Microsoft opens kimono to show athletic supporter with iron-clad cup

The "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" mood at Microsoft has gotten more of an open source flavor. Soon, developers (and other interested parties) will see more source code under the .NET and Visual Studio 2008 covers. This is interesting.

But by pulling back the kimono, Microsoft has only shown an iron-clad cup over the family jewels. Look but don't touch. No chance of legally changing the code, or redistributing it, only learn and learn well. Sorta open source.

It's a pretty big deal, I guess. I shows that even Microsoft recognizes that certain elements of the open source credo make sense, if not enough cents. The mantra of open source is killing software and has no role in the real world -- well, I doubt we'll seeing much more of that.

It's like George Bush saying he's no longer against raising taxes, but has no intention of actually doing it. It's the thought that counts!

Is this a slippery slope beyond the FUD factor, however? Will such code exposure lead to outright dancing in the moonlight someday? How many products will they give the peak-a-boo treatment too? When will such openness become a security ... err, legal, risk?

Well hackers and competitors already get a lot of gropes at the code, anyway. This just gives the honest people a thrill. Or maybe there's more to the gesture. Could this be a set-up that anyone who looks at the code and comes up with way to skirt using the Windows runtime when they enjoy the splendors of the development environment?

I expect that with such access to the goodies that more folks will want to develop around the framework and tools. And while that inevitably leads to more sales of the runtime, the decoupling of the pre-production and the post-production continues. This can only hasten the trend.

One has to wonder how Microsoft's lawyers will interpret the code "advances" over time.

IBM 'continuum' helps companies crawl-walk-run along the SOA path

IBM today unleashed a barrage of announcements that cover services and software to enable a crawl-walk-run strategy for enterprises, as they move into the services-oriented architecture (SOA) world.

The new offerings range from a "SOA Sandbox," which will allow developers to "play" with SOA before using it in a production environment, to WebSphere enhancements, and finally, to an unveiling of the new IBM Optim, a data governance application from recently acquired Princeton Softech.

Key to the crawl-walk-run approach is what IBM calls their SOA Continuum, which takes companies from the very basic -- involving only focused, high-ROI projects -- to the most advanced, in which technology becomes invisible and more than 80 percent of business functions are delivered as services -- and more than 50 percent of those are re-used.

I sort of remember the logic from an earlier blog. Glad they agree.

Recognizing the need for what they've dubbed the Globally Integrated Enterprise, IBM has also introduced assessment tools, including a Benchmark Wizard, which is based on key agility indicators and is loaded with 1,100 qualitative business indicators and uses best practices derived from 1,600 case studies. This will allow an enterprise to determine how it stacks up against the industry in general.

The new offerings also address several key stumbling blocks along the path to SOA-based agility. One such sticking point is how systems respond when services from various sources may be unavailable. IBM says its updates WebSphere Process Server has extensive compensation support, allowing process to recover reliably when target applications are unavailable.

Another key concern is exposing sensitive or personal data when services access databases. The newly acquired Optim product is designed to identify and protect private data in complex application environments.

IBM also announced enhancement for process integrity to several products, including:

• Message Broker and MQ
• Tivoli Composite Application Manager for SOA
• WebSphere DataPower XML Security Gateway
• IBM Information Server

IBM is taking an "all things to all people" approach and offering new SOA configurations, designed to help enterprises use legacy and packaged applications in a SOA environment. These include best practices and step-by-step implementation guides.

To help developers get started -- before even starting to crawl along the SOA path -- IBM has set up a SOA Sandbox, a free test bed on the developerWorks site. The sandbox, where potential users can download trial software or can "play" online in a hosted environment, includes software, tutorials, quick-start guides, and best-practices guidance.

As another aid to companies, IBM is offering "SOA Healthchecks," workshops to assess and diagnose applications, services and infrastructure to determine application reuse, security, and infrastructure flexibility.

Look for this opening salvo to increase in crescendo over the next few months, as IBM rolls out these and more SOA offerings at 500 events, including a customer Webcast on Oct. 9, and a series of announcements to create a drumbeat about the latest SOA end-to-end initiative.

Engagement on SOA has to take place in countless ways. IBM seems to be up to the task, or least is ready to try.

Adobe pushes foward on enabling RIA ecosystem with Flex 3, Adobe AIR betas

The world of rich Internet applications (RIA) got a little richer on Monday when Adobe Systems released the beta versions of Flex 3 and the Flex SDK with enhanced features for evelopers.

The beta versions are in place of the alpha release, which was scheduled for this month, but which has been pushed out to the first quarter of 2008 to coincide with the release of Adobe AIR 1.0. The AIR beta is also available.

Enhanced capabilities of the Flex beta include support for ASP.NET, including new data wizards that allow developers to look at data tables and create a new Flex application from a SQL database. Developers who consume Web services can view the WSDL files and automatically generate code for invoking operations.

Adobe AIR now supports background applications and system tray notifications, allowing the app to run in the background. Among its other features are:

• Synchronous APIs for embedded local database
• Greater control of windows and menus
• Content protection for video, HTML improvements
• Application and runtime enhancements such as improved install process and automatic updates for the runtime.

Check out Matt Chotin's blog at Adobe for a complete rundown on the latest enhancements and updates.

Also, keep an eye out for Adobe to announce a new Adobe Developer Connection, where the Adobe community can get newsletters, form a professional network, participate in forums, and get special offers.

The Adobe AIR and the Flex betas can be downloaded from the Adobe Labs site, which also has a pre-release version of Adobe Media Player, which will be free to end users and will allow companies to distribute Web 2.0 content in video format. Major television broadcasters and other content producers have already agreed to support the Adobe format.

Adobe made the announcements at Adobe Max 2007. Among other news from the event:

Adobe has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Virtual Ubiquity and its online word processor, Buzzword, built with Adobe Flex and leveraging Flash Player. It's soon to be available on Adobe AIR. Buzzword has integral collaboration capabilities that allows multiple authors to edit and comment on documents from anywhere at anytime. Because it will run on Adobe AIR, the application will offer users a hybrid online/offline experience for working with documents.

Adobe and Business Objects have agreed to jointly undertake multiple initiatives to drive product interoperability and optimization, technology adoption, and product distribution.

One of the key initiatives is the development of a Business Objects Xcelsius Connector to Adobe LiveCycle Data Services ES.

Adobe is posing a strong alternative to other platform approaches to RIA and Enterprise 2.0 interfaces, most notably against Microsoft. It's just one of the thousands of daggers pointed at Redmond nowadays, but its cuts could go deep.

I'd like to see Adobe make more partnerships with those vendors supporting SOA activities. More ease and integration of RIAs and SOA infrastructure could be powerful. Microsoft obviously thinks so. I wonder why IBM and Adobe are not closer, at least in their more blatant go-to-marker campaigns.

I'd also like to see Adobe move more quickly on the completeness of the platform approach. These RIAs are catching on fast.

Software AG consolidates governance products for SOA

Software AG took the "big picture" view of governance for service-oriented architecture (SOA) with the announcement today of the CentraSite Governance Edition.

The approach aims to enable governance more broadly across the enterprise, with policy enforcement capabilities building on the webMethods Infravio X-Registry (acquired by SAG with Infravio earlier this year). Enforcement features are built directly into the platform, which offers a richer and more extensible metadata repository, a more intuitive Web2.0 interface, and wizard-driven templates.

While SOAs can help companies achieve much-needed business agility -- by flexibly arranging and repurposing existing and new IT assets, both from within and outside the enterprise -- that agility comes at the price of greater complexity.

One stumbling block has been the governance of SOA assets and processes, along with the ability to set, adjust and enforce policies. SOAs will require finer management of assets as they access and expose ever more enterprise data and interactions.

Encompassing both a UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration protocol), v. 3.0 compliant registry and a fully extensible, JAXR complaint (Java API for XML Registries) repository for maintaining associated metadata and policies, CentraSite Governance Edition can be implemented as the design-time, run-time and change-time governance platform for any heterogeneous environment.

It also acts as a policy hub for run-time enforcement with an integrated run-time policy enforcement point, webMethods X-Broker, and standards-based support for additional third-party applications used to mediate transactions betweens service providers and consumers.

A new feature in CentraSite Governance Edition, available now, is Active Policy, which automates SOA processes and simplifies end-user adoption. It is also pre-loaded with more than 80 pre-defined best practices that help streamline end-user adoption.

Other features include:

• Unified lifecycle governance
• Enhanced repository
• Open metadata model
• Enhanced change-time governance
• Customized views
• SOA federation
• Standards support
  

Tony Baer at CBR Online sees Software AGs move along its webMethods roadmap as being "right paced" and even takes a look into the future:

"Software AG is moving very deliberately to execute on the roadmap for converging products from the acquired webMethods. With announcements right paced at about every four weeks, this is the second such announcement to come out of Software AG since it unveiled the roadmap back in August.

"The company is also being upfront, in that, while it is making the products look cosmetically the same at the UI level and in branding, it admits that the real convergence will happen next year. At this point, both have, or will have, common Ajax-based rich user interfaces. Both rely also on the JAR (Java API for XML Registries), so access in also via a common method."

Integration infrastructure approaches adjust to new world of SaaS and shared services

Read a full transcript of the discussion. Listen to the podcast. Sponsor: Cape Clear Software.

Change is afoot for the role and requirements of integration for modern software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers and enterprises adopting shared services models. Reuse is becoming an important issue, as are patterns of automation.

The notion of reuse of integration -- with added emphasis on integration as a service -- has prompted a different approach to integration infrastructure. The new demand is driven by ecologies of services, some from the Web "cloud," as well as the need to efficiently scale the delivery of services and applications composed of many disparate component services.

Integrations require reusable patterns, high performance, as well as many different means of access from clients. As a result Cape Clear Software has this week unveiled a new major version of its enterprise service bus (ESB), Cape Clear 7.5, with an emphasis on:

• A new graphical editor, the SOA Assembly Editor, an Eclipse-based tool to graphically clip together elements of integrations.

• Multi-tenanting additions to the ESB that allow segmentation of integrations, data, and reporting, as well as segmenting use and reuse of integrations on reporting and management of integrations based on the identities of inbound customers, clients, or businesses.

• A Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) management system with tools to monitor transactions, and repair transactions when they fail, to allow for rebuilding previous business information and ensure transactional integrity in running and maintaining large enterprise-class BPEL deployments.
  

To help better understand the new landscape for integration models, I recently moderated a sponsored podcast discussion with Phil Wainewright, an independent consultant, director of Procullux Ventures, and fellow ZDNet SaaS blogger, as well as Annrai O’Toole, CEO of Cape Clear Software.

Here are some excerpts:

... We're getting more sophisticated about SaaS, because it's being taken on board in a whole range of areas within the enterprise, and people want to do integration.

There are two forms of integration coming to the fore. The first is where data needs to be exchanged with legacy applications within the enterprise. The second form of integration that we see -- not at the moment, but it’s increasingly going to be an issue -- is where people want to integrate between different services coming in from the cloud. It’s a topic that’s familiar when we talk about mashups, fairly simple integrations of services that are done at the browser level. In the enterprise space, people tend to talk about composite applications, and it seems to be more difficult when you are dealing with a range of data sources that have to be combined.

People have realized that if you're doing integration to each separate service that's out there, then you're creating the same point-to-point spaghetti that people were trying to get away from by moving to this new IT paradigm. People are starting to think that there's a better way of doing this. If there's a better way of delivering the software, then there ought to be a better way of integrating it together as well.

Therefore, they realize that if we share the integration, rather than building it from scratch each time, we can bring into the integration field some of the benefits that we see with the shared-services architecture or SaaS. ... The new generation of SaaS providers, are really talking about a shared infrastructure, where the application is configured and tailored to the needs of individual customers. In a way, they’re segmented off from the way the infrastructure works underneath.

When you build an integration, you always end up having to customize it in some way for different customers. Customers will have different data formats. They’ll want to access it slightly differently. Some people will want to talk to it over SOAP. Some won't, and they’ll want to use something like REST. Or they might be going backwards and are only able to send it FTP drops, or something like that.

Multi-tenanting is one solution to the problem. The other is what we call multi-channel, which is the ability to have an integration, and make it available with different security policies, different transports, and different transformations going in and out.

A combination of multi-tenanting and multi-channeling allows you to build integrations once, make them accessible to different users, and make them accessible in different ways for each of those different customers. It gives you the scalability and reuse you need to make this model viable.

One point worth bearing in mind here is that this problem is going to get solved, because the economic reality of it suggests that we must solve this. One, the payoff for getting it right is huge. Second, the whole model of SaaS won’t be successful, unless we skin the integration problem. We don’t want the world to be limited to just having Salesforce.com with its siloed application.

We want SaaS to be the generic solution for everybody. That’s the way the industry is going, and that can only happen by solving this problem. So, we’re having a good stab at it, and I'll just briefly address some of the things that I think enable us to do it now, as opposed to in the past. First, there is a standardization that’s taken place. A set of standards has been created around SOA, giving us the interoperability platform that makes it possible in a way that was never possible before. Second is an acceptance of this shared-services, hosted model.

Years ago, people would have laughed at you and said, "I’m going to trust all my customer data to a provider in the cloud?" But, they’re doing it happily because of the economics of it. The whole trend toward trusting people with outsourced offerings means that the people will be more likely to trust integrations out there, because a lot of the technology to do this has been around for quite some time.

In enterprises you’re seeing this big move to virtualization and shared services. They’re saying, "Why are we having development teams build integration in all these branch offices at all these locations around the world? It’s extremely wasteful. It's a lot of skill that we've got to push out, and there are a lot of things that go wrong with these. Can't we consolidate all of those into a centralized data center? We’ll host those integrations for those individual business units or those at departments, but we'll do it here. We’ve got all the expertise in one place."

Those guys are delighted, because at the individual local level they don’t maintain all the costs and all the complexity of dealing with all the issues. It’s hosted out in their internal cloud. We haven't seen enough data points on that, but this hosted integration model can work. We’ve got it working for pure entities in SaaS companies like Workday, and we’ve got it working for a number of large enterprises. There is enough evidence for us to believe that this is really going to be the way forward for everybody in the industry.

Read a full transcript of the discussion. Listen to the podcast. Sponsor: Cape Clear Software.