Spotlight on XML, Web Services, SOA, Grids, and Semantics:
Oracle Releases Hot–Pluggable SOA Suite
Oracle Corporation released a suite of developer tools for creating collaborative applications using a service-oriented architecture (SOA). The suite’s hot–pluggable architecture enables organizations to integrate new services while preserving their existing IT infrastructure. The Oracle SOA Suite includes Oracle BPEL Process Manager, Business Rules Engine, Business Activity Monitoring, Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), JDeveloper 10g, and Web Services, Manager.
Mercury Interactive Acquires SOA Software Vendor Systinet
Systinet, one of the leading SOA software vendors, is the target of a planned acquisition by Mercury Interactive. Mercury offers business technology optimization (BTO) software and plans to marry the Systinet SOA software with its Mercury BTO EnterpriseTM products.
XML Still Going Strong
Contributing Editor Madhu Siddalingaiah reports the recent XML 2005 conference in Atlanta featured a strong technical program. He writes about David Megginson’s keynote address, a lively panel discussion about “Efficient XML” and insights from visionary Miko Matsumura.
Eclipse Debuts Web Tools Platform 1.0:
The Eclipse Foundation has released a Web Tools Platform (WTP) for J2EE and Web developers. WTP version 1.0 builds on the extensible Eclipse framework and provide infrastructure for the Eclipse SOA Tools Platform. Leading J2EE vendors, including BEA, Borland, IBM, JBoss, and ObjectWeb, have endorsed the Web Tools Platform.
IBM and Microsoft Pull Plug on UDDI Public Registry:
IBM and Microsoft shut down the Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI ) public registry, effective January 12, 2006. The shutdown comes more than five years after an impressive list of partners announced UDDI. IBM, Microsoft, Systinet, and the Apache Software Foundation will continue to support their implementations of the OASIS UDDI specification.
Progress Software Releases Stylus Studio 2006 XML Enterprise Edition
The Stylus Studio 2006 XML product line includes editors for XML, XQuery, DTD and XML Schema. It also includes an XSLT debugger, DataDirect XQuery Java component, and tools for converting X12 and EDIFACT messages to XML.
Declarative XML Processing with XQuery
XML Query Working Group suggests a direction the industry should be taking with XML and XQuery processing. She stipulates XML is more than a technology for documentation and data interchange and that we haven’t exploited it to its fullest potential. Dana emphasizes the use of declarative programming instead of processing XML with imperative or procedural techniques.