With software development moving away from the traditional data-centric approach to a business-process centric approach, specifically with regard to the implementation of service-oriented architecture (SOA), Sun Microsystems is offering customers free two-day "Jump Start" workshops to familiarise them with relevant technology and standards.
The on-demand workshops are designed to enable customers' IT and business personnel to learn more about the technology, benefits and pitfalls associated with SOA, says Tony Willis, Sun's engagement architect for sub-Saharan operations.
SOA is the next generation of system design, Willis believes, as well as a key integration tool, which provides software components that map directly to the business functions that make up a business process.
"While many of the SOA principles have been around for 20 years or more, the differentiating influence today is that universally accepted and supported standards are now in place to assure integration between software components," he explains.
These standards, emanating mainly from the World Wide Web Consortium and Oasis standards groups, have been accepted by all the major IT vendors and allow for high levels of interoperability between software from the different vendors' toolsets, Willis states.
"Previously, there were too many conflicting and competing standards hampering the development of interoperable component software, but now, with the global acceptance of Web services standards, software development tools have been improved and radically simplify the development and deployment of software components as Web services," says Willis.
Each workshop is specifically set up for each customer, ensuring that clients gain information that is ideally suited to their individual requirements, he adds.
Following its recent acquisition of SeeBeyond, Sun Microsystems has re-branded the Ican suite that allows developers to build and deploy integration and SOA solutions. SeeBeyond is now known as the Java Integration Suite.
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