SOA Papers @ Patricia Seybold Group

A excellent source of SOA and Web Services papers. I strongly recommend.

Patricia Seybold Group - Home Page: "Web Services and SOA

Description

Web Services and Service-Oriented Architecture

Web Services are only one example of a much larger architectural strategy: using a services-oriented approach to design and to integrate applications. We cover both Web Services and the broader topic of SOA. Savvy IT architects have been using SOA as a design approach for over two decades. We have been chronicling and promoting SOA since the late 1980's, when the same principles were referred to as 'distributed object computing.'

A service is a 'worker' employed to achieve a specific end goal for a 'requestor.' The end goal is small in scope, such as retrieving information, or large in scope, such as executing a business process. The services the worker performs are made visible and accessible to other services and applications using a services API. Web Services use self-describing APIs written in human and machine-readable XML.

We offer a services discovery and classification methodology. Our methodology starts from your customers--by identifying your customers' key scenarios and discovering and classifying the services required to support those scenarios."

SOA Middleware: Upcoming App Servers

SOA major players (aka "vendors") are preparing the next generation Application Servers. See what is comming soon:

• BEA WebLogic 9.2: Will support Eclipse development standards and be easier to use. Expected in April.
  

• IBM WebSphere 6.1: Will have enhanced service-oriented architecture and integration capabilities and be easier to use. Due midyear.
  

• Oracle Application Server 10g Release 3: Will sport improved SOA capabilities and enterprise service bus, and a new business rules engine; will support UDDI business services registry release 3. Slated for midyear.

About IBM/WebSphere:

IBM will try to preserve its market lead when it debuts the next release of its WebSphere Application Server around midyear. IBM execs are tight-lipped about the details of what the next release will offer, but they say it will expand on the company's service-oriented architecture strategy and provide ease-of-use enhancements and improved integration capabilities.