Fujitsu, Software AG deliver joint offering to manage integration components within an SOA

Fujitsu and Software AG have announced that they have delivered a joint offering to help organisations manage integration components within a service-oriented architecture (SOA).

Software AG South Africa Sales Director Devon Dalbock says the offering, called CentraSite, is an open, next-generation SOA repository. "It promotes greater collaboration between business and IT by uniting metadata from service-oriented integration products, including Fujitsu's Interstage Business Process Manager and Software AG's Enterprise Service Integrator and Enterprise Information Integrator," he explains.

Jointly developed by Fujitsu and Software AG, CentraSite manages SOA metadata assets and enables maximum visibility and re-use of Web services components within and across organisations. CentraSite also provides reporting on those metadata assets and supports the sharing of the assets in the context of an SOA.

"This will enable customers in South Africa and around the world to quickly and cost-effectively implement initiatives for business transformation, process excellence and improved customer service," Dalbock says.

Gartner analyst Yefim Natis comments: "One of the key prerequisites to successfully implementing SOA on a significant scale is the ability to store, track and manage all of the service, process, integration and other metadata as well as the control data for governance, compliance and event tracking that will only increase in significance and volume over time."

Fujitsu and Software AG will initially offer the following three products enabled with CentraSite:

* Fujitsu's Interstage Business Process Manager - models, automates and optimises business processes to increase business agility, efficiency, competitiveness and profitability.
* Software AG's Enterprise Information Integrator - provides a single view of information to business users when and where they need it to enable better decision-making.
* Software AG's Enterprise Service Integrator - an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) that orchestrates Web services into new business services from existing systems to more quickly align data and business logic with business requirements.

Both companies have agreed to continue to extend the number of products enabled with CentraSite. Additionally, Fujitsu and Software AG are developing a community programme to allow partners and other technology vendors to use CentraSite. This programme is currently planned for introduction at the beginning of 2006.

The CentraSite announcement follows the strategic partnership agreement signed between Fujitsu and Software AG in March of this year, in which the two organisations pledged to develop the SOA repository. In addition, they agreed that Fujitsu would market Software AG's Enterprise Service Integrator and Enterprise Information Integrator, and Software AG would market Fujitsu's Interstage Business Process Manager.

"In partnering with Fujitsu, we have combined our strengths and common vision to produce a revolutionary set of products for business integration based on the power and flexibility of SOA," Dalbock says. "Together, we can now enable global enterprises to maximise the value of their service-oriented architectures by enhancing collaboration and providing a tight link between IT investments and business results."