Dr. Robert S. Sutor

One of the major architectural themes for WebSphere Application Server Version 6 is its support for service-oriented architecture (SOA). IBM has supported Web services in various products for over four years, such as earlier versions of the application server as well as the WebSphere Business Integration Server Foundation, announced in April 2004. In v6, we have focused on support for standards such as J2EE 1.4, SOAP, WSDL, WS-Security, and WS-Transactions, and we've also made sure we had powerful, easy-to-use and easy-to-configure components such as the new JMS engine. Though they are certainly connected, SOA is bigger than Web services. It is very reasonable to ask why there is all this interest in SOAs now versus, say, two years ago or two years hence. There are, in fact, several reasons, but let me focus on one in particular. Web services appealed to a lot of pe... (more)

KEYNOTE: How and What to Think About SOA

As more and more people start using Web services, it's important to understand how this technology fits into the larger Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) picture. SOA is not really new, but the appearance and juxtaposition of several new technologies and ways of looking at IT is finally making it feasible across enterprise boundaries and heterogeneous systems. In this talk I will discuss the relationship between the business goals of on demand computing and how they can be realized through SOA and technologies like Web services and grid computing. I'll discuss IBM's experien... (more)

Where Does SOA Fit?

There's a lot going on in business and IT today, and it's rapidly becoming more important that you have a good understanding of e-business on demand, service-oriented architecture, Web services, and grid computing. I've been in more than one conversation and read more than one article where someone has defined these terms in, shall we say, "creative" ways. Let me try to put each in its place and show how they relate to each other. I like to think that there are four major levels that describe how to successfully use IT to run your business. The top level is e-business on demand.... (more)

Oasis and XML.org

XML is a significant technological achievement, but what's it really good for when it comes to e-business and industry applications? In these columns I'll discuss how companies and consortiums are developing XML specifications for a wide range of industries. Most of the hot activity these days is around using XML for messaging for business integration and business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce. I don't expect to discuss publishing in any depth, though some interesting work is going on with content distribution such as ICE and newspaper electronic for... (more)

Do You Do Web Services?

(October 29, 2002) - Web services is the hot IT buzz word today, but I'd be willing to wager that most people in the business world aren't really sure what the term even means. Web services technologies allow businesses to share the information they have stored in their computer applications. That information can be shared with other applications in the company or with external applications customers and partners run. It's no secret that there are many processes necessary to keep a business running. Customer data is housed in databases. Accounting applications handle billing and ... (more)