9
AUGUST,
2004
Visualising
SOA's
It may be the traditional silly season, which is certainly one interpretation
to be put on the games currently being played by Sun Microsystems and it’s
COO, Jonathan Schwartz in very public speculation that his company may buy
Novell, but that has not stopped the latter continuing to come up with interesting
developments. The latest of these is the new version of the SOA suite exteNd,
a system that is aptly named, if strangely spelt.
Version 5.2 delivers visual development tools that make it easier to integrate
disparate systems through identity-based portal services, so that developers
can build composite applications on the industry's broadest range of application
servers and platforms. For example, Novell claims that it is the only SOA
suite that deploys to the leading J2EE application servers including IBM
WebSphere, BEA WebLogic and Jakarta Tomcat, as well as the exteNd Application
Server. Novell will also be adding support for, and eventually bundling,
the open source application server, JBoss.
Novell exteNd 5.2 centres its capabilities on bringing visual Web services
development to Linux users, by masking the complexity of J2EE and accelerating
the delivery of secure, composite applications. The addition of support
for Linux desktops now provides end to end support from the desktop to the
server. With support for SUSE and Red Hat Linux, Windows, NetWare and Solaris,
customers can now design and deploy composite applications on the platforms
of their choice within a diverse IT infrastructure environment. In addition
to full support for Linux, exteNd 5.2 also adds PeopleSoft connectivity
to its list of integration options.
This does give Linux developers some useful tools with which to design identity-enabled
SOA-based applications using intuitive visual design tools directly on their
Linux desktops. This covers a wide range of options as well, from legacy
integration to portals and identity services, from Linux to Windows and
NetWare.
The suite features drag-and-drop tools that make it easier for enterprise
developers to integrate legacy systems and applications using Web services.
These services can then be orchestrated to automate business processes and
be delivered through dynamic, identity-enabled portals with little or no
programming.
Novell exteNd 5.2 is now available starting at $50,000 per CPU through Novell
and its channel partners. A free 30-day evaluation is also available for
download at: http://download.novell.com/extend52.
More general information can be found at
http://www.novell.com/products/extend
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