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.

Hear from a customer!!!!

Here is a great interview featuring our customer Austin Energy!

Click here!!!

Top 6 Announcements from IMPACT 2008!

Gang...here are the top 6 announcements from IMPACT 2008!

Take a listen and then I'll go into more details...like I did for the BPM Suite and Capability!!

The top 6 takeaways!!!

Let me know your thoughts!!!

Announcements at IMPACT! First Announcement on BPM

Hello All !!!

I am getting a lot of emails to summarize the announcements that we made at IMPACT 2008!   So what I decided to do after a great dinner last night with our IBM friends in the North End of Boston, was to do a blog for each of our six announcements!

The first one I would like to highlight is the announement on our IBM BPM Suite with events capability.  

Just a few facts before we get into the announcement.  Fact: The BPM Market is predicted to grow over 35% CAGR to $6B by 2011 (Forrester Research)Fact: IBM is the Marketshare leader in BPMS (Gartner Dataquest)Fact: IBM is rated a leader in more Magic Quadrants and Waves than any other vendor (six), including: BPMS (Gartner), Business Process Analysis (Gartner), Integration-Centric BPMS (Forrester), Document-Centric BPMS (Forrester), Human-Centric BPMS for Banking/Financial Markets (Forrester); and Human-Centric BPMS for Insurance (Forrester).

In fact,  IBM was first to market with an integrated BPM/SOA offering (Bruce Silver Associates/Bloor Research)Fact: IBM is the recognized "clear" leader in Content-Centric BPMS (Forrester)

These announcements at IMPACT took a another step ahead for our client's value -- around our announcement of the BPM Suite.  Accordining to Wikipedia, a suite is "a collection of computer programs, usually application software and programming software of related functionality, often sharing a more-or-less common user interface and some ability to smoothly exchange data with each other." -Wikipedia

(By the way did you guys see Jimmy Wales speak at IMPACT?  He was amazing!) IBM's BPM Suite is a comprehensive set of role-based, SOA-enabled product capabilities that provide customers with the ability to continuously optimize processes, and adapt processes rapidly to changing needs.

The suite contains key functionality from across IBM to control and manage business processes across their lifecycle, with an emphasis on business user empowerment and greater collaboration across multiple roles within a client's organization

IBM’s BPM Suite combines product capabilities from across IBM Software Group that match the way customers purchase, implement, and upgrade BPM software while protecting and reusing their existing IT investments.

To make it easier for customers to get started with BPM, we’ve created Starter Sets for the IBM BPM Suite. The IBM BPM Suite includes a choice of two starter sets – Dynamic Business Processes Set and Content-Aware Processes Set. Starter sets are packaged offerings and are designed to address key customer scenarios.

Each starter set contains tools to model, deploy and monitor core business processes. The suite also offers a number of optional extended-value offerings to enhance and advance overall capabilities.

The starter set for Dynamic Business Processes supports process optimization across heterogeneous, dynamic, transaction-rich environments, requiring enterprise-wide integration capabilities and SOA. This starter set is best for processes that require choreography across multiple divisions, departments or applications and which may involve higher frequencies of change. Products include WebSphere Business Modeler, WebSphere Business Services Fabric and WebSphere Business Monitor.

The starter set for Content-Aware Processes supports process optimization where content is core to your processes or integrated compliance requirements exist. This starter set is best for processes that require the content object to be managed as the item of work utilizing content repository services (document management, versioning, imaging, etc) that you expect in a world class enterprise content management system. Products for this starter set include FileNet Business Process Manager, FileNet Business Activity Monitor, FileNet P8 eForms, and FileNet Business Process Framework.Extended value offerings are capabilities that augment the foundational starter sets and regardless of which starter set you choose, you can leverage additional capabilities in areas such as events, rules, and analytics. Specifically, the extended value offerings include: Business event processing (through WebSphere Business Events), Asset repositories for BPM (with Rational Asset Manager and WebSphere Service Registry and Repository), Collaboration (with WebSphere Business Modeler Publishing Edition, Lotus Connections, Lotus Quickr, and plug-ins for Sametime), and Advanced analytics (with Cognos).

In addition, pre-built industry-specific solution accelerators and assets based on industry best practices are available (these include the Process Automation Accelerator for Portal, and the Dashboard Accelerator for Portal, along with Industry Content Packs and Industry Models).

Details on Suite and Starter Set packaging, pricing and support available in Q2 2008

I hope that helps!  Let me know ok!!!   Announcement #2 details will be coming tomorrow!!

April 30th Webcast: IBM's Smart SOA™ Approach: Aligning Business & IT for Maximum Impact

It was great to see so many of you at last week's IMPACT conference. I really enjoyed the chance to meet with you and get your feedback.

The webcast will feature the following presenters, plus a customer case study:

Sitting here after IMPACT 2008!

I am sitting here after IMPACT 2008 reading all the great comments from customers, partners, and others.   

Yes, I am a little sad that it is over.  And yes, I am planning IMPACT 2009 for May next year in May already!

A HUGE thank you to the 272 customers and partner speakers who have branded IMPACT as

THE customer event of the year. It is the power of your stories that is truly making a difference.

Feel the energy again if you dare...and yes that is Jim Haney

from Harley riding in on a Harley to open the entire show!

Sweet dreams for 2009!

Day 1 Highlights!

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 

TIME 

SessionNumber 

TITLE 

Speaker(s) 

LEVEL 

TYPE 

ROOM 

REPEATED 

Mon, 7/Apr 

11:00 AM - 12:15 PM 

BIT-1890A 

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

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

Beginner 

Lecture 

Room 121 

Mon, 7/Apr 

11:00 AM - 12:15 PM 

ITE-1890A 

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

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

Beginner 

Lecture 

Room 121 

Mon, 7/Apr 

02:00 PM - 03:15 PM 

TSP-1239A 

Unleashing SOA to the Web 

Jerry Cuomo, IBM;Kyle Brown, IBM 

Beginner 

Lecture 

Room 115 

Wed, 9/Apr - 01:30 PM-02:45 PM 

Mon, 7/Apr 

02:00 PM - 03:15 PM 

TSS-1239A 

Unleashing SOA to the Web 

Jerry Cuomo, IBM;Kyle Brown, IBM 

Beginner 

Lecture 

Room 115 

Wed, 9/Apr - 01:30 PM-02:45 PM 

Mon, 7/Apr 

02:00 PM - 03:15 PM 

TUI-1197A 

New features in IBM WebSphere Portal Version 6.1 

Robert Will, IBM 

Intermediate 

Lecture 

Room 311 

Thu, 10/Apr - 04:45 PM-06:00 PM 

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.