|
XML and Web Services In The News - 01 March 2006
Provided by OASIS |
Edited by Robin Cover
This issue of XML.org Daily Newslink is sponsored by SAP
HEADLINES:
Reference Model for Service Oriented Architecture
Matthew MacKenzie et al., (eds), Committee Draft
Produced by the OASIS SOA Reference Model Technical Committee, this
reference Model for Service Oriented Architecture is an abstract
framework for understanding significant entities and relationships
between them within a service-oriented environment, and for the
development of consistent standards or specifications supporting that
environment. It is based on unifying concepts of SOA and may be used
by architects developing specific service oriented architectures or in
training and explaining SOA. A reference model is not directly tied
to any standards, technologies or other concrete implementation details.
It does seek to provide a common semantics that can be used
unambiguously across and between different implementations. While
service-orientation may be a popular concept found in a broad variety
of applications, this reference model focuses on the field of
software architecture. The concepts and relationships described may
apply to other "service" environments; however, this specification
makes no attempt to completely account for use outside of the software
domain.
See also: OASIS SOA Reference Model TC
Bristol Switches to StarOffice
Jono Bacon, O'Reilly Linux DevCenter
In southwest England lies Bristol, England's eighth most populous city.
With more than 390,000 residents, Bristol is well populated with strong
local government representation. The Bristol City Council, a large and
comprehensive administration, runs the town. The council uses thousands
of computers for a variety of tasks, one of the most fundamental being
office productivity and document creation. As a user of a range of
software solutions, Bristol's council has always committed itself to
finding the right solution for the right problem and trying to deliver
that solution at the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) possible. The
council decided to move over to Sun's StarOffice suite. Based on the
open source OpenOffice.org suite, StarOffice provides a complete,
supported, cross-platform office solution. Although StarOffice itself
is not available under the same Open source license as its OpenOffice.org
brethren, the move to StarOffice signaled a key win for open source
supporters. StarOffice and OpenOffice.org's support for the OASIS-
standardized Open Document Format (ODF) and adoption of that software
in Bristol eliminates vendor lock-in. Gavin Beckett, Bristol City
Council's IT strategy manager: 'We recognized the value of avoiding
proprietary lock-in, and saw the XML file format used by StarOffice/
OpenOffice.org as a key to this. We think that the move to Open Document
Format and the support for XForms within StarOffice 8 will provide
significant opportunities for integration and interorganization messaging
over the next couple of years. We didn't make this a key part of the
business case, unlike Massachusetts, but their arguments make sense
to us too. Government bodies are not the same as commercial
organizations -- we have far greater and longer lasting responsibilities
to the public for the information we hold on them'...".
See also: the source
Fujitsu Introduces Interstage Business Process Manager Studio
Staff, Application Development Trends
Fujitsu Software has announced the release of Interstage Business
Process Manager Studio (IBPMS), a graphical process modeling studio.
IBPMS supports the newly ratified XML-based Process Definition
Language (XPDL) 2.0 standard. XPDL 2.0 is the only format that
supports process models based on Business Process Modeling Notations
(BPMN), enhancing collaboration and interoperability across an
enterprise's extended network. Fujitsu says it also has made it easier
for business analysts to model processes by implementing an interface
with the look-and-feel of Microsoft Visio's business drawing and
diagramming solution. By basing the modeler on Eclipse, IT
professionals use a familiar development environment that offers
access to advanced functionality to rapidly put business processes
into operation. IBPMS is available on a trial basis at no cost.
See also: standards support
Merrill Taps SOA for Savings
James Rogers, Byte and Switch
A mainframe isn't the most conventional platform for a service-oriented
architecture (SOA), but since investment bank Merrill Lynch looks to
save around $40 million annually with it, no one's quibbling. Merrill
Lynch started work on its SOA back in 2001, prompted by a need to ease
the strain on its storage systems. Jim Crew, former director of
infrastructure and data services at the bank, tells Byte and Switch that
prior to deploying the SOA, Merrill was forced to replicate data from
its eight IBM z/Series mainframes onto Oracle, SQL Server, and Sybase
databases running on multiple EMC Symmetrix boxes. This data, in turn,
was used by applications supporting, for example, online statement
services. They built X4ML, a software package that runs on the
mainframes, allowing the bank's programmers to Web-enable specific
services. "As a user of it, you don't have to know any Java, you just
have to know the specifics of the service you are publishing."
OPML 2.0 Announcement
Dave Winer, OPML.org
The OPML 2.0 draft document describes a format for storing outlines in
XML 1.0 called Outline Processor Markup Language or OPML. The purpose
of this format is to provide a way to exchange information between
outliners and Internet services that can be browsed or controlled
through an outliner. OPML has also become popular as a format for
exchanging subscription lists between feed readers and aggregators.
According to Dave Winer, "OPML 2.0 is a milestone, much like RSS 2.0
was in the summer of 2002. We now know how OPML is being used, and where
the problems are, and I think are ready to produce a frozen and
extensible format and spec. With the OPML Editor approaching version
1.0, it's now time to get the ball rolling on the format that comes
after. The editor will likely not ship with full support for 2.0, it
should be able to read 2.0 files, but it will not write them. There's
too much of a bootstrap in front of that happening. OPML 2.0 adds some
important features, notably the include type, ownerId, support for
namespaces, several common nodetypes are documented, and a host of
niceties, and it finally has a unified spec. I'm confident that this
is the OPML we'll all want to build on later through 2007 and beyond."
See also: the draft specification
Analysis: When SOA and Process Management Merge
Doug Henschen, IntelligentEnterprise.com
"You got services in my processes," says business to IT. "No, you got
processes in my services," replies IT. As the old Reese's peanut butter
cup ad would have it, maybe these two technologies belong together.
Software AG and Fujitsu have completed their jointly developed CentraSite
registry and repository, intent on blurring the lines between SOA and BPM.
David Vap, Software AG's vice president, business integration solutions
[says]: "We find that nine times out of 10 when a discussion with a
customer is only about SOA, it's a case of technologists getting caught
up on buzz words. Process management conversations, on the other hand,
are about putting services to work. It's inevitable that there will be a
move toward blended "registories" because SOA and BPM initiatives demand
the combination of registry and repository functionality as they grow.
CentraSite stores all the models (execution, service, wrapper and so on)
on a SOA layer in a common place and creates linkages between them,
creating a control point and automatic update capability that tames
service anarchy.
Integrators Woo Criminal Justice Work
Ethan Butterfield, Washington Technology
The article summarizes a broad initiative in which courts are pushing for
an XML-based info-sharing network to link state databases of protective
orders with other criminal justice information. The National Center for
State Courts, the National Association for Court Management and the
Conference of State Court Administrators formed a task force to develop
data model standards. Other non-profit and government groups are working
on XML data standards. Industry officials hope the result is a single XML
standard that could link county and state systems. Some working groups
also are involving the private sector. Opportunities exist across the
country at every level of judicial and law enforcement IT systems, said
Jim Pauli, global justice directorate at EDS Corp. Still more opportunities
exist to help define how implementations could occur and create
applications that facilitate data sharing across an XML-based system,
NCSC's Dancy said. Unisys, working as a subcontractor to Adea Solutions
Inc. of Dallas, is negotiating with Adea and two Texas counties to
implement an integrated justice system for the Texas Conference of Urban
Counties. Thirty of the group's 37 counties (there are 254 in the state)
plan to buy into the network, said Kate Connolly, Unisys' executive
director for Texas public sector work.
The IT Worst Case Scenario Survival Guide
Dan Tynan, ComputerWorld
According to research by The Standish Group, one out of five IT projects
fail outright, and more than half come in late or over budget. Why? The
standard answer from the business side, "It's IT's fault," conveniently
ignores equally likely causes: bad requirements management, poor
business planning, lousy communication, or the dreaded "scope creep."
IT is a risky business. This article identifies five of the most common
scenarios in which projects fail and what IT can do to avoid them -- how
to avoid some common catastrophes and increase your chance of success.
Example scenario: Three years ago, a large tech services company decided
to roll out a Web-based content management system to handle its internal
communications. But inexorably, the features list began to grow. Could
they use the same system for customer support? Sure, said the systems
integrator. How about selling research reports to clients? No problem.
The budget for the project rapidly climbed to $100 million. "By the time
they contacted us, the company had spent closer to $280 million, and the
percentage of test cases that actually worked was zero," says George
Kondrach, executive VP of Innodata Isogen, a content supply chain
consultancy. Innodata recommended scaling down the project and bringing
in third-party software to handle jobs the content management system
wasn't designed to do. Kondrach says Innodata could have fixed the
problems for about $10 million, but that would have meant the client
would have had to admit failure. Instead, the client continues to spend
millions each year trying to make the system work.
Microsoft Ships IE (Eolas) Update
Ryan Naraine, eWEEK
Microsoft has shipped a new version of its Internet Explorer browser
to permanently change the way multimedia content is rendered on Web
pages. The cumulative non-security IE update was released February
28 [2006] as an optional download for IE6 on Windows XP and Microsoft
Windows Server 2003 and is a direct result of the multimillion-dollar
patent spat with Chicago-based Eolas Technologies. The modifications
mean that IE users won't be able to directly interact with Microsoft
ActiveX controls loaded by the APPLET, EMBED, or OBJECT elements
without first activating the user interface with an extra mouse click.
The company first detailed the modification plans last December after
a start-stop-start-stop scenario that included a warning that the
Eolas court ruling would force certain technical modifications to IE
that would significantly disrupt the display of multimedia content on
its dominant browser. On Dec. 2, 2005, Microsoft changed course and
notified ActiveX control vendors, OEM partners and content providers
of modifications, which affects all future releases of Windows 2000,
Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Despite the changes, Microsoft has
vowed to vigorously appeal the $521 million patent infringement ruling
won by Eolas and the University of California over the use of certain
patents in the browser.
See also: Patents and Open Standards
XML.org is an OASIS Information Channel sponsored by Innodata Isogen and SAP.
Use http://www.oasis-open.org/mlmanage to unsubscribe or change an email address. See http://xml.org/xml/news_market.shtml for the list archives. |
