By this time next year, IBM's WebSphere Application Server (WAS) will be a very different middleware product than it is today. That's because IBM is embarking on an extensive redesign of WAS that will enable it to integrate other middleware products into what the computer giant calls a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). The first release of the redesigned product will be WAS 6.0, which IBM intends to ship during the second half of 2004.
The distinguishing feature of WAS 6.0--which IBM internally refers to by its code name of Vela--will be its ability to import core functions from other IBM middleware products. This ability will extend not only to WebSphere products, but also to selected DB2, Lotus, and Tivoli solutions. IBM intends to ship WAS 6.0 on Windows and Linux as well as on its own operating systems, including OS/400. It also intends to ship Express editions of the product.
Reinventing the Application Server
To understand why IBM is redesigning WAS, it is important to realize that while today's Web application servers have solved some important IT problems, they have also helped to perpetuate a few of them. In the late 1990s, many companies used Web application servers such as WAS to transform their Web sites from static information repositories into dynamic centers for Internet transactions. Unfortunately, most of the new Web applications ran in relative isolation from other corporate IT systems. This occurred because there were no simple, standards-based methods for integrating Web applications with existing applications across heterogeneous systems.
Several years ago, IBM realized that Web services could provide such a set of methods for integrating systems. In response, the company embraced Web services and started to embed support for them in its products. However, IBM quickly realized that Web services by themselves could not integrate systems any more than a collection of engine parts could propel a car down a road. What IBM needed was an SOA--an integrated platform of middleware and systems management functions that would be made available to all applications as Web services. Such an SOA would allow developers to invoke all of the services they needed to integrate, run, and manage distributed applications with the highest levels of availability and security.
At the same time, IBM realized that its SOA would need to be highly flexible and infinitely configurable to meet the unique needs of its users. For instance, while some organizations might need a Web service to federate multiple databases, others would have no need for such a feature. As such, IBM decided that its SOA should be modular, allowing companies to deploy only those services they need to integrate their systems.
As part of its strategy, IBM is redesigning WAS to act as its main "SOA hub." In this capacity, WAS 6.0 will identify, authenticate, and incorporate other IBM middleware components into its own operations. To perform these functions, WAS 6.0 will make heavy use of the Web Services Description Language (WSDL)--as well as support for the Java 2 Enterprise Edition 1.4 (J2EE) specification and the Web Services Interoperability Organization's Basic Profile--to bind middleware components into an SOA. These components will ship with WAS 6.0 or may be purchased and installed separately. In either case, the components will automatically establish communications with WAS 6.0 and become part of the application server's runtime environment.
While IBM is not yet publicly discussing what middleware components WAS 6.0 will be able to incorporate, it will likely include core functions in most of the IBM products that support WSDL and related Web services standards. One such product is Tivoli Access Manager, which provides federated identity management services across an organization. Last month, IBM announced that Tivoli Access Manager and related Tivoli products will support the Web services standards found in the WS-Security specification, including Kerberos and the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML).
By enabling WAS 6.0 to automatically incorporate other middleware components as services, IBM could dramatically improve both the ease and the depth of integration between its diverse software products. This could significantly reduce the time that software vendors, solution providers, and in-house programmers must spend to install and integrate IBM middleware products. It could also allow IBM to create an array of modular middleware packages that meet the requirements of particular industries and business processes.
At the same time, WAS 6.0 could pose migration challenges for customers who have built advanced applications on earlier WAS versions. This could include iSeries software vendors who have incorporated multiple IBM middleware products and Enterprise JavaBeans (EJBs) into their solutions. If the migration challenges turn out to be significant, WAS 6.0 may not make serious inroads at iSeries shops until late 2005.
I want to stress, however, that these observations remain hypothetical until IBM offers further details about WAS 6.0. Those details are likely to start coming next month, when IBM intends to give developers an early preview of its next-generation application server. I'll have more to say about WAS 6.0 when that occurs, so stay tuned.
Lee Kroon is a Senior Industry Analyst for Andrews Consulting Group, a firm that helps mid-sized companies manage business transformation through technology. You can reach him at
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