Sun rises in the SOA world

Sun Microsystems has introduced a new registry offering for tracking and managing Web services -- a move that strengthens its position in the SOA marketplace.

The registry-repository offering is designed to enhance SOA governance, facilitating control and policy management. The registry, which will be incorporated in the Java Enterprise System 4 server middleware stack (for release this fall), will enable centralized and secure access to and reuse of Web services. “We’re trying to make JES the platform for SOA,” said Ashesh Badani, group marketing manager for SOA and Enterprise Software at Sun. “There’s no [additional] price for this product. The way you get it is as part of the JES.” 

Dana Gardner, senior analyst at Yankee Group, says the move represents Sun’s first meaningful step in the SOA field. “I think this sort of inaugurates Sun’s move into SOA. A registry is certainly a key component of creating and managing an SOA,” he said, noting that Sun, however, has not yet introduced a enterprise service bus and other relevant capabilities for SOA governance and management. 

Badani claims that Sun’s registry differs from competing offerings from companies such as Systinet due to its combination of  UDDI and ebXML functions. Indeed, the company seems more concerned about competition from the big players. “We’re looking to see what Microsoft and IBM release [in this space]. We’ll wait and watch,” he said.