IBM recently announced that DataPower XI50 appliance now supports transformations developed using WebSphere Transformation Extender design studio. This is the same technology used in the Message Broker product. Additionally, support for WebSphere Registry and Repository has been added. From the announcement:... more »

Lori MacVitte from F5 had a few comments about my post on using XML appliances in ESB capacity. While I don't completely agree with some of her specific points about what ESB capabilities are missing from XML appliances (for example, parallel processing is employed by most appliance vendors, transactionality is also supported for relevant protocols (although no XML appliance can act as an XA transaction coordinator)), the overall observation is correct – there is (and there always will be) a big difference between software-based ESBs and hardware-based XML appliances.... more »

There is an interesting and somewhat controversial interview with ZapThink's Jason Bloomberg where he claims that SCA and JBI are just going to "muddy the waters" as opposed to provide real help to SOA architects.... more »

Several SOA vendors are trying to put together comprehensive suites of SOA products that in theory should be capable of addressing all aspects of SOA, including governance, integration, business process management and others.... more »

Today there is no shortage of articles, case studies, and analyst research concerning service oriented architecture (SOA), discussing the benefits of exposing existing IT capabilities as services and reusing these services to create composite applications. However, in their articulation, they are missing how these benefits will be useful to the ultimate end user... more »