BEA Makes Its Own SOA Repository Buy

On August 23rd BEA Systems announced it had acquired Flashline, Inc., an industry leader in the metadata repository market. The Flashline repository will serve as the basis for providing a more unified environment for SOA across the BEA product portfolio.

Recommended Competitive Responses

► Competitors such as IBM, SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, and Sun should work to further develop their repositories, turning them into “SOA Repositories.” This should involve more tools that automatically extract metadata and map dependencies, without lengthy set up times or maintenance work when assets change. This could involve acquisitions in this emerging space.

► The repositories should be broad enough to store general software components and items such as user interfaces and workflow task lists, and other items associated with BPM and composite applications. These repositories should be integrated with software development tools.

► An SOA repository used for development should be separate from run time services registries, but linked through automatic updates, and passing of dependency information.

► In general, run time policies should be stored in or near run time service registries and vendors should come up with separate tools to manage these policies and link them with third party enforcement.

Recommended End User/Customer Responses

► Users should consider an SOA metadata repository. An SOA metadata repository, like any repository, can help the software development process by storing components that can be re-used. This can help fulfill the promise of an SOA—namely re-use and quick development of new applications.

► Users should consider a run time UDDI registry as a separate but related piece of infrastructure to an SOA Repository.

► While metadata repositories have been around for many years, users should be aware that automated tools have made them a lot less complex to set up and maintain.

► Users should be aware that policies that govern real time management issues (security, availability, performance, SLAs, etc.) should be stored separately, either in an SOA management application, or in a policy store that is separate from a development oriented repository (although they could be duplicated and stored there as well).

Oracle Updates Identity Management Suite

On August 16th Oracle announced the immediate availability of Oracle Identity Management 10g Release 3. Complete with a robust, comprehensive set of access control, identity administration, provisioning, and directory services capabilities, this latest release enables organizations to manage the end-to-end lifecycle of user identities across heterogeneous enterprise resources within and beyond their organizational boundaries, while helping to streamline sustainable compliance policies and controls.

Recommended Competitive Responses

► Competitors need to take Oracle seriously as an IdM suite vendor. The R3 release makes it increasingly difficult to continue to position Oracle as a minor identity player only appropriate for hardcore Oracle shops.

► Competitors also need to consider seriously the implications of Oracle’s “application-centric” approach to identity management, given its position in the business applications market. Oracle’s goal is to push identity management much more deeply into the middleware stack and, if successful, it would require similar responses from suite vendors.

► Competitors should continue to raise questions about Oracle’s acquired identity components. None of the products that Oracle has acquired, with the possible exception of OctetString’s virtual directory, were market leaders, and competitors should suggest that Oracle’s lateness in appreciating the need for identity limited the technology that was available for it to acquire.

Recommended End User/Customer Responses

► Existing Oracle identity customers should be very pleased with this announcement. Oracle continues to make it easier and cheaper to use its identity products.

► Organizations looking at identity management suites should certainly consider Oracle Identity Management.

IBM to Acquire Internet Security Systems

On August 23rd IBM and Internet Security Systems (ISS) announced that the two companies have entered into a definitive agreement for IBM to acquire ISS, a publicly held company based in Atlanta, Ga., in an all-cash transaction at a price of approximately $1.3 billion, or $28 per share.

Recommended Competitive Responses

► Competitors should be concerned about this announcement – although not so much with a combined IBM/ISS, but with what the combining of IBM and ISS says about the state of the market. This announcement is not about IBM so much as it is about Microsoft and Cisco. In the long term, “mid-sized” companies such as ISS and RSA no longer believe they can compete with the size, reach and R&D muscle of these new market entrants.

► Competitors can attempt to create FUD based on the strong emphasis that the companies are giving on the managed services aspect of the deal. Competitors could suggest that IBM will neglect ISS software sales and channels and focus all of its energies on services.

► Competitors should not be too concerned with aggressive product integration activity from IBM. Its initial plans are quite modest.

► Vendors such as Symantec that have long been pushing a more prominent place for security within the larger IT management hierarchy should position this announcement as another important endorsement for their market strategy.

Recommended End User/Customer Responses

► Existing ISS customers should be very pleased with this announcement. IBM provides the deep pockets that can ensure ISS’ continued position as a leading innovator in the information security market.

► IBM Global Technology Services customers should also be very pleased with this announcement. IBM will now be able to offer a suite of new threat protection and vulnerability management services through its services group.

► Prospects should not expect deep product integration between the companies any time soon. This is not a one plus one equals three kind of combination from a product or service perspective. Prospects considering ISS software should continue working through ISS sales channels.

NCR/Teradata Launches MDM Product Family

On August 3rd the Teradata division of NCR Corporation announced the introduction of a new master data management (MDM) software product family that helps customers ensure the consistency, completeness, and accuracy of master reference data maintained in Teradata-based data warehouses.

Recommended Competitive Responses

► Rival MDM vendors, including i2, IBM, Oracle, SAP, TIBCO, Business Objects, Hyperion, and Cognos, should hail NCR/Teradata’s move as a positive for the MDM space, in as much as it validates that DW deployments are incomplete without strong MDM feature.

► Rival DW/DBMS software vendors, such as IBM and Oracle, should position NCR/Teradata’s MDM solutions as being optimized for that vendor’s DBMS, which is essentially a second-tier offering in the enterprise database market.

► EII vendors, such as Ipedo, MetaMatrix, and Composite Software, should point out that NCR/Teradata only addresses single-master MDM environments that revolve around consolidated DWs, and it does not support multi-master federated query and other EII functions necessary for “virtual MDM.”

► DW appliance vendors should call attention to the likely multimillion-dollar price tag of the typical Teradata-based MDM/DW deployment, and note that less expensive MDM/DW solutions can be assembled from low-end DW appliances and various combinations of open-source and commercial software.

Recommended End User/Customer Responses

► Enterprises with MDM requirements should evaluate NCR/Teradata’s new products against MDM software offerings from other vendors. Evaluation criteria should include price-performance, functionality, deployment flexibility, and integration with their complex, heterogeneous, multi-vendor data management and application infrastructures.

► Current users of competing MDM software should evaluate whether NCR/Teradata’s new offerings better meet their needs than their current provider, and hence whether they should consider migrating to Teradata’s MDM software in whole (for all enterprise MDM needs) or in part (for CDI, PIM, and/or other MDM subject domains).

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