Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2005/09/01/oasis_soa/

LogicLibrary applies smarts to SOA work

Joins OASIS, does the math

By Gavin Clarke

Posted in Channel, 1st September 2005 17:21 GMT

A cross-industry project to develop blueprints for developers building service oriented architectures (SOAs) is getting an added infusion of expertise.

LogicLibrary is taking a seat on OASIS’s SOA Adoption Blueprints Technical Committee, formed in August, having announced Wednesday it is formally joining the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS).

The company is a potentially important force in the committee's work. LogicLibrary brings the benefit of its experience in the developer tools world gained from partnerships with Microsoft, IBM, Borland and the open source Eclipse Foundation, in addition to customers that include the Global 2000.

Founded in 2000, LogicLibrary's tools and services help organizations to discover and chart their software assets - such as software components or services - in a graphical format. These assets can then be stored in a library for re-use.

Assets like software components are seen as important building blocks for web services and SOAs. Being able to find and store these assets means companies are in a better position to develop and re-use them in web services and SOAs.

OASIS announced its committee in May but missing from the line-up were any big-name vendors whose enterpise software forms an integral part of SOAs. Instead, members of the committee include the likes of Adobe, DataPower and Infravio.

The problem seems to be OASIS's decision to define SOAs as a clear and consistent set of blue prints. OASIS plans to specify a set of logical boundaries and components that compose SOAs for use in different scenarios.

The issue for vendors is that they use different terms to describe SOAs. That's partly because there is no agreed industry definition and partly because the use of relative definitions helps them promote their own offerings over those of rivals. In another age, we'd have called it an attempt at vendor lock-in.

LogicLibrary is clearly against this. The company justifies its new role, saying the successful deployment and advancement of web services and SOAs relies on the successful creation and acceptance of a clear set of industry standards. ®