News

IBM Expands its SOA Management Practice

• By Kathleen Ohlson
• October 3, 2005

IBM Global Services recently brought two new partners into its SOA Management Practice and added to its governance and Web services management capabilities. The two companies--Actional and DataPower--develop software for SOAs with capabilities that complement IBM products, the companies say. The two join IBM SOA partners, SOA Software and AmberPoint.

Actional provides security, performance, Web services management and SLA adherence. Its software measures, enforces and audits governance policies and rules in production and runtime environments. IBM resells Actional’s Looking Glass and SOAPstation products, which manage heterogeneous environments and services beyond SOAP and XML.

DataPower struck a partnership with IBM under an agreement that Big Blue resells DataPower’s application-oriented network devices. As part of the deal, IBM Global Services offers DataPower’s Web services software to its customers working with the SOA Management Practice. DataPower provides software for managing, securing and enabling SOA.

The SOA Management Practice is also focusing on the consumption of Web services. SOA management assets, a combination of software code, best practices and intellectual property are delivered via the Common Services Delivery Platform, which is based on the WebSphere-based SOA Foundation.

The expanded SOA Management Practice complements the IBM Global Services SOA Governance, which is designed to help customers control and extend their planned SOAs across the business, according to IBM. This new SOA Governance capability sets a baseline for measuring improvements, tracking SOA projects, building a pool of skilled resources, and helping to keep all SOA initiatives, architectures and investments aligned to a business’ goals.