IBM Offers 'SOA Healthcheck' Workshops

IBM's global services organization is adding "health check" services to
its repertoire of technical services for SOA deployments, looking to
assist users dealing with issues resulting from poor planning or
partnerships with inexperienced or so-called proprietary IT vendors.
The company also is offering its "identity-aware ESB," which is an
enterprise service bus that combines existing IBM products to provide
identity management capabilities. Health-check services and software
will be offered in two workshops to be held at customer sites, featuring
specialized diagnostics and triage capabilities to help identify
potentially unhealthy areas and recommend cures for problem areas. The
applications and services workshop is intended to provide assurance
that an SOA can expand beyond pilot projects. Factors such as application
reuse and service use will be assessed, as will identification of rogue
services as part of a governance policy. Security also will be checked
for service controls and identity management. The infrastructure workshop
features an assessment of infrastructure supporting applications and
services layers in an SOA. Elements examined include infrastructure
flexibility, the ability to adapt to spikes in demand, and verifying
SOA configurations for connectivity. A service management review ensures
that services are being monitored. IBM's identity-aware ESB combines
WebSphere ESB products with Tivoli security and identity management
software to help ensure that access to information, services, and
applications is protected. Auditing of identity and access activity is
enabled.