IONA, Sybase Add SOA Tools to Eclipse
Type: Competitive Intelligence Brief
Analyst: S. Willett
Report Date: September 13, 2005
Module: Application Infrastructure
ID: CIR14492 |
Current Perspective: Positive/Neutral
Vendor Importance: Moderate
Market Impact: Moderate/Low |
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Summary
Event Summary
September 12, 2005 - IONA Technologies (NASDAQ: IONA) and the Eclipse Foundation, a community committed to the implementation of a universal platform for tools integration, announced that IONA has joined the Eclipse Foundation as a Strategic Developer. In this role, IONA is bringing to bear more than a decade’s worth of integration experience to lead a proposed Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Tools Platform (STP) project.
Analytical Summary
• Current Perspective: Slightly positive on the creation of an SOA tools project within Eclipse as it will help boost the backers’ (IONA, Sybase) Web Services creation and configuration tools and will help users confronted with a wide array of SOA tools.
• Vendor Importance: Moderate to IONA and Sybase as the two will have a jump start in shipping Eclipse compliant tools in this area and this will help attract more users to their products.
• Market Impact: Low to moderate on the market as competitors will likely jump on this and take a hand in shaping the new standard that does emerge.
Perspective
Current Perspective: Positive/Neutral
We are taking a slightly positive stance on IONA’s latest move in the standards arena to submit a new Eclipse tooling project, dubbed the SOA Tooling Project (STP). In the past few months, IONA has submitted an open source ESB to ObjectWeb (see “IONA Open Sources ESBs With Celtix,” June 20, 2005), and a “mediation layer” for an SOA to the Apache Group (see “Apache Takes Steps toward Open Source ESB,” August 23, 2005). The firm is putting itself in a good position to ride the standards-based SOA integration market, which could be an alternative to traditional integration. By working with these organizations, IONA also saves on development costs and gains third-party support and loyalty from open source advocates. Artix will be first out of the gate with an Eclipse STP-based interface, potentially giving it an advantage.
As proposed by IONA and Sybase and ObjectWeb, the Eclipse SOA Tooling Project (STP) covers a tooling area that is just emerging. It will cover graphical tools for creation or configuration of a service. This includes creating service consumers and providers, the service transport, message format, and how to add ancillary services such as transformation and routing. Also included are SOA management type tools, including policies and governance, security, transactional availability. Also covered will be artifacts arising from this type of SOA management activity.
These types of tools are distinct from traditional services development tools based on Java and/or SOA management and the category will only grow over time. In fact, the act of Eclipse carving out a separate category will help this category of tools gain credibility with customers.
The danger, of course, is that this is a new area, and not well defined. It seems to overlap with various other kinds of tools that have been used to create and manage services. IONA and Sybase should recruit Java tools vendors, SOA management, and other vendors to help gain a consensus on what an SOA toolset is. Also, sponsoring an Eclipse project is no guarantee of commercial benefits for the vendor, as is evidenced by efforts from BEA and others to date. Because of its unique nature, backers could gain an advantage as the SOA toolset category takes off.
Positives and Concerns
Competitive Positives
• IONA announces that it is now one of the strategic members of the Eclipse Foundation (there are eight others) and it will submit code, derived from Artix, for a new Eclipse “top level” project dubbed SOA Tooling Project (STP). The firm is already participating in an Apache project dubbed “Synapse” for a “mediation layer.” This additional standards effort will help IONA ride the wave of open source and standards-based products built on SOAs and help it establish mindshare in the emerging SOA tools space as that becomes better defined. The code submitted is based on Artix, meaning Artix will be first out of the gate with an Eclipse STP-based interface, potentially giving it an advantage.
• The move also helps IONA keep down development costs. As IONA has less of a legacy of software to protect, these moves will more directly benefit its software as it expands into areas that were covered by integration and development products.
• The move will help legitimize a new class of product for “SOA Integration” that will combine elements of management, integration, policy enforcement, security, and some Java application development as it relates to building and managing an SOA.
• In particular, STP will cover graphical tools for creation or configuration of a service. This includes creating service consumers and providers, the service transport, message format, and how to add ancillary services such as transformation and routing. These types of tools are distinct from traditional services development tools based on Java and the category will only grow over time.
• Also included are SOA management type tools, including policies and governance, security, and transactional availability. Also covered will be artifacts arising from this type of SOA management activity.
Competitive Concerns
• The STP project is carving out a new area in Eclipse development tools, and it isn’t clear how it will distinguish itself from related areas such as the Web Tools Project (backed by BEA), or from existing Java tools used to create and control Web Services. In short, the exact definition of what an SOA toolset is has not been agreed upon because it is a new category. This may take time.
• Some of what is described looks like SOA management (particularly setting policies), but there are no SOA management vendors on this project as of yet.
• Much of what is described seems more accurately described as management and configuration rather than traditional application development tooling. This represents part of a continuing expansion of Eclipse beyond its original goals.
• Sponsoring an Eclipse project is no guarantee of commercial benefits for the vendor, as is evidenced by efforts from BEA and others to date.
Recommended Actions
Recommended Vendor Actions
• IONA should attract SOA management as well as traditional Java application development vendors to this project. This will help better define STP and distinguish it from current services creation tools, and/or management tools.
• IONA, along with others, should better distinguish to the public what an SOA toolset is and what elements it should have and not have.
• The company is taking the right moves in submitting its code to Eclipse, ObjectWeb, and Apache and should continue to use this to drive home the point that it is differentiated from “proprietary” EAI vendors, and “tools-based” application server and development vendors.
Recommended Competitor Actions
• Competitors in the integration/SOA integration space should attempt to join this new STP in order to influence what is covered by the spec and how.
• Similarly, competitors in the application server/application development spaces should also attempt to influence STP and to minimize redundancy with other Eclipse projects.
• In general, integration vendors should move to Eclipse and/or .Net compliant tooling in order to meet corporate mandates and make it easier for different tools to work together.
Recommended End User/Customer Actions
• In general, users should move to Eclipse and/or .Net compliant development tools and should prepare to do the same for configuration and management type tooling as Eclipse expands its mandate.
• Users should be open to a new type of product for SOA Integration that includes configuration of Web services, but also discovery, failover, policy enforcement, and security for distributed services. This will span several disciplines within IT.
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