Apache Stonehenge SOA tool hits first milestone

The Apache Stonehenge project, which aims to make SOA development easier, has issued its first milestone release.

The project's goal is to provide developers with a set of sample service-oriented architecture (SOA) applications that work across different programming languages and platforms. The working examples are based on protocols defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and Oasis standardisation bodies.

The milestone release (M1) was published on Thursday, and is available for download from the Apache website.

Stonehenge was added to the Apache Incubator development site last year by WSO2, a software firm specialising in open-source SOA. The project received attention in January when Microsoft contributed code to it. Microsoft began funding the Apache Software Foundation, one of open source's biggest backers, in the middle of 2008.

The Stonehenge applications are intended to illustrate best practices and how to solve interoperability issues, while providing sample code that developers can use to construct their own SOA software.