A "Blizzard" hits SOA governance landscape |
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By Colleen Frye, News Writer
31 Jan 2006 | SearchWebServices.com |
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Systinet yesterday announced the availability of Systinet 2, its next-generation foundation for SOA governance and lifecycle management, previously code-named "Blizzard." The platform builds on the Systinet Registry with an integrated metadata repository, updated contract and policy management, governance applications and the company's Governance Interoperability Framework (GIF). GIF is a Systinet initiative to provide a standards-based approach to publishing and discovering business services information in a SOA across multiple vendors' products.
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Governance has gone from something you need to consider down the line to something right out of the gate
Jake Sorofman
Vice President of Product Marketing, Systinet Corp.
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"Systinet 2 is delivering on all the requirements for scaling up SOA," said Jake Sorofman, vice president of product marketing at Systinet Corp., which was purchased by Mercury Interactive Corp. earlier this month. "Governance has gone from something you need to consider down the line to something right out of the gate."
Key to governance as SOA implementations scale is a metadata repository, Sorofman said. "As customer implementations mature, so do the requirements, and they're realizing the need for a persistence store for other artifacts," he said. Information Manager "enables you to map the relationships and understand the impact of change to ensure you can seamlessly evolve your SOA without breaking applications." It includes a lifecycle and reporting engine and over time will offer a more automated way to implement change, he said.
Systinet competitors like Infravio Inc. and Sun Microsystems have been beating the drum for the necessity of a repository and both already offer registry/repository products. However, while Systinet's repository is integrated with the registry, the two data stores are separate, said Ann Thomas Manes, Burton Group.
"You will have multiple repositories, not a single one," she said. "Your registry will typically have one repository or a small number of repositories. It's basically an index to all the different repositories in the system. It's not appropriate as a single unit."
Systinet 2, she said, "has really good integration between the registry and the repository. What I like is you can use it as a full-fledged repository, but also as a virtual repository."
On top of the integrated registry and repository are Systinet's governance applications. While an earlier version of Policy Manager 2.0 has been available, new to the platform is Contract Manager 2.0. Sorofman said Contract Manager provides a semi-structured workflow for negotiating and formalizing agreements between service providers and consumers.
"The end result is a contract, an enforceable document that can be shared with runtime enforcement tools," he said. "Contract Manager can provide visibility into consumption rates. You can monitor and report on that, so you're getting some yield and utility, made manifest in graphical dashboard that is part of the product."
Manes praised the totality of the package.
"What really separates Systinet from the others is the fact they've got all the bits and pieces in a single platform, and it supports GIF," Manes said. "Most Web services management and XML gateway players support GIF, so you have a direct connection through management and the registry. You can also take advantage of Contract Manager and Policy Manager."
Dow Corning Corp. has already purchased Systinet 2. Kris Zywicki, enterprise architect at Dow, said the company has been developing Web services for the last two years, "but we were at the point where we needed to begin to manage the service infrastructure. Initially we decided look at a registry, but as we moved through the process we decided to go beyond the registry to a governance platform. Systinet stood out as a standards-based platform that's neutral with the ability to integrate easily with our current infrastructure."
Systinet 2 will provide a "bridge" between the company's .NET and J2EE environments, Zywicki said. Dow is a .NET development shop. The company also runs the R/3 enterprise resource planning software from SAP AG.
Zywicki said his group is defining the SOA model now and will begin deploying the Systinet Registry in February or March, followed by Policy Manager and Contract Manager.
Systinet Registry 6.5, Contract Manager 2.0 and Information Manager 2.0 are available now; Systinet Policy Manager 2.0 will be available Q106. Pricing ranges from about $100,000 for pilots and early projects to about $180,000-$250,000 for departmental implementations to over $1 million for enterprisewide investments, Sorofman said. All pieces can be purchased and deployed separately.
How Systinet 2 will factor into the offerings from Mercury, which recently announced its intention to purchase Systinet, is still being worked on, Sorofman said.
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