SOA wrap: webMethods, Jacada, Systinet make moves

In separate announcements, webMethods, Jacada and Systinet on Monday are bolstering wares for deploying service-oriented architectures, focusing on business processes, composite applications, and governance.

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WebMethods is introducing version 6.5 of its webMethods Fabric product suite for business process integration and deployment of SOAs. “What it really allows you to do is integrate disparate IT systems together seamlessly,” and automate and monitor business processes, said Lance Hill, vice president of solutions marketing at webMethods.

The suite has a user interface dubbed “My webMethods,” intended to provide specific information to users. “It’s a task-based console that allows anyone in the organization with role-based access [and] with permission to view and manage the processes that are automated and understood by the overall system,” said Susan Ganeshan, webMethods vice president of product development.

Also leveraged in the package is the company’s Smart Services and Smart Processes technologies. Smart Services offers standards-based components that can be linked to form new business processes and applications, whereas Smart Processes reports business metrics to optimize business operations in real time, according to webMethods.

Web services management and brokering as well as quality-of-service monitoring are also featured.

Other highlights of version 6.5 include an analyst mode to allow business analysts to design business processes, an integrated business performance management environment and business activity monitoring. Users have drag-and-drop assembly of applications and processes.

With version 6.5, webMethods is providing a broad range of capabilities spanning from business activity monitoring and business process management to portal capabilities and Web services management, Shawn Willett, principal analyst at Current Analysis, said.

“What they’re trying to do with Fabric is they are trying to move away from just having the infrastructure for integration and trying [to provide] a stack,” Willett said.

WebMethods has made several acquisitions to bolster its strategy and is perhaps ahead of the market, Willett said. Some customers, however, simply may want to integrate a Siebel Systems application with an Oracle database and not need all the extras. “They may not want all this yet,” he said.

Shipping this summer, webMethods Fabric 6.5 carries an average price per installation of $550,000.

Jacada is announcing availability of Jacada Fusion 2.0, which the company describes as a platform for delivering process-centric composite applications. Featuring a Web services layer, SOA capabilities, and composite application development, the platform enables organizations to change business processes without having to rewrite or replace existing applications, the company said.

Jacada Fusion 2.0 saves users from having to flip back and forth between applications. The company is citing call centers as an applicable use for Fusion, said Rob Morris, vice president of product strategy at Jacada.

Jacada is promising greater flexibility and speed in delivering process-centric applications in version 2.0. System administration has been improved to feature unified installation of components. Integrated system management enables monitoring and controlling of composite applications from within a single client interface.

Included in Fusion are HostFuse, for service-enabling host-based mainframe applications; WebFuse, to Web service-enable Web applications, and WinFuse, to Web service-enable Windows applications.

The BEA WebLogic application server and tools have been selected as the underlying platform for Fusion 2.0. Although BEA has been selected as the product’s primary deployment environment, Fusion will work other application servers, Morris said.

Jacada has joined the Microsoft Visual Studio Industry Partner program to integrate WinFuse into Microsoft’s Visual Studio .Net development environment.

Available now, Jacada Fusion 2.0 pricing starts at $50,000.

Systinet, meanwhile, is unveiling its GIF (Governance Interoperability Framework), which is intended to make it easier to manage SOAs that publish services in the Systinet Business Services Registry, a UDDI-based registry offering. GIF provides the capability to publish services and associated policies in a standardized way and it issues alerts when changes happen with the registry.

Ten companies are participating in the initiative: Above All Software, Actional, AmberPoint, Composite, DataPower, Hewlett-Packard, Layer 7, MetaMatrix, Service Integrity, and Reactivity.

SOA governance is about enforcing policies during development and run time of Web services, said David Butler, vice president of marketing at Systinet. “It ensures that services are compliant with company standards as well as technical standards without needing to code in these policies into applications,” he said.

The company with a planned version 6.0 release of Systinet Business Services Registry code-named “BlueSky” plans to make the registry more interactive for different types of users, such as developers and business managers. Support for user-configurable consoles will be featured.

Systinet on Monday also is announcing that it and reseller Merlin Technical Solutions have been awarded a $1.15 million deal to provide a platform based on Systinet’s registry technology to the Defense Information Systems Agency. The deal also includes five $200,000 maintenance options.