<<The IBM WebSphere Service Registry and Repository (WSRR) 6.0.1 is a
classic good news, bad news story, according to a newly published
Burton Group Inc. report.
There is solid technology in the registry/repository, according to
Anne Thomas Manes, Burton research director and author of the report,
"IBM WebSphere Service Registry and Repository v6.0.1," published this
past week. "WSRR supports a number of compelling features, including
an open content model, customizable lifecycle management processes,
and tight integration with other IBM WebSphere products," she writes.
However, she faults the IBM product for not directly supporting
Universal Description, Discovery and Integration (UDDI), which she
describes as "the principal industry standard for SOA registries." For
this reason, she concludes that "WSRR is inappropriate for use as a
runtime registry in enterprises that don't exclusively use WebSphere
products in their SOA infrastructure."
Manes finds some UDDI support in WSRR because it is built on WebSphere
Application Server (WAS) v6.1, which includes what she describes as a
"bare bones" implementation of the latest UDDI 3.0 standard from
OASIS. But while IBM promises enhanced support for UDDI in an upcoming
release in this quarter, she does not believe Big Blue's heart is in UDDI.
"UDDI is clearly not a strategic priority for IBM," Manes writes. "The
fact of the matter is that IBM wants enterprises to adopt WSRR and
abandon UDDI."
While she acknowledges that WSRR works well within a WebSphere-based
implementation of SOA, she sees heterogeneous environments as problematic.
"The problem with IBM's strategy is that SOA is by default a
multiplatform endeavor," Manes writes. "Few enterprises have the
luxury of maintaining a single-vendor environment."
For SOA implementations, the Burton report describes the "typical
large enterprise" using multiple language platforms, including Java,
.NET, Ruby, C++, and COBOL, and multiple enterprise service buses from
vendors such as SAP AG and Tibco. This typical IT shop also uses SOA
infrastructure products and packaged applications from vendors like
Oracle.
"None of these third-party products integrates with WSRR," Manes warns
her readers.
She finds Big Blue's registry/repository strategy curious, because IBM
along with Microsoft, which also has its own homegrown approach to
SOA, were founders of UDDI.org, along with Ariba Inc. However, the
efforts by those three vendors to establish a global directory system
for Web services transactions did not catch on, Manes said. UDDI.org
was eventually subsumed by OASIS when it took over development of the
directory standard.
However, moving beyond UDDI has not hurt IBM sales and marketing,
Manes acknowledges in her report, because of the company's large
installed base for WebSphere, for which she find WSRR well suited.
"IBM has been able to establish a leading position in the SOA registry
and governance market with a non-standard offering because of the
dominance of the WebSphere superplatform," Manes writes. "WSRR v6.0
was released in September 2006, and IBM was able to close more than 40
customer deals in the remaining 65 days of 2006. Market clout has its
advantages. In a very short period of time, WSRR has achieved second
place in the rapidly growing SOA governance market, following
Hewlett-Packard and its Systinet family of products."
Despite her criticism of the lackluster support for UDDI, Manes
concludes that WebSphere shops will find WSRR appealing because it
enhances the capabilities of the IBM platform for SOA. Organizations
with a mix of WebSphere and other vendor products, might consider
using WSRR along with a UDDI-compliant registry, but might be better
off with a vendor neutral implementation of UDDI, she suggests.
Finally, she counsels: "Organizations that don't use WebSphere
products should look elsewhere.">>
You can read this report on Anne's opinions on the matter at:
http://searchwebservices.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid26_gci1252107,00.html?track=NL-110&ad=586262&asrc=EM_NLN_1321105&uid=5532089
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