Baseline - July 2007

SERVICE-ORIENTED ARCHITECTURE
IBM: Building Up

IBM HAS PARLAYED ITS MIDDLEWARE middleware capable of bringing together
background into what customers describe 300-plus applications and a “world-class
as a broad set of service-oriented architec- portal” to provide an on-ramp for admin-
ture (SOA) products and services. istrators, teachers and students. Sonty
IBM’s MQSeries middleware became and his team are using IBM’s WebSphere
an application integration linchpin for to provide a middleware layer that enables
many enterprises during the 1990s. The unified access to legacy applications.
vendor has since retooled its products The school system is pursuing its SOA-
for an SOA environment, driven integration project
adopting Web services stan- ^IBM’S ^SOA ^LINE in phases. Phase one, com-
dards, which software firms ^IS ^EXPANDING— pleted last year, involved
use to increase interoper- ^AND ^IMPROVING, the creation of a portal for
ability between disparate ^CUSTOMERS ^SAY.administrators and guid-
systems. The company has also added ance counselors that brought together the
to its product line via acquisition: Last district’s student information system and
year IBM purchased Webify, an Austin, data warehouse.
Texas, company that makes software for Ameriprise Financial, meanwhile,
building service-oriented architectures, brought in IBM to help unify its account
for an undisclosed amount. administration systems so customers
WinterGreen Research, a Lexington, could more readily move funds from
Mass.-based market research
firm, cites IBM as the market IBM: At A Glance
leader in SOA infrastructure,
with a 53% market share.

A large portion of IBM’s SOA offering resides under WebSphere, integration middleware that encompasses IBM’s enterprise service bus and message broker products. WebSphere also covers application server and service registry elements.

Other product families also play a part. Rational, for example, provides tools for creating services, while Tivoli offers software for managing SOA deployments.

Vijay Sonty, chief information officer at Broward County OPERATING INCOME, in billions^†(Fla.) Public Schools, calls IBM $10B the “Rolls-Royce” of SOA— ^{$Billions $9.42B}_$9Ba best-in-class solution. He also points to the breadth of IBM’s ^$8Bofferings and the fact that the $7B school system has been an IBM _$6Bshop for years.

Sonty says not every customer needs a Rolls-Royce solution, but notes that Broward County Public Schools required

one account to another.

Tracy LeGrand, chief architect and vice president of technology strategy and architecture at Ameriprise Financial, says one of the reasons the company went with IBM for SOA was the firm’s software and service scope.

As Ameriprise pursued the services approach, IBM provided its WebSphere MQ and WebSphere Business Integration for standards-based integration. Ameriprise designed services with Rational software.

According to LeGrand, IBM’s current
SOA product set contrasts with its pre-
vious lineup, which left gaps in places such
as a service registry, which is used to keep
track of the services available to internal
developers. IBM last October announced
an expansion of its service-oriented
architecture offerings, which had
focused on the integration and
middleware aspects of the cate-
gory. Additions to IBM’s portfolio
include business process manage-
ment software and a registry.
Still, IBM’s extensive port-
folio—the company lists 23 offer-
ings on its SOA Web page—can
prove difficult to navigate,
according to Sonty, who would
like IBM to communicate a big-
picture message on how it intends
to bring its products together.
“They clearly need to do
a better job of packaging and
explaining how five software divi-
sions work together,” he says.
“The message is not there.”

Sandy Carter, vice president of SOA and WebSphere strategy, channels and marketing at IBM, says Big Blue aims to reach customer groups who want different levels of product integration. Some customers, she says, take a do-it-yourself approach, while others want IBM’s SOA technology packaged together so it’s easier to get started. —John Moore

NEW ORCHARD RD. / ARMONK, NY 10504 /
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SAM PALMISANO Chairman & CEO
STEVE MILLS Senior VP & Group Executive, Software Group
PRODUCTS WebSphere features an application server, enter-
prise service bus, portal and messaging tools.
CUSTOMERS Boscov’s, Cerner Corp., Fifth Third Bank, HSBC,
Pitney Bowes, VF Corp., Wachovia