SOA Software, Red Hat Tout 'Open Source SOA'

If service-oriented architecture completely fulfilled its promise of reusable components with standardized interfaces, partnerships like this wouldn't be necessary. Nevertheless, the deal marks a step towards making SOA stacks more open. SOA Software already has similar partnerships with BEA Systems, Oracle and IBM, so this will allow customers to add JBoss' JEMS into the mix. It also represents a vote of confidence in open source. The partnership will eventually be extended to the JBoss ESB (Rosetta). This is still in beta, though according to Red Hat some customers are already using it in production systems. Rosetta could commoditize the ESB market as, like JEMS, it is available for free download under the very permissive LGPL. But most users will still need a system from SOA Software or its competitors for governance and management, and these are not going open-source. Andy Dornan NWC Technology Editor

SOA Software plans to integrate its service-oriented architecture (SOA) solutions with Linux vendor Red Hat's JBoss Enterprise Middleware in a move the companies said will help businesses speed the implementation of open-source SOA applications.

The partnership will add security, governance and other management functions to Red Hat's JBoss application server and middleware platform, enabling developers to more quickly build and deploy Web services, the vendor said.