SOA Software’s “Service Virtualization”

SOA Software’s “Service Virtualization” By John K. Waters

A service oriented architecture (SOA) takes the discrete business functions in enterprise applications and organizes them into interoperable services—which is one of the most effective ways to share and consume information with partners. But managing and exposing these services creates some big security risks; keeping the bad guys from connecting to those services is tricky.

One approach getting serious attention involves what SOA Software calls an XML virtual private network, which the company developed to enable partners to securely connect to an enterprise's Web services. An XML VPN is an edge proxy that intercepts incoming service packages, verifies the source of origin, decrypts the packages, and signs the message using its own public key infrastructure, explains Ian Goldsmith, the company's VP of marketing.

"Essentially, what the product does is to build a virtual service inside the partner’s firewall," Goldsmith tells service oriented architecture SOATrends. "Partners communicate with that virtual service, which handles the passing of messages back and forth between the virtual service and the real service. So, what we talk about is ‘service virtualization.’”

SOA Software's recently released XML VPN version 4.3 is available both as software and an appliance. It is designed to act as a proxy for any external Web services, whether provided by another XML VPN device or not. A company can use the XML VPN to provide its developers with internal versions of important third-party services, and ensure the security and reliability of those services.

The focus of this release is the product's new last-mile security capabilities. With version 4.3, the XML VPN proxy can digitally sign messages destined for internal services to prevent end-run attacks by external applications that could otherwise directly contact internal services protected by the XML VPN. "[This capability] ensures the security of internal services and provides an end-to-end audit trail for all partner transactions," Goldsmith says.

XML VPN version 4.3 is also the first B2B Web services security solution to support the emerging WS-Policy standard, Goldsmith says. Support for WS-Policy ensures that third-party providers can discover the policies they must implement before attempting to communicate with a service.

"SOA Software's notion of an XML VPN is catching on with customers,” says Jason Bloomberg, senior analyst at ZapThink. "Unlike a traditional VPN, the XML VPN is content- and application-aware. SOA Software can therefore connect companies to their business partners and customers in a secure, flexible, intelligent manner, leveraging the power of Web services and service oriented architecture SOA for business-to-business interactions."

SOA Software Company Overview

SOA Software Company Overview

SOA Software is the leading provider of comprehensive enterprise class Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) Governance, Security, Mediation, and Management solutions. It is the largest specialist vendor of SOA solutions and the only company that offers a complete SOA infrastructure solution that can govern Web Services that reside on all major platforms.

SOA Software provides software and solutions for Enterprise SOA, including comprehensive SOA governance and Web Service for the mainframe. SOA Software’s products include the award winning Service Manager™, Workbench™, and SOLA™. Service Manager provides a high-performance, scalable SOA Service Oriented Architecture management and security solution. Workbench provides a comprehensive closed-loop SOA governance solution. And SOLA is SOA Software’s mainframe Web services solution for CICS programmers. These enterprise-class products combine to create the only comprehensive SOA infrastructure solution available today. These enterprise-class products combine to offer end-to-end Governance, security, monitoring, reliability, registry and provisioning capabilities for Enterprise SOA Service Oriented Architecture and Mainframe Web services.

SOA Software is a privately held company backed by leading investors including Redpoint, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Palisades Ventures Fund, Paladin Capital Group, and Goldman Sachs

SOA Books - Understanding Enterprise SOA

SOA Books - Understanding Enterprise SOA Service Oriented Architecture by Eric Pulier and Hugh Taylor with foreword by Paul Gaffney

About this book

This SOA book is for anyone in the business world or in the public sector who needs to make sense of the new emerging standards for virtually all major information technology decisions. For business professionals, this book is meant to explain and clarify—in business terms—the way web services and SOA Service Oriented Architecture work in a business setting. For IT professionals, the book provides a business-oriented overview of Service Oriented Architecture SOA.

How the book is organized

The book is organized around the two critical areas necessary in realizing an enterprise SOA Service Oriented Architecture: technology and people. The nature of Service Oriented Architecture SOA is integrative; by definition, SOA Service Oriented Architecture pushes boundaries. Enterprise SOA cuts across multiple lines of business and technological disciplines. In the book this is amply illustrated through the presentation of the Titan Insurance case study, an up-close look at an insurance company that is suffering from the IT aftermath of a troubled merger.

In addition to an Introduction that sets out the parameters of Titan Insurance, and provides the back story, the book consists of two parts:

Part 1 “Understanding the technology of enterprise SOA” delves into the technological aspects of web services, as well as other technological issues that underlie the enterprise SOA Service Oriented Architecture. Chapters 1, 2, and 3 provide a broad overview of web services, how they work, and what they can do for your business. Chapter 4 introduces the concept of the service-oriented architecture. Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8 explore how the enterprise SOA Service Oriented Architecture changes the terrain of enterprise application integration, software development, business-to-business commerce, business process management, and real-time operations. Chapters 9 and 10 introduce the extremely important discussions of security and management of enterprise SOA Service Oriented Architecture. Chapters 11 and 12 look at SOA networks and utility computing, two deployment scenarios that are likely to be on your horizon if you are considering an SOA Service Oriented Architecture.

Part 2 “Understanding the people and process of enterprise SOA Service Oriented Architecture, returns to the Titan case in full depth and provides a thorough look at the political, personal, and technological factors that arise when implementing an enterprise SOA at a real company. Chapter 13 looks at realizing Titan’s wish list for its Service Oriented Architecture SOA and begins to sort out how to deal with the individual players involved in the process. Chapter 14 continues with a description of how we achieved consensus among the players about how to pursue an effective SOA Service Oriented Architecture. Chapter 14 also introduces the “four P’s”—people, pilot, plan, and proceed—my suggested four-stage process for best practices in enterprise SOA. Chapters 15 and 16 go into more depth on how the training and pilot planning process works. In addition, these chapters outline a best practices approach to identifying the applications in an enterprise that are best suited for exposure as web services, a process I call service discovery. Chapter 17 examines platform selection and establishment of project goals and measurements of success. Chapter 18 concludes the book with a look at how Titan Insurance has moved forward with its Service Oriented Architecture SOA plan.

About the authors

Eric Pulier Founder and Executive Chairman of Service Oriented Architecture SOA Software and a widely recognized pioneer and visionary in the world of information technology. Named one of 30 e-Visionaries by VAR Business, Eric is a featured speaker at industry conferences and events and a member of the IBM’s UDDI Advisory Community. He leads Service Oriented Architecture SOA Software’s trailblazing efforts to develop breakthrough solutions for the management of XML Web Services, working with such clients as Toyota, US Steel, Hewlett Packard, and Charles Schwab. Eric earned his BA, Magna Cum Laude, from Harvard University. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.

Hugh Taylor Vice President of Marketing at Service Oriented Architecture SOA Software and the author of numerous white papers and articles on Service Oriented Architecture SOA, as well as the book, The Hollywood Job Hunter’s Survival Guide. Hugh earned his BA, Magna Cum Laude, and MBA from Harvard University. He lives in Los Angeles, CA.