New capabilities of JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform v5.0 include:

• Enhanced registry – UDDI v3
• New administrator consoles - Greater insight into performance of SOA-P v5's runtime: ESB Services, JMS and data sources
• New transformation tool (XSLT) and enhanced existing tools - Easier to create new ESB projects
• SOAP Proxy use case much easier - Process of mediating an existing SOAP endpoint through the ESB
• JBoss Rules v5 – works with JBoss Enterprise BRMS
• JBoss Enterprise Application v5
• Cloud (e.g., Amazon EC2) and on-premise service and application integration

These capabilities deliver on the promise of SOA – the ability to more rapidly configure your IT infrastructure to meet the needs of the business while maintaining visibility into ongoing operations.

Additionally, we see interest in how SOA and cloud computing relate. Red Hat customers are deploying more applications and business services into cloud deployments to take advantage of the cost reduction and flexibility that computing model yields. As these applications need to be integrated into business processes, SOA steps in to help. SOA services (web services, EJB or POJO endpoints, business rules services, etc...) can be published out of these cloud deployments and registered in the JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform UDDI v3 registry to make them more available and integratable into enterprise and value chain business processes. Integrated cloud applications and services get more utilization, eliminate the pain points with manually tying these services and applications into the enterprise and can be reconfigure more swiftly to respond to business opportunities and threats. The JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform v5 is designed to deliver these benefits of SOA and cloud computing to enterprise business processes.

We've seen increased interest in using SOA deployments to improve business productivity and effectiveness. Industries expanding SOA deployments include: Governments (around the world at federal and state/local level), to improve public services or internal capabilities (e.g., intelligence gathering) with fewer resources; Healthcare, to drive a more integrated patient experience to provide better information to decision makers to help them make better and faster decisions; Telecom, to drive faster provisioning and modification / upsell of services to a larger customer base; Energy, to adhere to regulations, improve energy efficiency and empower customers with the information needed to conserve energy; and Financial Services, to drive better application processing, better customer service, and reduce fraud opportunities. Other industries deploying SOA to be more competitive in a new economic environment much different from the past include: transportation, to improve logistics and utilization; and retail, to improve the integration of the supply chain while improving flexibility that SOA enables vs. older styles of integration.

Some of these customers have become public case studies. (click)

I encourage you to visit our SOA resource center (click) to learn more about how Red Hat can help you improve your business and IT effectiveness with SOA.

I also encourage you to learn more about the JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform (click) which helps deploy a more effective, controlled, and productive SOA deployment – simply, openly and affordably.

Pierre Fricke Red Hat Director, JBoss SOA product line

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Life of Reason, Reason in Common Sense, Scribner's, 1905, page 284".

We know how the mania-bust cycle works. We have many examples in history. Seems like our "FIRE"-driven economy forgot it. FIRE=Financial, Insurance and Real Estate industries. In 1920s, it was stocks and too much debt. In the 2000s it's real estate and too much debt. It absolutely makes no sense to buy a house for a mortgage payment that is two times the rent cost! It's even more foolish to take a HELOC up to the manic value of a house to pay for consumer goods like cars, vacations and a lifestyle that otherwise one cannot afford. The industries that supported all of this activity expanded to a oversupply condition that must contract. So now we unwind...we may be halfway there; there being appropriately valued real estate that people can purchase with confidence...if the government let's the cycle play out without interference. If not, then we (the USA and EU) may follow in Japan's footsteps and it will take a while.

Nevertheless, it's not the end of the world, just the end of an era. In economic depressions and deflations, business activity continues. It just doesn't continue at the previous pace. However, there are still growth opportunities. We can look at the 1930s for instruction. We know auction houses, bars, home entertainment, repo businesses, bankruptcy and divorce lawyers will have a lot of business. But also the government will expand. Regulation and the implementation of regulation will expand. Industries will be transformed (finance, insurance, government, energy, real estate, manufacturing, health care, education, etc...).

In the 1930s, emerging high technology in the form of tabulator machines and improved telephonic services continued to grow. IBM led the charge and had growth every year in the 1930s with expanded opportunities for tabulators to support the new regulatory environment and to help industries become more productive and reduce costs. New Deal government programs drove a lot of demand and the companies that were looking ahead also took advantage of the new technology to improve their businesses. Remember, 75% of the people were still employed and even with pay cuts, many were coming out ahead due to deflation (as long as they had little debt!). They saved a lot more and spent less, but business was still transacted and those businesses positioned to serve the government and remaining consumer demand with new products, services that solved problems did OK to well.

Today, we will see the same thing. Not everyone will go out of business and whether we see 8%, 12% or 18% unemployment, business activity will continue. Certainly the government will expand...trillions of $ are being lined up. The FIRE industries will need to be re-invented to operate in a much different regulatory environment. Existing IT assets, configured as they are, will become obsolete. They can be reused, but need to be augmented and reintegrated to operate in the "New New Deal".

Today's business productivity and transformation tools will include further transition to an SOA-enabled environment. Since there likely will be several waves of regulation and increased change in the business environment, enterprises that set themselves and their value chain to respond to change rapidly will win. Beyond re-integrating IT assets to operate in the "New New Deal", businesses will also need to pull their business rules out of scattered applications, consolidate them in business rules management systems and present them to the applications, people and business processes as SOA services. This will be required to be responsive to a rapidly changing environment.

But these enterprises and value chains will need to do this with reduced budgets, even with bailout money available! Local and state governments cannot print money and will have reduced tax revenues. They will not be able to afford the $50K / CPU closed source SOA platforms or $100K+ / CPU BRMSes that require a lot of capital expenditure up front. Fortunately, open source SOA and BRMS (Business Rules Management Systems) are maturing and offer a more simple, open and affordable way to weather these challenging economic and turbulent times. Indeed, business and government will need to serve picky customers with better service on reduced budgets and open source can help lead the way!

Maybe we will get lucky and this will only be a "serious recession" like 1980-82. Or this could look more like a modern version of the 1870s, 1890s or 1930s. Or 1990s-2000s Japan. Either way, Red Hat, with its high value, cost-effective open source subscriptions and services, stands ready to serve and help enterprises, value chains, and governments not only survive, but to prepare for prosperity again!

Red Hat Delivers JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform 4.3 to Help Enterprises Weather the Storm!

Rogue Waves are spontaneously generated large waves that may appear suddenly even on a calm sea, surprising ship crews that may be in their path, and wreaking havoc and destruction.

Black Swans are a rare type of swan mainly found in Australia. The term, black swan, has also been applied to rare events that suddenly and unexpectedly occur. Black swans in business have been popularized and described in depth by the book Black Swans: The Impact of the Highly Improbable.

The financial oceans have been quite turbulent with rogue waves and the sky filled with black swans over the past year and especially over the past weeks. We've seen a ongoing real estate crash spread to a number of markets around the world (See The Housing Bubble Blog). We've had credit markets deteriorate over the past year and accelerate in recent weeks as market participants realize that the real estate bubble and bust are much larger than previously thought. We've seen banks reel and be bought or go out of business. I personally saw a physical bank run 11 days ago at my bank with the line out the door here in Atlanta. Electronic bank runs have been rampant.

Recalling the stories of the 1930s my grandmother used to tell me when I was a child was chilling during some of these events of the past weeks. Heck, didn't we learn anything? (I guess not). Weren't we “smarter” than they were? (No...maybe not even as smart). Didn't real estate “always go up” and we'd all be rich just like they said on various home TV shows? (Having lived through the real estate crash of the late 1980s in Austin Texas, the short answer is NO).

JBoss Enterprise Middleware Delivers Enterprise SOA

What does this have to do with open source SOA? It's quite simple. We live in dramatically turbulent times. And the turbulence is not going to end soon. More on that below. SOA is an architectural approach to designing IT systems to automate business processes with greater agility and flexibility enabling a business to be responsive to rapid change. Seems like larger doses of SOA-enablement with accelerated project schedules will be forthcoming by enterprises that will survive these times and even prosper. SOA will give them competitive advantage by allowing them to respond to new customer requirements and differentiate their products and services faster than competitors locked into a stove-piped application strategy.

However, many enterprise IT budgets may be cut. IT organizations won't be able to fund projects based on complex, hard-to-develop-to and deploy, and expensive SOA Platforms. They will have to do more with less as we've seen earlier this decade when open source came to the rescue at the operating system and application server level. This time, JBoss offers the simple, open and affordable JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform that is ready and able to deliver on your enterprise integration and process automation needs. Open source SOA, battle hardened in the worldwide open source community and in an increasing number of enterprise deployments, is the ideal platform to gain competitive advantage with during these challenging times.

I was talking with one of our major financial services customers, a major American bank a couple of weeks ago as the "Panic of 2008" (We used to call them “Panics” in the 19th century) was getting underway in earnest. They've taken their lumps and face smaller budgets with demands to make the business more agile and cost-effective. They also are looking beyond this crisis by preparing the business to exceed customer expectations in service and product offerings with open source SOA deployments built on JBoss Enterprise Middleware. They are finalizing two significant deployments centered on the JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform and then will take their experience and look to expand the use of JBoss Enterprise Middleware for more SOA projects. We are excited to be working with them!

Looking Ahead

So as we deliver JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform 4.3 to help businesses weather and prosper through this financial storm, what are we likely to see? While I cannot know for sure, of course, I can draw upon my experiences living through several other manias and busts including the oil boom and bust of 1973-86, gold and coin boom and bust of 1978-82, Austin real estate boom and bust of 1983-92, stock market boom and bust of 1996-2003 and the real estate boom and bust of the late 1990s till sometime in the next couple of years when we will see the "bottom".

Since this is a real estate bust, I'd offer the following...

1. This is probably not going to be like the Great Depression of the 1930s.. It seems more like the Panic of 1893 substituting real estate for railroads. Or it could be like the Japanese "Lost Decade". We hope not, but the similarities are striking.
2. Real estate prices will bottom out when prices fall to less than 120x monthly rent. Additionally, rents will decline in overbuilt areas as well as in many resort areas. In some exurb and suburb areas the price of a house, town home, or condo may overshoot this 120x level down to 80x monthly rent (We saw this in Austin 20 years ago). 120x monthly rent is the approximate value of a house that makes sense as an income producing asset. This valuation brings typical mortgage payments in line with rental costs. Residential real estate valuations much above 120x monthly rent are generally speculative in nature and not sustainable over the long term. There are a few exceptions, such as a historical 1890s Victorian “grande dame” house fully restored and in a great location that would be worth more. Or picture perfect houses in a close-in “street car” neighborhood like those built in the 1920s and 1930s that is highly desirable may continue to command a premium due to scarcity of supply. Another way to look at it is that buying a house will become cheaper than renting one including allowing for all maintenance expenses, taxes, home owner association fees, etc... (In some areas homes may actually be nearly "free").
3. This ongoing deflation will create more stress on the financial systems around the world challenging most enterprises and value chains. Agile companies that delight their customers with innovative products and services that are also value leaders will be in the best position to prosper and take market share. We will see a lot of turbulence in both the credit markets as well as in the regulatory environment which will convey competitive advantage to those enterprises that are prepared. SOA-enabled IT will be key to that preparation. For example, an enterprise that has its business rules in JBoss Rules and made available to the business and its partners and customers through the JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform will have a great advantage over those who have their business rules locked up in stove-pipe web applications.

While there is pain, there will be great opportunities to build the next generation of great companies of the 21st century out of this turmoil. With JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform, we aim to help our customers become part of that community of leading enterprises in the coming years!

The JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform 4.3 is planned to be available by the end of October. Also, please visit the JBoss SOA Resource Center and try out our new JBoss SOA Assessment Tool to start paving your way to the new business opportunities of 2009 and beyond!

• Best App Server
• Best BPM Engine
• Best OSS SOA Tool
• Best Portal Plaform
• Best SOA Platform

The JBoss SOA early adopter Swedish Railroad has been blogged about here earlier. Matt Asay picks up on this deployment more recently here.

Additionally, I presented Open Source SOA Value and Strategy at Red Hat Summit and SOA World in late June. CIO e-magazine picked up on the Swedish RR example and other current status of open source SOA and future projections here. In particular, we see the convergence of EAI, SOA, BPM, EDA and CEP into a set of integration styles that may be implemented using a common platform - the 2nd generation ESB or SOA Platform. A flexible platform like this is a more cost effective and simpler (reduced to no need for separate architectural bases for EAI, SOA, EDA, BPM, etc...) way to implement an agile IT and enterprise in the future.