BEA's final products could disrupt SOA market - Burton |
 |
By Rich Seeley, News Writer
17 Mar 2008 | SearchSOA.com |
|
|
Oracle Corp. is gaining market changing service-oriented architecture (SOA) technology with its acquisition of BEA Systems Inc., according to Chris Haddad, vice president and service director at Burton Group Inc.
|
|
|
|
|
The Oracle Fusion middleware is not as cohesive, is not as tightly integrated, and does not have the best in class developer tooling that BEA is well known for.
Chris Haddad
Vice President and Service Director, Burton Group Inc.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ironically, BEA is introducing its most comprehensive and advanced SOA products, AquaLogic service platform and AquaLogic service bus, this year as it is being taken into the Oracle camp with the acquisition now in progress. In its final months as an independent company, BEA is delivering a "pleasant surprise" to its SOA customers, said Haddad, author of "BEA AquaLogic Service Bus 3.0: ESB Market Disruptor" a Burton report published this past week.
"If you've been confused by BEA's products in the past for integration and services, you'll be pleasantly surprised that they have put together a comprehensive SOA platform offering that is highly competitive, includes best of breed components, and is the foundation for a cohesive suite of SOA infrastructure products," Haddad said in an interview with SearchSOA.
There is no certain way of knowing what will happen to this BEA product after the Oracle buyout is finalized later this year, but Haddad said the history of other Oracle acquisitions gives reason for hope.
"We think that the AquaLogic service platform and AquaLogic service bus would be an asset to Oracle's portfolio," the Burton analyst said.
Oracle's acquisition strategy in the past has been to keep parallel products alive and eventually combine its products and the acquired company's products into a new offering that is a superset of the capabilities in the existing product lines, Haddad said. BEA AquaLogic will provide Oracle with middleware and enterprise service bus technology and tooling that is superior to what it currently offers in its Fusion middleware product line. The AquaLogic technology will "absolutely" be a plus for Oracle, he added.
"The Oracle Fusion middleware is not as cohesive, is not as tightly integrated, and does not have the best in class developer tooling that BEA is well known for," the Burton analyst said.
The BEA Aqualogic platform and ESB are a logical fit for existing BEA WebLogic Server customers, as well as those using BEA's older Tuxedo product, Haddad said.
For other potential customers, he said, "It is a viable choice if you are looking for a full-featured SOA suite that is tightly integrated. The AquaLogic service bus is being chosen by development teams that are extremely interested in decreasing training and decreasing time to market without requiring a large amount of ramp-up time."
Besides its ease of implementation, Haddad said another factor that makes the AquaLogic products potentially "disruptive" in the ESB market is its tight integration with best-of-breed SOA governance and management technology from AmberPoint Inc. and Hewlett Packard Corp.'s Systinet products. Rather than having to work on integration between an ESB and the AmberPoint and Systinet products, AquaLogic provides "very deep integration out-of-the-box," reducing development time, he said.
Haddad emphasized that while it may be disruptive to the ESB market, the AquaLogic service bus is just one component of what he terms "the very extensive AquaLogic platform."
In his 20-page report, he notes that the AquaLogic service bus integrates with the BEA Enterprise 360 products, which "create a comprehensive SOA infrastructure solution." Those products include:
- BEA AquaLogic BPM
- BEA AquaLogic Integrator
- BEA AquaLogic Data Services Platform
- BEA AquaLogic Registry Repository
- BEA AquaLogic Enterprise Security
- BEA AquaLogic Enterprise Repository
- BEA AquaLogic Service Registry
- BEA AquaLogic Commerce Services
- BEA AquaLogic SOA Management
That is at least part of what Oracle is getting for the $8.5 billion it is paying to acquire BEA.
|
|
|
|
