06.21.02

Putting the Pieces Together

Posted in Enterprise Integration, Java at 10:04 pm by Tony Baer

At first blush, the latest flurry of announcements from Novell, HP, IBM, and Sun appears as yet another indicator that the Java market is consolidating. On the contrary, we view this as evidence that vendors need to piece together critical mass technology to deliver business solutions that customers find compelling.

Novell, which reinvented itself on directories, hit the wall because the technology had limited usefulness as standalone product. The goal of directories — single sign-on — was expensive, virtually impossible to accomplish, and even harder to cost justify. And, as standalone product, it needed too much integration. With the just-announced SilverStream acquisition, Novell might have the technology to resolve the integration part.

Conversely, HP always had the technologies, but couldn’t put them together, and worse, proved speech-impaired when it came to articulating what they were about. HP practically invented web services with eSpeak, but did they tell anybody? In buying Bluestone, they had the chance to mount a real web services platform. Instead, they let IBM and Microsoft seize the agenda. We should have seen the handwriting on the wall when they threw Bluestone into the cryptically titled “Middleware Division.” So who’s surprised that they’re chucking the software business?

Compared to HP, communication is hardly a problem for IBM. They just spent a day reminding us once again that, yes, they have a strategy to make WebSphere an integration platform, plus a technology roadmap for their integration tools — MQSeries, MQ Business Integrator, and CrossWorlds. One thing goes without saying: they’ve got thousands of consultants waiting to put it all together for you. No wonder IBM wins the contracts.

Sun’s announcement proved the most substantive: that it was finally putting some meat into Sun ONE. Although the central player in Java, Sun has lagged in using Java in its own products. Sun has finally put Java and J2EE 1.3-compliance into the appserver; thrown in some blinding fast HTTP processing from its webserver; and is promoting its Directory/Identity solutions as the essential building block for selling useful business services over the web. Plus, Sun ONE finally has a new management team with real software background. Reminds us of IBM Software 3 or 4 years ago, minus the revenue base.

None of this is about the status of the Java market, because there is no Java market. The real market is enterprise integration and business services deployment. Yes, the right technology pieces must be in place and, as we previously noted, investment protection must be solid. But at day’s end, the sell isn’t technology. Anyway, whether integration or whatever is done with Java, .NET technology, or web services is irrelevant.

06.11.02

Getting to Know You

Posted in Enterprise Integration, SOA & Web Services at 10:03 pm by Tony Baer

Integration has never been easy, and since the emergence of EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) over 30 years ago, there has been no shortage of proposed technology fixes and industry protocols.

Technologies, from CASE (Computer-Aided Software Engineering) to SQL relational databases, the Internet, EAI tools, or the recent J2EE or .NET frameworks addressed bits and pieces of the problem. Meanwhile, industry initiatives from RosettaNet in electronics, FIX in financial services, AIAG in automotives, and others have made modest progress for vertical industry transactions. And let’s not forget the cross-industry bodies like OASIS and OAG, and of course the W3C, that have tried bridging some of the gaps. No matter, application integration has only gotten marginally simpler.

Given the huge build-up for XML web services, one could be excused for wondering if this is some sort of panacea. The technology, built around XML, is accessible, and more importantly, almost every major vendor has promised to support the emerging standards.

Recently, we viewed one of the first demonstrations of interoperable web services, staged at the XML One Conference in San Jose. Choreographed by XMethods, an organization acting as a repository for public domain web services, IBM, Microsoft, eXcelon, Iona, and The Mind Electric pieced together a supply chain demo that was executed using today’s available web services technologies: SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI.

All of the SOAP messages and UDDI lookups were based on a common WSDL specification, which defined what services were offered and on what terms. The demo resembled a traditional EDI hub, where a central player like GM could dictate all of the transaction formats used by its trading partners.

The results showed that the technology itself was the least of the hurdles. As with any early technology, participants had to check that their tools implemented the standards consistently. But most of the six weeks spent preparing for the demo was devoted to working out the semantics. That is, getting the business rules, message formats, and data structures straight.

The good news is that XML web services technologies will enable teams to focus on business integration, rather than the underlying plumbing. OK, you’ll probably still need at least one person who knows XML parsers and related technologies. Given the hopes and disappointments of the past 50 years, that’s not a bad an achievement. But the bad news is that business integration remains 80 – 90% of the integration problem.