30 Minute Interview

Time to get serious about SOA

IBM believes that it is time for companies to get serious about Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). The company has more than 5,700 customers using its middleware and SOA configurations. Tom Rosamilia, General Manager, Application and Integration, Middleware Division, IBM Software Group, talks to Abhinav Singh about Big Blue’s SOA strategy and why companies are embracing SOA in large numbers.

Tom Rosamilia

Customer pressure to take the SOA route

The reason why a large number of customers are adopting SOA is that they are looking forward towards agility and want to leverage and utilize their existing IT infrastructure fully and integrate it smoothly with any new IT asset that they might have acquired. The customers may be having different islands of computing and may have made lots of investments on their existing IT infrastructure, which they would like to reuse to enable a new line of business along with any new IT asset which they may have acquired. SOA helps them achieve that.

SOA in India

IBM has introduced enhanced services and software that are designed to simplify the adoption of SOA while also supporting advanced information technology environments. The new offerings are designed to help organizations unite IT and business as they progress from establishing an SOA strategy to being able to flawlessly perform high volume business transactions. IBM is applying a combination of industry-leading SOA with decades of transaction processing expertise-helping customers to simultaneously increase the volume and the integrity of their business transactions. The enhanced products include tools and software to help companies get started with SOA, middleware designed to execute and synchronize business processes and SOA configurations to help IBM customers more easily and securely integrate legacy applications and professional services to help develop an SOA infrastructure that will support high volume, synchronized business processes. For instance Bharti saw exponential growth with new subscribers and had introduced new services for their customers. The adoption of SOA architecture made Bharti more agile and helped them support their additional growth. Additionally IBM is working on making IT architecture SOA-enabled with DLF, BSNL, Delhi International Airport and Tata Sky in India.

Acquisitions in the SOA space

We recently acquired Webify Solutions and DataPower to strengthen our capabilities in the SOA space. The acquisition of Webify was for its industry-focus on SOA software and services. This was a unique acquisition for IBM—not just in software but in services too. Webify can accelerate the delivery of SOA composite business applications based on pre-built customizable SOA assets, semantic models and policies. IBM Software Group and IBM Global Services (IGS) will use Webify’s capabilities to enable clients to more quickly and flexibly create SOA applications that can be composed primarily from existing assets. IBM Software Group is expected to significantly gain from the Webify middleware technology, which extends IBM’s existing SOA foundation and complements IBM’s SOA Lifecycle and Industry Solutions. IGS will use Webify software to deliver industry-focused reusable services to its customers. Through the acquisition IGS has gained immediate access to Webify’s extensive library of composite business services to help speed delivery of mission-critical industry applications. In addition, composite business services offered by IGS will be listed in the IBM SOA Business Catalog. Most of Webify’s current customers are in the insurance and healthcare industries and development is currently underway for SOA composite business services in the banking, telecom, and the public sector. IBM plans to extend this development across a variety of industries.

Similarly IBM acquired DataPower to make it simpler for companies to embrace SOA as it offers a consumable, easy to use product to foster large-scale, high-throughput SOA implementations. As companies embrace XML-based Web services and SOA, XML processing requirements are growing rapidly. DataPower addresses security and performance concerns in a SOA implementation, delivering flexibility and ease of use. DataPower complements IBM’s WebSphere family lowering the performance, security and manageability barriers for SOA adoption. DataPower can be used to accelerate, secure and simplify the XML processing capabilities of SOA foundation products.

The SOA leadership center in India

IBM’s SOA leadership center will be set up in Bangalore and is expected to be fully operational in the first quarter of 2008. The center will be aimed at addressing the growing demand for skills needed to solve customer business challenges using SOA. The center will be staffed by IBM’s Global SOA experts and will focus on major areas such as SOA education and training; SOA implementation support and SOA exhibitions and demonstrations, thereby benefiting IBM customers, business partners and university students. The center will offer training and instruction from leading SOA experts; certification and joint education programs with top local universities, as well as access to industry models and SOA best practices and proven methodologies based on the IBM’s worldwide experience. The center will also provide a venue for customers and IBM’s business partners to witness SOA solutions in action through SOA proof of concepts to demonstrate the potential benefits of SOA in a customer’s existing IT infrastructure. Additionally local students can have the opportunity to serve as interns at these centers, and work hands on with technologies that support SOA and attend education sessions delivered by IBM experts.