Fujitsu and Software AG announce two new CentraSites 24 July, 2006 By Dave Chappelle

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The second generation CentraSite Enterprise Edition is now available as a standalone product offering a UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery and Integration) v3.0 search using predefined metadata models, a JAXR (Java API for XML Registries) interface with subscribe and notification capabilities, WebDAV (Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning) access to the SOA repository, predefined reporting modules, and both an AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) interface and the Eclipse Registry Browser.

The Enterprise Edition also provides an extensible meta-data model for the definition of customer-specific SOA artifacts, designed to offer greater visibility and control, and more efficient reuse of SOA services.

A new product, the CentraSite Community Edition, will be available free to partners via an online community. It offers a UDDI v3.0 search using predefined metadata models and predefined reporting modules, and both an AJAX-based interface and the Eclipse Registry Browser.

"This gives us enormous visibility in this market," said Ivo Totev, vice president of global marketing for Crossvision at Software AG.

"There is no other vendor that would give such a powerful version away. We're doing it as a seeding model, because we know that a lot of customers who use the free version will eventually upgrade to get the additional features of the pay edition."

There are 17 vendors in the SOA space, participating in security, testing and simulation, business process modeling, and other areas, using Centrosite as their SOA repository. They either package it with their products or point their customers to the download site of the Community Edition.

"There are a couple of barriers or challenges to overcome," said Keith Swenson, vice president of R&D at Fujitsu Computer Systems. "Mostly institutional, changing behaviors so they work in a different way. They need to get used to the idea of not testing in an isolated environment. We need to make sure there are no mistakes, requiring strong governance."

The two firms have worked together on a joint SOA repository and registry for a long time, helping customers to manage and govern SOA infrastructure. Swenson compared SOA to the adoption of e-mail 15 or 20 years ago.

"The technology has been around since the 1960s," he said.

"UDDI has been around for five years, but you need to assume it is there and rely on it before you can build the next step. A free repository distributed by all our partners is backed by Fujitsu and Software AG, and we are committed to making it top notch and extending the features to make it function."

The vendors have added some extra data structures. For example, a business process automatically becomes a web service, but it also publishes the Web service it's going to call, and draws the diagram so different people are made aware of the relationship. SOA services are impacted by changes, and users can register to receive notification any time a change is made in another service.

"We're careful to offer our customers all the options so that they can choose the standard," said Swenson.

"We don't force customers to use one standard; you have to work with different products and if possible support them all."

There is also a Web site where tips on techniques that have worked and haven't worked can be exchanged.

"It is open by design because we have to make sure everything works with not only our products, but also those of 15 other vendors," said Totev.

"Whatever we do we ensure it is designed to be easy accessible for the price tag of zero in the Community Edition. We find it is a very attractive model for ISVs and other partners. It's an open community. There isn't one company we wouldn't welcome to the community."

Swenson outlined three keys looked after by Centrosite.

1. Visibility: being able to find other services so developers know what's out there;

2. Impact Analysis: getting the big picture so you see the forest for the trees;

3. Governance: a lot of people are involved in the system; who's allowed to publish and do things a certain way?

"SOA management is important; it can quickly become anarchy and you lose control," said Totev.

"This isn't something we invented because we thought it was cool; it is something the market has requested, not only customers, but also analysts as well."