Turning on SOA Without Blowing a Fuse

Datamation content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.

NetManage (Quote) has unveiled an application that helps
companies measure and allocate resources as they introduce SOA
(define) into their IT environments.

SOA allows enterprises to extend legacy applications rather than having to
replace them with more modern software, but it also tends to be more
inefficient from a resource perspective, requiring more bandwidth and CPU
utilization.

The NetManage SOA Planner, introduced today, is a server product installed
on a network that non-invasively listens to host system interactions in real
time to capture common usage patterns.

The application tracks end-user processes without impacting operations,
which means end-users don’t have to be trained or even aware that a new
piece of software is being run.

System architects can also use the captured data on transactional traffic
patterns to make more informed decisions about which services are essential
when planning and deploying an SOA.

Zvi Alon, president and CEO of NetManage, said that most companies beginning
an SOA implementation don’t even know where to start.

“We’re helping them take baby steps,” he said during a dinner with reporters
and analysts.

Archie Roboostoff, director of product management at the Cupertino,
Calif.-based company, explained that the Planner fits into NetManage’s
incremental approach to SOA integrations.

NetManage helps companies plan for, deploy and eventually incrementally
increase the number of SOA-enabled elements into their infrastructure.

Peter Kastner, vice president of enterprise technology research at Aberdeeen
Group, noted that the Planner addresses the fact that under SOA, “you have
radically changed workloads.”

He explained that while older applications can manage transactions in a
single instruction, XML used by service-oriented applications require more
server activity.

“The Planner sits there and watches transactions going by and helps IT
planners understand how capacity will be changing under their SOA
applications,” he told internetnews.com.

“Right now people are just wetting their fingers and seeing which way the
wind is blowing,” he added.

Also according to Kastner, integration costs represent 40 percent of IT
budgets worldwide — he pegged the global IT market at approximately $51.3
trillion — pointing to the value of such a tool.

This article was first published on InternetNews.com. To read the full article, click here.