Articles by Brian Barbash

SOA Product Review: Watchfire AppScan

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 21:45:00 EST

Security is a major component of application development and must be tailored to the environment and audience of the system. In many respects, the more widely available an application is, the more important security becomes. Properly testing and securing Web Services applications is a challenging task. A tool that facilitates this process and provides visibility into application vulnerabilities is the AppScan product from Watchfire.

SOA Web Services Product Review — Oracle Business Activity Monitoring

Thu, 21 Sep 2006 14:30:00 EDT

Services Oriented Architectures (SOAs) and business collaboration technologies and platforms, often enabled by Web Services and orchestration constructs like BPEL, can be a tremendous business benefit. SOAs can provide the fl exibility in enterprises to adapt to rapidly changing business conditions. Collaboration platforms enable tighter integration between trading partners both at a data and process level. When successfully implemented, these approaches and tools can garner significant improvements in efficiency, communication, service levels, and ultimately profits. However, quantifying the benefit can prove challenging.

Java Product Review: Mindreef SOAPscope Server

Wed, 02 Aug 2006 17:45:00 EDT

By nature Web Services is a distributed technology. With distribution comes great flexibility for architectural topologies. Components can be strategically placed in different physical locations to optimize performance, maintenance and business processes. In large organizations one physical location may handle sales services, while another delivers contract management. As organizations build Service Oriented Architectures that stitch together these physically dispersed services, distributed development becomes an interesting challenge to overcome. Many collaborative technologies exist today to facilitate better communications and information sharing among workers, but it's rare to find a distributed development environment.

SOA Product Review: Mindreef SOAPscope Server

Tue, 20 Jun 2006 18:45:00 EDT

FusionWare Integration Server

Thu, 15 Dec 2005 12:45:00 EST

In a service-oriented architecture, the ultimate goal is to quickly and easily build new applications as composites of existing services. Building out the independent services in a manner that supports reuse is itself very challenging. However, several tools are beginning to appear to easily bring applications together once the critical mass of applications is achieved. One such tool is the FusionWare Integration Server.

A Review Of Oracle Application Server 10g

Fri, 02 Dec 2005 10:45:00 EST

A number of solutions exist for creating Java-based Web services from a variety of different providers. Options range from individual processing engines that plug into existing application servers to large enterprise-class platforms in which Web services is one of many components. Each option provides its own set of challenges and benefits while addressing different types of requirements.

BPM Suite From Bluespring Software

Mon, 07 Nov 2005 10:45:00 EST

In the past, business process management has not been a significant area of concern for many corporations. However, with increased regulatory scrutiny facing companies today, the need for formalized definitions, checks and balances, and management oversight is a reality.

Stylus Studio 6 From Progress Software, An Integrated Tool With Breadth

Tue, 11 Oct 2005 11:30:00 EDT

XML Development - the term can mean many different things given the technologies currently available. At the center of it all is XML Schemas, DTDs and instance documents. Building out from the base there's XSL, Web Services and XQuery just to name a few. Because of this, it's not uncommon for a developer to have several tools, each specialized in one of those technologies. Stylus Studio, however, provides an integrated environment for XML development with broad support for the various technologies. This review covers its capabilities in some of the major areas.

Cordys BCP - True Collaboration SOA Web Services

Wed, 07 Sep 2005 21:15:00 EDT

Building truly collaborative systems relationships between organizations is a daunting challenge in today's business environment. While technologies such as Web services have risen to assist, true collaboration requires a far greater set of functionality.

Product Review: Altova Enterprise Suite 2005

Fri, 19 Aug 2005 03:45:00 EDT

XML development is a term that can mean many things to many different people. For some, it is the modeling and creation of XML Schemas and instance documents used to exchange data. Others see it as a part of the larger effort of developing Web services. Still others view it as a means to transform and integrate systems whose data structures and definitions are proprietary.

Skyway Builder from Skyway Software, An SOA Web Services Tool

Tue, 02 Aug 2005 14:45:00 EDT

Services Oriented Architectures (SOA) rarely start from scratch. In most enterprises, they are built in gradual steps as part of an overall migration and architectural strategy. Along the way, existing legacy systems must be enhanced to support the required interface technologies, service gaps have to be filled by building new systems or acquiring and leveraging external services through third-party providers, and all elements in the architecture must be orchestrated and combined to form the final catalog of services.

Oracle Web Services Manager

Thu, 26 May 2005 11:00:00 EDT

As departments and organizations in the enterprise adopt Web services, the importance of managing and securing, and in some cases, extending these services to partners, grows. Using a centralized platform to do it reduces the effort and cost involved, while upping security. Web Services Manager from Oracle is designed to meet the challenge of stitching together services in large enterprises into a single management system.

Fuego Studio 5.1

Tue, 04 Jan 2005 00:00:00 EST

Organizations large and small routinely face challenges in managing business processes. From an administrative standpoint, policies and procedures are put in place to ensure compliance. However, no matter how strictly they are enforced, there are always those who work outside their boundaries.

Adobe FrameMaker 7.1

Thu, 02 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST

XML's surface-level simplicity hides a deceptively complex beast. At first glance, creating an XML document does not take a lot of effort. Create some tags, ensure they are well-formed, and that's it. Throw in a DTD or Schema and now there are a set of rules against which the document can be validated. There is an innumerable amount of XML documents created in the world today in this manner. And for many scenarios, this is a perfectly reasonable approach.

Forum Systems XWall Web Services Firewall

Fri, 01 Oct 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Security is important. Anyone in the business of designing, developing, hosting, or managing business applications understands this fundamental statement. Web services present unique challenges such that the integrity and security of the content of the exchanged documents is just as important as the integrity of the communications link between the trading partners.

Oracle BPEL Process Manager

Tue, 03 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Service-oriented architecture (SOA), while its underpinnings have been around for years, has recently become one of the most talked about topics in the IT industry. The interest in SOAs is largely due to the emergence of Web services and their ability to expose business applications through well-defined interfaces in a platform-independent manner. While an SOA need not be built using Web services, it certainly presents an attractive option for a variety of environments.

Cape Clear Data Interchange 4.7

Fri, 02 Jul 2004 00:00:00 EDT

No matter how advanced enterprise systems become, the sophistication of the tools available to build them, or the advances of architectural approaches and best practices from which to start, the life blood of any system is the raw data. Without the data, what's the point? Whether the system is simply collecting information from a set of HTML forms, or is one participant in a highly complex, distributed environment consisting of several integration touch points, there will always be the challenge of getting data into and out of the system.

SOAPScope 3.0 from Mindreef

Mon, 08 Mar 2004 00:00:00 EST

Since WSJ last looked at Mindreef's SOAPScope back in July '03 (Vol. 3, issue 7), much has been added in functionality and features to benefit the package. New items include integration with Visual Studio .NET, integration with the WS-I testing tools, a new Graph View for looking at historical data, and a differencing engine, among others. Overall, this is an excellent update; what follows are some of its highlights.

AmberPoint Express from AmberPoint, Inc.

Fri, 05 Mar 2004 00:00:00 EST

Not surprisingly, Web services management tools are quickly appearing to assist developers and system administrators alike with the maintenance of service-based applications. One such product is AmberPoint Express, a free Web services management and monitoring tool whose mission is to provide developers with the ability to '...incrementally measure, debug and fine-tune the performance and functionality of their Web services...'

XMLSPY 2004 from Altova - An excellent tool gets a powerful addition

Wed, 31 Dec 2003 09:41:09 EST

Altova recently released the 2004 version of XMLSPY and introduced a new product, MapForce 2004. This new version includes several updates and features that will assist with Web services development while also providing a graphical XML mapping tool for data transformation.

WASP UDDI 4.6 - Extra features add to a solid product

Wed, 31 Dec 2003 00:00:00 EST

If you're looking to deploy a UDDI registry that provides strong standards support, a capable API, and security and management capabilities, look no further than Systinet's WASP UDDI version 4.6. WASP UDDI is a UDDI server that supports UDDI specification versions 1 and 2 as well as the version 3 subscription API.

Fiorano ESB - A strong enterprise service bus solution

Mon, 01 Dec 2003 00:00:00 EST

Web services have staked their claim as a key technology in building and integrating large, distributed enterprise systems. More often than not, however, Web services may be just one piece of a myriad of interfaces.

Sift 1.5 by Service Integrity

Fri, 26 Sep 2003 00:00:00 EDT

With Web services becoming more prevalent in organizations, keeping tabs on performance, analyzing problems, and managing overall quality of service is as important as ever.

WebFace & WebFace Studio by Vultus

Fri, 23 May 2003 00:00:00 EDT

As Web services proliferate and more and more applications expose their business logic in this manner, the need for effective user interfaces to consume these services grows. WebFace and WebFace Studio, from Vultus, provide a means of creating rich, Windows-like user interfaces distributed in a browser for Web services.

XMLSPY 5 Enterprise Edition

Mon, 18 Nov 2002 00:00:00 EST

XMLSPY Enterprise Edition version 5 provides a powerful set of XML tools and utilities to develop and test XML-based applications and Web services. Several new features that expand on its XML tool base are available in this new version, including a WSDL editor, XSL stylesheet debugger, and Java code generator. And as before, XMLSPY continues to provide powerful utilities for developing schema, DTD, and XML documents.

AltoWeb Application Platform

Wed, 01 May 2002 00:00:00 EDT

The AltoWeb Application Platform is a J2EE-compliant system designed to provide an integrated environment to develop, deploy, and manage Web-based and services-based applications. It allows developers to create applications without specific knowledge of enterprise Java and to deploy the final product on J2EE- compliant application servers.

eXtend Composer by SilverStream

Fri, 01 Mar 2002 00:00:00 EST

SilverStream eXtend Composer is part of the SilverStream eXtend family that provides a visual development environment used to create service-oriented applications. Composer allows developers to create services that gather data from multiple disparate sources, apply appropriate business logic, and return the results. The finished components meet J2EE standards and will execute on compliant application servers. Composer explicitly supports SilverStream's eXtend Application Server, IBM's WebSphere, and BEA's WebLogic.

SpiritWave from SpiritSoftA Flexible, Reliable Messaging System Tool

Fri, 11 Jan 2002 00:00:00 EST

SpiritWave 4.4 from SpiritSoft is a vendor-independent, JMS-compliant messaging system that provides a common interface to heterogeneous messaging systems. It supports the publish/subscribe and point-to-point messaging paradigms. To leverage existing investments in messaging systems, SpiritWave provides transport drivers for IBM's MQ Series, Tibco's Rendezvous, Microsoft's MSMQ, OpenTrade's Orbita, and Active Software's ActiveWorks products.

CapeConnect Two for J2EEby Cape Clear

Fri, 30 Nov 2001 00:00:00 EST

Two distinct initiatives have come to the forefront as means by which applications can be presented as Web-based services: Microsoft's .NET and the J2EE platform. Application servers and toolsets are beginning to tailor themselves to the Web services paradigm as the concept matures. One such product is Cape Clear's CapeConnect Two for J2EE.

Product Review: zeroCode

Tue, 01 May 2001 00:00:00 EDT

ZeroCode is a Web-based development environment that allows a team to graphically develop a Web-based database application with minimal handwritten code. The development environment is Web-based and housed on zeroCode servers. Developers build the application via the Web interface and when complete, the entire site is downloaded and installed on servers in the production environment.

WebKing 2.0 by ParaSoft Corporation

Fri, 01 Dec 2000 00:00:00 EST

ParaSoft's WebKing 2.0 Web testing software is a tool to assist developers in testing and deploying dynamic Web sites. It applies traditional C/C++ and Java testing techniques to the Web environment to identify a multitude of potential errors in a site. WebKing also provides a publishing mechanism to automate the testing and transfer of a site's components.