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Web Services for Sale! |
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Source: IT Business Edge | Priority:
Integrating the Enterprise |
Topic: Web Services
Date Published:
10/6/2005
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With Bob Brauer, president of StrikeIron, a commercial "marketplace" where companies can buy and sell Web services.
Question: Let's start with the basics. How does it work? Do people download code and then just run it, as if they owned it? Or do they call services over the Internet while you keep track?
Brauer: It's not really a download. It's an endpoint to a Web service you communicate with. A good metaphor is "an eBay of Web services," because we're a place where people who provide Web services — including us — can make them available to consumers. For example, one of the providers we have is a company by the name of Tax Data Systems. They provide a live tax Web service. Say you're building a Web site where you're selling products. At the time of transaction, you want to calculate the sales tax. You can acquire all that data yourself, provide the access to the database, buy the hardware to support it, continually update it — rates change on a monthly basis — or you can subscribe to our Web service. Using XML to make a call, you provide the ZIP code where that transaction takes place and we return the tax rate so you can do the calculation on the spot. One way to think about it is like a cell phone package. We'll give you one thousand transactions for X, and then after that there's a per usage rate.
Question: One of the problems that enterprises face with Web services and service-oriented architectures is understanding what sort of information to provide to potential consumers of those services. What information do you provide?
Brauer: We've got 60 Web services in our marketplace. If you want to use one of those services, there's the WSDL [Web Services Description Language] document, which describes the input data that Web service requires. In the tax rate example, it's the ZIP code or the address. We also have documentation that includes more specific information about each one of the elements within the WSDL document.
Question: You deal with lots of people who are interested in Web services. How sophisticated are your customers? Do you have to educate them or are they more or less ready to buy?
Brauer: There are two kinds of consumers of Web services. One is the developer, who has found this Web service that solves a problem he or she has. Maybe they're writing some PHP code and they need to know, how do I call this Web service from within my PHP code? Those are the kinds of questions we get from developers. We've also begun to sign up various ISV partners. These are people who have taken the Web service we've created and incorporated it into their application. So there are users of that application who never deal with the XML directly. It happens automatically.
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Microsoft Doesn't Quite Get SOA
TAKEAWAY: After studying Microsoft's service-oriented architecture strategy, analyst Ron Schmelzer says the tech giant doesn't seem to get SOA. Blogger Joe McKendrick agrees with analysts and observers that Microsoft is stuck in the same situation as its customers, focusing solely on integration, and not ready to take the lead in SOA.
Source: ZDNet |
Priority: Integrating the Enterprise |
Topic: Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
Date Published: 7/7/2008 |
Date Reviewed: 7/7/2008
Integration Competency Centers and SOA Not a Good Fit
TAKEAWAY: Blogger Todd Biske feels an integration competency center could hurt a SOA effort. Biske says SOA initiatives should be consumer focused, and having an ICC shifts integration to outside experts who don't know a company's customers.
Source: Todd Biske: Outside the Box |
Priority: Integrating the Enterprise |
Topic: Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
Date Published: 6/27/2008 |
Date Reviewed: 7/2/2008
> Read
" Integration Competency Centers and..." at Todd Biske: Outside the Box
Progress to Acquire Iona
TAKEAWAY: Joe McKendrick gives his take on Progress Software's deal to buy Iona Technologies. The $162 million deal will see Iona become a brand within Progress' service-oriented architecture portfolio. Analysts differ on the impact of the deal and how it will effect Iona's open source model.
Source: ZDNet |
Priority: Integrating the Enterprise |
Topic: Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
Date Published: 6/25/2008 |
Date Reviewed: 6/27/2008
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