Big Improvements for SOA Governance I got a chance to see BEA's new SOA repository and registry as well as hear about future plans and there are some big improvements. The new features in BEA's repository are aimed at solving one of the big problems with SOA registry/repository namely populating relevant data about the state of the services. A repository/registry is only as good as the data recorded about SOA.
By providing hooks into the development environment, change management system and testing tools you can automatically pull metadata about services and populate a customized and standardized taxonomy within the repository. This allows IT to carry out their tasks as usual and have the repository automatically populated in a consistent manner. For example, if a developer consumes a service from within an integrated development environment (IDE) that usage is noted in the repository and can be reported for impact analysis.
The predefined registration workflows and policies enforce SOA governance compliance and can be customized to your process and tools. For example, a workflow and policy can prevent service deployment until after service testing. This is where the interoperability framework also comes into play - integrating tools such as the IDE, test tools and change management software with the repository.
The predefined workflows, policies and taxonomy based on best practices will save implementation time and ensure that you have a good baseline for capturing the metadata about services that you need for proper SOA governance.
BEA Advances SOA Governance With BEA AquaLogic Registry Repository 3.0 - BEA AquaLogic Registry Repository represents a key component of the BEA WorkSpace 360 strategy to deliver a unified platform for composite application assembly. The solution can help provide visibility into and traceability of an organization's entire service and asset portfolio, and the registry and repository provide centralized management of metadata associated with composite application components, as well as applied governance policies.
New features and key customer benefits include:
• Advanced Registration Flows - enhanced workflow designed to automate approval-based processes throughout the registration of services in the SOA lifecycle. Fully automated workflow can help organizations build trust and reduce risk by ensuring that services and other assets meet standards and guidelines before they are promoted to consumers for broader use in the enterprise.
• Metadata Interoperability Framework - facility designed for automated collection and maintenance of service information through deeper integration between BEA AquaLogic Registry Repository, other BEA products and third-party tooling. This framework can expand BEA's support for heterogeneous environments, assist composite application assembly and reduce some of the manual effort associated with gaining visibility into SOA service portfolios.
• Enhanced Eclipse Plug-in - enhanced BEA AquaLogic Registry Repository plug-ins that are designed to support metadata exchange and standards-based composite application assembly in conjunction with the Metadata Interoperability Framework. Asset discovery, metadata browse and dependency management within the plug-in have also been enhanced to further embed reuse and metadata understanding directly within the development environment.
• Built-in Best Practices - BEA has extended its foundation of best practices by adding a set of new pre-defined, configurable workflows, service and asset templates and sample services designed to help organizations jumpstart their governance efforts. For example, out-of-the-box templates for an endpoint, binding, interface and WS-policy artifact can help enable these assets to be more easily managed in relation to a logical service.
As Chief Technologist and National Practice Director for SOA with Perficient, Inc., I get the opportunity to work with a lot of customers implementing SOA. See my
bio page for my contact information or just post a comment if you want to talk about your SOA projects.
