasingly sold as a value-add or as composition tools (mashups) within these application delivery environments. And most SOA development tools are able to deploy applications using RIA technologies and portlet standards as well.
SOA Registry/Repository
The central hub (or brain) within any sizable SOA installation is the registry/repository, a server software solution that acts much like a directory server for the services that comprise composite applications. This SOA directory actually contains two distinct elements: a registry, which houses references to available Web services and associated artifacts; and a repository, which houses the overall SOA information necessary to govern running composite applications, including service versioning, policies, access requirements and performance agreements.
Interoperability between SOA suite constituent products within a SOA suite is critical, as is the breadth of that suite – something constantly evolving to meet market needs.
Deployment and Administration
An array of pre and post deployment tools focused on provisioning, installation, configuration, monitoring and management is imperative to the successful installation of a SOA suite solution.
Geographic, Market and Customer Reach
International reach and the ability to delivery solutions that meet geographic and vertical use cases is essential for SOA suite vendors. Horizontal use case solutions are also considered, as is the ability to target both SMB and large enterprise customers.
Interoperability and Standards Support
Absolute compliance with predominant SOA standards tops customer expectations, given the heterogeneous nature of most SOA installations, which contain elements from multiple vendors.
Packaging, Services and Support
Because SOA suites cover a broad range of functions, it is imperative that their individual products be sold as standalone or together as product bundles. Flexible licensing options (including open source offerings), professional services and post deployment support options are also a must.
Product Landscape Chart
