Web 2.0 Powered by SOA

Mark Scrimshire blogged about attending a Ray Valdes presentation on Portals and Mashups (see the blog here). The article nicely explains how Web 2.0 and SOA technologies combine to produce a new generation of portals, fed by information culled from throughout the enterprise. The separation of concerns between Web 2.0 and SOA technologies can be summarized in a single sentence:

“Information is delivered through a Portal, Not by a Portal.”

Simply put, Web 2.0 provides the visual set of user-customizable portlets, while SOA supplies the information for the visual screens. The information is typically provided in a service-oriented manner, with a lightweight REST approach gaining preference over SOAP for the service delivery mechanism. Interestingly, over 50% of the audience was specifically using an SOA strategy, but only about 10% felt the process was successful. Deployment cylces were reportedly very long, on the order of 2 years before demonstrating value.

The project I lead at XAware.org fits nicely into this Web 2.0 and SOA approach. XAware lets you quickly build and manage data services from any number of enterprise data sources, then deliver those services using a lightweight REST or POX (plain old XML over HTTP) transport. Enterprise data is complex, with the typical company housing hundreds of data sources. The complexity of this environment explains the long development cycles mentioned above. XAware specifically targets the complexity by mapping different sections of your XML-based service contract to different back end systems, using the Eclipse-based design environment. XAware users seem to agree, as the user base is growing rapidly, especially where many data sources and complex information structures are involved.