Microsoft promises 'shrink-wrapped' SOA
Microsoft is reportedly set to offer what at least one commentator has called its "first shrink-wrapped SOA stack." According to a report in ENT, the vendor's new Service-Oriented Architecture & Business Process pack consists of an array of the company’s core development tools and back-end components, along with guidance materials for creating SOAs.
Microsoft says it will bundle its next-version BizTalk into an SOA pack. Does this mean SOA is ready for the 'masses'?
As said repeatedly in this blogsite, there's no such thing as SOA in a box -- SOA is a philosophy, a way of managing. What this does tell us, though, is that the SOA message is starting to reach the "masses." Microsoft has a history of not getting into a market until it's a mass market.
Those companies that couldn't afford the "Big SOA" solutions -- both in consulting services and toolsets -- now have ways to start their SOA journeys on a more incremental, build-by-build basis. One way is through the burgeoning open-source space, be it application servers, ESBs, or BPEL toolsets. The other is the Microsoft path, which is increasingly more about SOA.
Microsoft's SOA and Business Process pack includes BizTalk Server 2006 R2 (its Enterprise Service Bus, scheduled to ship in September), SharePoint Server 2007, Visual Studio Team System, SQL Server 2005, the .NET Framework and four Office Business Applications Reference Application Packs, which are Microsoft guidelines for developing programs on top of Office 2007.
Apparently, Microsoft is seeing a lot of interest in SOA from its markets, which typically are companies seeking commodity-priced solutions to problems. "We get a lot of questions from partners and users about what part of the Microsoft stack should they use for SOA projects or how to use them together, and what are the right scenarios for doing a first (SOA) project," Burley Kawasaki, director of product management with Microsoft’s Connected Systems Division, is quoted as saying. "We are trying to codify our experience and create an integrated licensing offering so you can buy a single SKU and have all the software you need … We think this pack can be a platform for building Office-based composite apps on top of an SOA infrastructure including SharePoint, and use Visual Studio tools for modifying and building Office applications."
The ENT report also talks about another new twist on SOA that Microsoft is offering is a new "Branch Edition" of BizTalk, aimed at companies facing hub-and-spoke style connectivity issues, such as retail chains. "People are certainly investing in SOA for their back office systems. But what is driving a lot of business is what is happening out at the edge, whether that is a branch, divisional unit or a warehouse, where real-time processes occur," Kawasaki said.