Welcome to the blog where IBMers exchange viewpoints, share their perspectives to provide more insight around service oriented architecture solutions, and delve into a range of SOA-related subjects. We want you to speak out on SOA through comments in the blog -- from where your organization stands on SOA adoption, to your challenges and experiences -- to share with the larger community the impact of SOA on your marketplace. Sandy Carter is IBM's Vice President, SOA & WebSphere Marketing, Strategy and Channels. Discover the entry points to SOA and how companies worldwide are making SOA pay right away.

IMPACT: DAY 1 Kickoff!

Today was truly an incredible day at IMPACT! I arrived this morning at the MGM Boxing Arena to learn that we had 6,000 people in attendance at the conference.   This morning's session was a chance for us to connect with our customers, partners, analysts and press.  It's hard to believe that this is only the second annual IMPACT conference. The sheer volume of customers has grown by nearly 50 percent in the past year. Indeed, interest in SOA among companies of all sizes in all industries continues to rise at an increasingly rapid pace.

I want to share with all of you, some of the exciting news we talked about today.

Here's a quick summary with links to more information:

IBM SOA Leadership – putting IBM's experience to work for you.
Industry Platforms for Innovation -a fast start with industry frameworks and solutions.
Business Process Management Suite with Business Events -to model, simulate, deploy and change your processes.
Evolution of applications with SOA and Web 2.0 Mashups - to enable rapid innovation throughout your business.
Smart SOA Social Network -- to build interdisciplinary 21st Century skills.
Infrastructure SOA and Healthchecks --to get your SOA into prime condition.

The Smart SOA Social Network was of particular interest to attendees. The concept of the network is to bring together a like-minded, global community of thought leaders, information technology (IT) and business professionals, university professors and students, and other interested parties through both online and in-person forums designed to help members build skills and share best practices.

The IBM SOA social network is open to any customers, partners, academics and interested parties aiming to advance and share SOA knowledge and best practices. Membership is free and not restricted to the IBM community.

Please join us on the Network and share you thoughts & experiences.

And don't forget to join this week's SOA JAM.  We want to hear from you!

For more information about IBM IMPACT, visit: www.ibm.com/press/impact2008

Join IBM's SOA Jam, April 7- 10!

Great news--- I found a way I can connect with all of you in the virtual world via the web!  Get ready for the upcoming SOA Virtual Jam.

Countdown to IMPACT 2008--Ready, Set, GO! April 6-11, 2008

Recently, Forrester Research published a telling report on SOA Adoption. According to Forrester's latest survey data, "the IT industry is continuing its strong adoption of service-oriented architecture (SOA)." And satisfaction with SOA implementations continues to run high. Why? Because SOA continues to help businesses solve real business problems.

IBM's IMPACT conference offers the proof of the Forrester data. Check out the number of customer speakers that will be there to talk about their SOA implementations. This is one of the conference highlights that is truly superior.

The list of companies is right out of the Fortune 500: Aetna, AllState, Bank of America, Countrywide, Harley Davidson and more. Its a rare opportunity to hear actual customer case studies and SOA best practices.

And there's more...
 

• The SOA customer feedback track offers end-users of IBM solutions the chance to have a direct dialog with IBM's technical gurus and experts
  
  
  
• 400+ Technical Sessions including SOA and Patterns, BPM Enabled by SOA, Process Integrity, Industry Services and lessons learned
  
  
  
• Sessions for previous attendees of the Transaction & Messaging conference & the WebSphere Technical Exchange conference

And just for fun...

• 10th Birthday of WebSphere! You are cordially invited to the Purple Lounge on Tuesday, April 8 to celebrate
  
  
  
• Join the SOA Jam at the conference
  
  
  
• Rock it out with the B-52s
  
  
  
• Play the INNOV8 game for a chance to Win a Smart(R) car

If you haven't registered yet, go online and register NOW! There are still a few spots left.....

Smart SOA --- Smart Car -- IMPACT 2008 ---

The Smart SOA(TM) approach is our theme for IMPACT 2008!!

A Smart SOA(TM) approach is leveraging our over 5700 customers' experiences.  Smart SOA allows customers to meet the requirements of tomorrow’s advanced deployments without un-doing their current projects. Smart SOA demands that we apply the principles of simplicity and robustness at every stage of sophistication. Through the flexibility that optimizing their service oriented architecture (SOA) can deliver— a smart approach to SOA—companies are changing their businesses and seizing new opportunities for growth.

Now, the cool thing, is that Smart Car USA will be presenting on stage at IMPACT 2008 a Smart Car -- based on the winner of our Smart SOA contest!  For details click here!

IMPACT 2008! Techy conference!

I have been working non stop on IMPACT 2008!  We are getting ready for 6,000 of you to come learn, network, and have some fun!

Why is it so cool?  A must come event!  Check this out!!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txJz-gR-3go

First there are No Chart Zones, Stump the Architect, certifications, and more.

Second, there are over 500 classes available for you to deepen your technical skill. Just for SOA enabled by Web 2.0, here is what we have in place! The Web 2.0 roadmap highlights how IBM products and open source initiatives can enable Web 2.0 innovations in the enterprise. The Web 2.0 curriculum at IMPACT 2008 has sessions designed to help  architects identify how the cultural and technical components of Web 2.0 are likely to affect  their organizations, as well as how to use existing and new technologies to support them.  In addition, application developers can select from a number of sessions, from entry level through advanced, on ways to weave Web 2.0 technologies like REST, AJAX, Feeds, Assembly, JSON/XML and other technologies into your software applications.  Learn how to build and deploy applications on the Web quickly by participating in our hands-on labs using IBM tools.  Take the opportunity to see how rapid development and service reuse can help your enterprise stay one step ahead in a rapidly changing global marketplace.   Please join IBM Distinguished Engineers Marc-Thomas Schmidt, Jerry Cuomo, Kyle Brown, Jason McGee, and Rob Will and a host of leaders from across the IBM labs to learn about our Web 2.0 strategy.

Web 2.0 Roadmap

DATE 

TITLE 

Speaker(s) 

LEVEL 

Mon, 7/Apr 

SOA, Web 2.0, people interaction: 
End-user interaction with SOA 

W. Jon Raslawski, IBM;
Cheng Zhou, Ascendant Technology;
Mike Harry, Cisco Systems 

Beginner 

Mon, 7/Apr 

SOA, Web 2.0, people interaction: 
End-user interaction with SOA 

W. Jon Raslawski, IBM;
Cheng Zhou, Ascendant Technology;
Mike Harry, Cisco Systems 

Beginner 

Mon, 7/Apr 

Unleashing SOA to the Web 

Jerry Cuomo, IBM;Kyle Brown, IBM 

Beginner 

Mon, 7/Apr 

Unleashing SOA to the Web 

Jerry Cuomo, IBM;Kyle Brown, IBM 

Beginner 

Mon, 7/Apr 

New features in IBM WebSphere Portal Version 6.1 

Robert Will, IBM 

Intermediate 

And Finally, we have great IBMers for you to meet and greet like Rob High, Jerry Cuomo, Craig Hayman!!!!

I hope to see you there!

Meet the Experts: IBM IMPACT 2008 Session Previews

We've just completed some preview videos of IMPACT speaking sessions that I wanted to share!

The videos really give you a flavor of the event.  We have three outstanding IBM technical experts talking about their upcoming sessions at IBM's IMPACT 2008 :

Ruth Willenborg on Virtualization

Kyle Brown on Business Event Processing

Andrew Spyker on SOA Runtime

You can view all the IMPACT videos on  YouTube IMPACT TV.

To learn more about IMPACT sessions, click here.

IMPACT 2008!!! Are you coming?

IMPACT 2008: Get Ready!

Hey! I am just too excited about our latest news on Impact 2008.  Guys, this is an event you won't want to miss.

We have added more of everything to make this the #1 SOA and WebSphere education event. More customer speakers (220 so far)! More technical certifications (29). More labs (31). More meet-the-experts sessions. More fun!

Check the Impact 2008 website to learn more. 

Targeted Education

What's really unique about Impact is it delivers targeted education to ALL members of your team -- technical and business, developers and architects, staffers and execs. In fact, with the help of customers and Business Partners we're delivering more than 500 sessions across four role-based tracks: Technical, IT Executive, Business Executive, and Alignment of Business & IT. Plus, a fifth track just on SOA Customer Feedback.

Click to see track details.

Click to download conference brochure.

We've really "upped the ante" on technical education this year. Technical attendees will be able to tap a powerful education network! More than 350 unique technical sessions, from novice to true black-belt -- real "double-black diamond" kind of stuff. 29 technical certifications. A cool no-charts-zone with meet-the-architects and open labs. And we are really emphasizing community networking with always-open Tech Zone lounges, special members-only Global WebSphere Community sessions, and lots more.

Dynamic Keynote Speakers

Our dynamic keynote speakers are going to get you focused on "innovation."

• Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia.org, was recognized by The World Economic Forum as one of the "Young Global Leaders" of 2007.
  
• Martin Eberhard, co-founder and former CEO of Tesla Motors, is ranked among Fortune Magazine's "top innovators" of 2007.

Plus you'll hear keynotes from IBM senior executives: Steve Mills ,Robert LeBlancTom Rosamilia, Al Zollar, Mike Rhodin, Steve Solazzzo, and others.

And we're just about sold out of sponsorships for the Solution Center which means you will have access to an awesome array of IBM and Business Partner SOA solutions. The team has put together great deals on Impact registration -- valuable education incentives, a team discount where you register 10 people from the same company and get the 11th free, and GWC members get a special conference rate. Take advantage of these valuable savings when you register.

Oh, and check out the sneak preview video of Impact 2008 highlights for what's in store -- like the B-52's! Click here to view the  Impact 2008 Sneak Preview  video.

We want you in Las Vegas for Impact 2008. Be sure to register today! Click here to register.

I look forward to seeing you at Impact 2008, April 6-11 in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand Hotel!

Happy SOA New Year!

Happy SOA New Year!!! Another fun SOA case study ! What is SOA? The most common analogy used to describe SOA is that of building blocks. Imagine standing side-by-side a toy car, and one built using Lego® blocks. The toy car represents a traditional IT application, and the one built of blocks represents an assembled application using SOA services. Both have the same basic function, but the car built of blocks can be easily modified – or even re-assembled into something completely different such as a toy airplane. An SOA Example: HousingMaps.com A good example of a composite SOA-driven application is HousingMaps.com. This consumer facing web application takes information from Craigslist about houses for rent or for sale and merges it with location data from Google Maps. The result for users is a location-based view of all the properties for rent or sale within a specific geography. Users can click on any spot in the map to see the detailed property listing from Craigslist. The application works because both Craigslist and Google chose to expose portions of their applications as services using standard protocols. If their respective applications were completely self-contained in the model of traditional IT applications, then the only way to achieve HousingMaps functionality would be to write an entirely new application from scratch!

SOA Consortium!

I just finished my final business trip of the year...with the SOA Consortium! The SOA Consortium has grown from 11 members to 81 members this year. Richard Soley, the Executive Director of the SOA Consortium, shared that the Consortium has the fastest first year growth on any user group he has been involved with in 18 years of user community experience!!! IBM was one of the founding sponsors of the SOA Consortium. As a vendor neutral organization, the Consortium is an SOA advocacy group comprised of end users, service providers, and technology vendors, committed to helping the Global 1000, major government agencies and mid-market businesses successfully adopt SOA by 2010. This is not about Standards. This is about the evangelism of SOA in the marketplace and ensuring that companies the right level of help to be successful. This year the SOA Consortium has achieved a number of successes: 1. Conducted CIO Executive Summits in New York, San Francisco, Brussels and Jacksonville, and produced a whitepaper and webcast with the findings from the New York and San Francisco Summits. 2. Collected and published a set of over 20 customer case studies submitted by members that have been widely circulated showing the business value of moving to SOA 3. Recruited client members from companies and the US Government, including Wells Fargo, Kohl's, Avis Budget and the US Army, in addition to having analyst members such as Hurwitz and Associates 4. Produced webcasts and podcasts on the topics of 'Executive Insights on SOA Adoption', 'SOA Governance', 'SOA/BPM Relationship', 'Enterprise Architecture of the Future', and 'CIO SOA Concerns' 5. SOA Consortium moderated and staffed 4 panels at key Gartner events as well as having booths in the Gartner showcase areas, and have been invited to even more Gartner events in 2008, due to 2007 success 6. SOA Consortium produced over 10 well received and often blogged deliverables and press releases, all of which list IBM as a founding sponsor IBM has had a significant influence on the organization as one of the four founding sponsors with actions such as co-leading and driving one of the three Consortium sub-groups (Executive Suite SOA), which produced the highly regarded and downloaded set of customer SOA case studies Here are the podcasts....! Take a listen! Live from the SOA Consortium - Sandy Carter of IBM Live from the SOA Consortium - CIO SOA Concerns

CIO: Is Santa the Original SOA Architect

Thu, Dec 13, 2007

Is Santa the Original SOA Architect?

http://advice.cio.com/sandy_carter_ibm/is_santa_the_original_soa_architect

Posted by: Sandy Carter IBM in Soapbox

It’s the most wonderful yet hectic time of the year as consumers vie for mall parking spaces and also spend their precious lunch hours shopping online. Meanwhile, vendors are busy carefully managing and monitoring inventory and their supplier relationships to ensure their goods are delivered to stores and homes on time. Of course, an SOA could help these vendors streamline, integrate and manage their various CRM, ERP and SCM applications. Ideally, this integration through the SOA would help ensure that customers are satisfied and retailers have a successful holiday season. For many retailers, however, it’s not an easy task to oversee the manufacturing and timely delivery of goods in a highly competitive, global marketplace – all during a finite period of time. With this in mind, perhaps we could all learn some important lessons about building a service oriented architecture by taking a closer look at one of the first and most successful SOA projects. This project is representative of a Smart SOA strategy, is based in the North Pole and was initiated by Santa Claus to better manage his workshop. Here are 10 reasons why Santa's SOA is exemplary:

1. Global: the infrastructure follows the sun in order to deliver goods to its client base in a timely manner.

2. Cross-company effort: the SOA bridges the gap between the executive office (Santa) and staff (elves) to execute on common goals.

3. BPM support: has built in business process management (BPM) capabilities to streamline and ensure consistency of toy manufacturing and distribution.

4. Flexibility: enables The Workshop to easily anticipate and respond to sudden spikes in end-of-year activity without resulting in any hiccups in workflow.

5. Reusability: the SOA takes advantage of reusable services so that employees can accommodate consistent customer requests (dolls, teddy bears) as well as easily manage and integrate new requests (Wii, DVD player) using the same, proven best practices.

6. Standards-based: enables Santa to protect existing investments such as the home-grown shipping and distribution application while allowing the infrastructure to integrate the latest CRM tools to manage a client base that completely turns over every few years.

7. Unified communications: supports UC by integrating and identifying the individual letters delivered via various communications methods such as email, traditional postal carriers, in person requests delivered to Santa’s helpers in the mall, and inquiries sent via Santa’s website. Additionally, the SOA infrastructure will be able to support future demands for text, instant messaging, and click-to-call capabilities.

 8. Security: ensures the protection and sharing of confidential information including the list of who's naughty and who's nice.

9. Competitive advantage: consistent and timely delivery of requested toys has resulted in a satisfied customer base and a dominant market position.

10. Everybody knows that SANTA is an acronym for the North Pole's SOA approach: Strategic Architecture, Not Tactical Achievements. Not only has Santa mastered the creation of a successful SOA, he’s also the ideal employee because he gets the job done, is a well respected leader with longevity and experience, and is satisfied with a cookies and milk end-of-year bonus.

Smart SOA - Learn More!

Hey! I am sure you guys read about my world tour of Asia! The most asked question was "Is there a Tutorial available on Smart SOA?". And the answer is of course yes! I'd love for you guys to go through this one and tell me your thoughts. In addition to this tutorial, there is a white paper, and coming "pink papers" that will be arriving as well! Here you go! Have fun! Click here to learn more about SMART SOA.

Playing the Game !

Hey Gang! I am here in Asia Pacific. I have been to Japan, Korea and am now in China. I love Asia -- the people, the food, the culture! One thing that I learned in Asia many moons ago, was the game. Gaming is very big here. It is the way people play, relax and learn. To that end, we announced here in Asia the introduction of learning SOA and BPM through serious gaming. 12 Universities here are accepting the challenge of being bold enough to test this out! The universities are: Beijing Institute of Technology (China) BUAA (China) Chuo University (Japan) Harbin Institute of Technology (China) Keio University (Japan) Peking Unversity (China) Singapore Management University (Singapore) Sun Yat-sen University (China) Tongji University (China) Tsukuba University (Japan) Waseda University (Japan) Wuhan Unversity (China) Why Serious Gaming? Well now is the generation of Xbox. Who is Generation X-box? (or Digital Natives if you dont want to use Xbox). According to the Entertainment Software Association, in 2007 the average game player is 33 years old. 47% of all gamers fall in the 18-49 age range. 24% are over 50. The average age of MBA students varies by school, but generally late 20's for full time program, late 30's for exec. mba here are already more Gen X & Gen Ys, the "digitial natives" than there are baby boomers! We at IBM are trying to use games with a curriculum to help students learn and have fun! Our mandate -- have fun and • aggressively ignore any hint of formal instruction • lean heavily on trial-and-error (afer all, failure is nearly free, you just push “play again”) • includeslots of learning from peers but virtually none from authority figures • is consumed in very small bits, exactly when the learner wants, which is usually just before the skill is needed • allow for people to take risks in a safe environment • allow for players to achieve a skill or talent which is not only meaningful but perceived as having value So we announced Innov8 at IMPACT 2007 and then GA ed it to universities in November. With INN0V8, we started with the objective of providing an immersive experience that simulates real life, with key 'teaching moments'. It is fundamentally different from traditional e-learning. For me, learning occurs through dialog with other characters - in primarily peer roles, and self-discovery, via trial-and-error, in the mini games contained in the game. Each mini-game is preceded by a tutorial that explains how the game works... just in time!! The experience is risk free.. you can drive the fictional company into the ground without major penalty and so our goal is that we teache real world skills that our customers have told us they value... and are in short demand.. Why don't you try this out and see what you think! Click here to play the INNOV8 preview video.

The IBM Case Study in SOA!! The number one question I get!

As I travel the world talking to our thousands of customers about how Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) can help bring them new levels of agility to face today’s unprecedented rate of change, one of the top questions I’m asked is what is IBM doing with SOA within its own business. Even right now as I am in Lisbon Portugal (a BEAUTIFUL country -- pictures coming!!!!) ....this is the top question I am getting!!!

It’s a little bit like looking under the hood of your auto mechanic’s car or into the portfolio of your financial advisor. I’m proud to say that IBM does indeed have heavy involvement in SOA and that we use these deployments to help make it easier for our customers to take advantage of the many benefits of SOA.

The background
Like lots of other companies that have been around for as long as IBM and have grown through globalization and acquisition, IBM’s IT systems were complex, monolithic, and silo-based. IBM had 128 CIO’s, both geography and business unit based, 155 different data centers and over 80 hosting centers that managed over 16,000 applications. Business processes were not clearly defined and were redundant across different business units. This arrangement was costly, prone to error and was a serious drag to success. Something needed to change.

Early steps
IBM really began the SOA journey in 2002 when we initially viewed SOA primarily as a way to cut costs. With all the redundancy and overlap in IBM’s environment at the time, taking this approach proved to be fertile ground for gaining experience with SOA and proving some of its merits internally.

The first project that IBM chose was to focus on a 25 year old legacy system called COATS which stands for Customer Order Analysis and Tracking System. It accepts hardware orders from business partners, customers and sales people and it routes those orders to over 20 different manufacturing plants. The system worked very well but to meet inevitable changes in the way IBM did business, COATS needed frequent updates. As Howie Miller, CIO for IBM explained, “Each new release took about six-months and more that 8,000 development hours to prepare. So, when IBM went looking for a good place to test the promise of SOA, COATS rose to the top of the list.

Through service-enablement of much of COATS’ functionality, IBM was able to treat the system as a set of services that flowed together as directed by business rules. We were able to do so without rewriting or altering the stable, trusted legacy system itself. As a result of this project, IBM now saves 25% in development costs whenever changes are required of the system and COATS transactions have dropped from 10 minutes to four seconds.

Building on successes
Early wins like this motivated IBM to consider SOA more strategically and to look beyond cost cutting and more toward the agility that SOA brings to the company. Let’s look again at IBM’s manufacturing business for an example. IBM focuses on its core strength in many areas and partners with other industry leaders to bring valuable products and services to market. As part of this strategy, IBM is continuously on-boarding and off-boarding manufacturing partners as our needs shift. As a result, all kinds of back-end systems needed to be integrated with IBM’s supply chain. Unfortunately this usually took three weeks. In addition to the time, factory on-boarding typically took systems down and the plant would suffer from outages.

To make these changes in a more agile manner, IBM used the principles of SOA to create a set of services called “Factory In A Box” that allow for an open interface into the back end systems and streamline bringing new factories on line and severing the relationship if the need arises. As a result, this previously three week process now takes only two hours.

While IBM’s line of business owners yawned at SOA’s technical benefits like greater programmer productivity, projects like this that deliver the ability to run the business in a more agile way really got noticed.

Governance structure and cultural change
As we recommend to our customers, IBM has not pursued SOA in a “big bang” fashion but instead has laid out a roadmap of initiatives for itself and implemented it in steps and phases. IBM demands that each project show value on its own merits but also that it contribute to the overall strategic objectives. Over the years, IBM has undertaken at least 15 separate SOA initiatives each of which encompass multiple individual projects. Along the way, we have established a governance structure to provide oversight and control of these initiatives as well as facilitate the cultural change elements that come with philosophical shifts like this.

IBM recognized that a tremendous benefit of SOA is the continuous alignment of IT efforts to business requirements. To ensure this, IBM created a governance body that brought IT leaders together with business leaders who owned end-to-end business processes. The group guides such areas as ensuring that decisions are made for the broader good of the organization, making architectural, investment, and cost-sharing decisions, and working through cross-functional issues.

This governance body has also worked to update IBM’s culture to fully realize SOA’s potential. With more patents than any other company, IBM has a longstanding heritage of invention. Developers are rewarded for patents. But to foster greater reuse, they are now also rewarded on the basis of how often their creations are reused by others. It is shifts in mindsets like this that really accelerate SOA’s value.

IBM’s involvement with SOA has been a great showcase for us. We intend to continue further investment throughout the company to make ourselves even more agile in the years to come.

Do You know About Process Integrity?? It is critical for SOA!

OK Gang! One of our big announcements this 2H SOA Launch is Process Integrity. End to end process integration is required to hold your services, information and users together. This integration must be robust and scalable – otherwise it will restrict you from growing your SOA and building on your initial successes. As you move from basic to advanced SOA, you should be able to use the same products and architectures in an expanded and more advanced way.

So the architecture must start with the ability to provide Process Integrity, even if you don’t use all the capabilities in every project. Robust capabilities must be part of the middleware layer. For example, let’s look at the Enterprise Service Bus. There are several types of ESBs, depending on what they are being used for. An in fact, it’s very possible that you might have different ESBs running in different domains. But whatever ESBs you are running, they must be able to grow with you and provide scalable connectivity as your SOA becomes more advanced. This also means that you might federate multiple ESBs, so that various ESBs are integrated into a larger architecture.

Security and quality of service are key to a successful SOA environment. Even if you don’t need the full set of capabilities in your first couple of projects, you need to ensure that your SOA environment is capable of growing with you. As SOA matures, it will very likely be the basis of a large percentage of IT projects in the future. It’s hard to think of large IT projects that don’t focus on security, scalability, availability and performance. Don’t think of your initial project as something that will be thrown away in the future. Think of them as laying the groundwork for your long-term architecture.

Want to know more about this one?

Watch the process integrity video now.

SOA Launch - Heard around the world!

Just a few of the press articles hitting the wire!

InfoWorld - IBM addressing beginner, advanced SOA needs
InfoWorld

Internet News: IBM Says No to 'Monolithic, Unchangeable Environments'
Internet News

CNET - IBM tailors SOA lineup for specific industries
CNET

Just a few to date!!!! Happy Launch Reading!