Time To Look At The Big IT Picture (Optimize Magazine)

If you look at Enterprise 2.0 only through the lens of evolving technology, you're likely to miss the depth and magnitude of the larger economic and IT changes impacting your company. What's happening is a massive shift of economic power from the United States and Western Europe to Asia and Eastern Europe. Specifically, digitization and network technologies have transported an enormous body of work to low-cost centers. The resulting osmosis of employment will shape the world's political agenda for many years to come: Think about how it already affects your company and IT agenda.

Gartner predicts next phase of Oracle, SAP acquisitions (searchopensource)

Oracle may be taking a break from purchasing high-profile software companies like PeopleSoft Corp. and Siebel Systems Inc., but experts say it's definitely not finished yet. Meanwhile, they predict that Oracle's chief rival, SAP -- which usually looks internally for growth -- is getting ready to embark on an acquisition strategy of its own.

SearchOracle.com spoke with Gene Phifer, lead analyst for Oracle with Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner Inc., to find out where his firm believes these two software goliaths will go looking for their next score. Phifer also summed up the overarching goals of Oracle's acquisition strategy so far and offered an update on the progress of Fusion, Oracle's drive to integrate the spoils of its buying spree onto its Fusion middleware platform.

BEA Unveils SOA 360 at BEAWorld Customer Conference (AMR)

BEA Systems outlined its next-generation SOA platform—called SOA 360—at its recent BEAWorld conference, attended by just more than 2,000 customers (mostly developers and architects). BEA is combining its three core product lines—Aqualogic, Weblogic, and Tuxedo—into a single platform based on something called the “micro-service architecture.” Essentially, they are taking SOA to heart in their product lines, service-enabling the core components and bringing them together into a single platform. In addition, they announced something called Workplace 360, a common tooling platform for all potential constituents (architects, business analysts, developers, and IT operations) that need to build or manage the BEA platform.

Deal With StrikeIron Extends BEA's Data Services Platform (Gartner)

The agreement between BEA and StrikeIron will enhance BEA's AquaLogic Data Services Platform and StrikeIron's business services channel. But, by itself, this will not drive big revenue gains for either company.

BEA Ups the Ante on SOA With SOA Initiative (Gartner)

The core technology fundamentals of BEA Systems' new SOA 360 degree initiative are still in development, but enough tangible elements are in place to warrant attention.

High Performance SOA (ZapFlash)

In the world of information technology, the concept of abstractions are particularly handy. Take, for example, the Services abstraction at the heart of SOA, which masks the complexity of the underlying technology implementation while presenting composable business Services to internal and external users. But every abstraction comes at a price, and the Services abstraction is no exception. Loose coupling, composability, agility, and the other benefits of SOA all introduce performance overhead. For limited sets of Services with small numbers of users, this performance hit may be minimal. For SOA implementations with large numbers of users, Services, or traffic, however, maintaining the necessary performance levels presents a substantial challenge, both to the architects who design the infrastructure as well as IT operations personnel who are responsible for keeping the lights on.

webMethods Boosts Governance Offering With Infravio Buy (Gartner)

webMethods continues to build more complete SOA offerings with its planned Infravio purchase. But webMethods must be cautious in branding its new products to avoid increasing confusion in the governance application market.

webMethods Acquires Infravio (AMR)

webMethods continues to build out its SOA framework with the acquisition of Infravio, a provider of SOA registry and policy tools. The move is part of a bigger trend among larger SOA vendors that are building out their suites.

SAP Provides Tools and Communities for Enterprise SOA at TechEd (AMR)

SAP has been rolling out its Enterprise SOA strategy for the past several years. Helping people make the transition to the company’s vision for the next-generation enterprise architecture, with SAP’s business process platform at the center, was the main focus of the software giant’s annual U.S. TechEd conference, this week.

Shai Agassi Keynote Touts Innovation and Simplicity as the SAP Ecosystem Moves to Enterprise SOA (SAP)

LAS VEGAS, Nev. - September 12, 2006 - During the opening keynote today at SAP® TechEd ’06, SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) president of the Product and Technology Group and executive board member Shai Agassi outlined the changing role of IT in the light of the shift to enterprise service-oriented architecture (enterprise SOA) and how the IT community can accelerate innovation and value for their companies. Speaking to an audience of thousands of members of the technical and business process expert community, Agassi emphasized that developers have the opportunity to create innovation at a pace, level and efficiency never thought possible before by taking a few critical steps. Agassi offered insight into these critical steps and provided a checklist comprised of four calls to action to prepare for the coming enterprise SOA evolution: solidify your foundation, modernize your core, optimize business usage and drive strategic differentiation. The announcement was made at SAP® TechEd ’06, being held in Las Vegas, Nevada, Sept. 12 – 15.

WebMethods buys service-oriented architecture firm (Washington Technology)

WebMethods Inc. has signed a $38 million definitive agreement to buy Infravio Inc., a privately held business integration and optimization software company. The deal is expected to close this month.

Cordys: Comprehensive Enabler of Service-Oriented Business Applications (ZapThink)

AbstractNetherlands-based Cordys followed the core principles of Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) to build a Composite Application Framework from the ground up. The eponymously named Cordys offers integration capabilities, Web Service creation and enablement, composite application creation and management, and rich user interface capabilities, in addition to data management and security. Furthermore, since Cordys built the entire product as a single, standards-based, integrated suite, Cordys customers have seamless, agile capabilities that enable them to get the most out of their SOA implementations. As a result, Cordys is a member of a new class of Service-oriented applications that might be called the killer apps of SOA.

Why VMware still trumps Microsoft Virtual Server (VMWare}

This article will discuss the differences between VMware Server and Microsoft Virtual Server. These differences demonstrate why VMware Server is still quite popular despite the fact that Microsoft's product is now freely available.