IBM Announces SOA Business Catalog

WebKnowHow
Wednesday, June 14, 2006; 04:02 AM

At the IBM SOA Executive Summit, IBM announced a comprehensive resource to make it easier to find reusable IT services based on IBM and IBM Business Partner software. The IBM SOA Business Catalog allows clients to search for information on service-oriented architecture (SOA) assets or IT "services," combinations of software code, intellectual property and best practices that solve specific business problems.

By the end of the year, IBM's SOA Business Catalog is expected to include more than 3,000 SOA assets spanning more than 15 industries to solve specific business problems. The Catalog directs customers to the appropriate IBM or qualified IBM Business Partner software -- including process templates, web services, tools and adapters -- along with details on how customers can easily obtain and integrate these IT services into their existing IT infrastructures.

Recent studies have shown that reusing existing assets can help build an SOA up to five times faster.

"IBM's SOA Business Catalog delivers on the promise of reusing IT components," said Sandy Carter, vice president, WebSphere and SOA, IBM. "The ability to find and obtain detailed information on specific qualified IBM and IBM Business Partner assets -- and reuse those assets -- will enable customers to use an SOA to cut costs and increase revenue faster that developing individual IT services."

Examples of industry-specific reusable IT services in the IBM SOA Business Catalog include:

    --  The IBM Information Framework Process Models -- Allows financial
services business users to analyze business processes from both a
technical and business perspective and provide the discipline and
consistency required to effect enterprise-wide transformational change.
    --  The IBM Insurance Application Architecture -- Architectural blueprint
with detailed insurance business content that can be applied to
initiatives on an enterprise-wide or specific project basis. It enables
insurers to create detailed specifications and cross-enterprise
architectures for information systems. These models represent over 300
cumulative person-years of development, incorporating input from many
leading insurance organizations.
    --  WebSphere Business Modeler industry-specific sample modeling
projects -- These samples help business users examine the impact of
process modeling on a business.  The projects include various modeling
constructs, elements, and potential methods to create SOA projects
focused on business improvements.  Sample models include mortgage
application, insurance claims, produce invoice payment for retail, DSL
provisioning for telecom and supplier forecasting for manufacturing.
    --  WebSphere DataStage TX Industry Pack for HL7 -- integrates healthcare
industry standard data formats with existing infrastructures. It
enables developers, testers and production staff to accomplish more
through deeper integration with their enterprise environments.

Additional SOA assets available in IBM's SOA Business Catalog help eliminate barriers to entry. Examples include:

    --  IBM QuickStart for WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus -- helps
architect, design, develop and deploy a WebSphere Enterprise Service
Bus (ESB).
    --  IBM Rational Unified Process (RUP) for User Experience Modeling
v4.0 -- provides a set of best practices to simplify the development,
analysis and design and testing of new models activities, as well as
test models.

The IBM SOA Business Catalog will link to the WebSphere Service Registry and Repository (WSRR), which allows software assets to be cataloged and stored in the repository. WSRR delivers strong governance capabilities for the publication, discovery, subscription, management and policy enforcement of SOA services and assets.