Latest News from Ajit Sagar

SOA in the Small

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 16:30:00 EST

At my firm, Infosys Technologies, I have come across several clients who are actively trying to explore, consider, adopt, embrace, or become completely immersed in SOA. Here is a typical call I've received, where our client rep says, 'Ajit, we've got a very critical meeting with the CIO of company ABC. He is very excited about moving his entire organization toward SOA. Can you come and present our SOA capabilities to the client on Monday?'

Architecting For SOA

Tue, 23 Jan 2007 15:15:00 EST

The term 'architecture group' is a heavily loaded one. I've run into different scenarios at the various clients that have engaged us for consulting on their architecture strategy. In some cases, we have been asked to help seed and grow such a group. In other cases, we've been asked to put together plans to define the organization of an architecture group. And sometimes, we just supplement the existing architecture group.

Service Synchronicity

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 15:00:00 EDT

The entire premise behind the Web services paradigm is enabling access to loosely coupled services via the Web. In essence, Web services are based on a synchronous request-response type interaction. On the other hand, a client's interaction with a Web service can be synchronous or asynchronous.

How Much SOA?

Sun, 24 Sep 2006 18:30:00 EDT

Companies that decide to invest in SOA sometimes end up going to extremes - too little or too much. Too little happens when some stakeholder latches onto the buzzword and wants to get the benefits promised. However, the environment may be too conservative to invest in the infrastructure and planning required to service-orient existing applications. In this case, an analysis concludes that business as usual is doing just fine, and that there's no need to introduce fancy technologies and platforms. A few minor tweaks to the existing infrastructure are considered sufficient to get on the SOA bandwagon.

SOA Web Services Journal - U Don't Deploy It

Tue, 13 Jun 2006 12:00:00 EDT

A few years ago, when Web services started out as a buzzword in the enterprise, the whole paradigm was associated with (and still is) associated with three concepts - SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI. Now, when enterprises are putting Web services into production, you will most likely see two out of the three stakes being driven into the ground, but I have yet to see any real adoption of the 'dynamic' part of any Web services implementation. Web services are taking root as a very feasible platform for achieving service orientation (not the only platform, mind you), but none of the clients that I have interacted with have any plan to adopt a UDDI-based service registry in the near or long term.

Applying Business Rules Engines in SOA applications

Tue, 06 Jun 2006 17:00:00 EDT

This session will provide guidelines, best practices, and a methodology to design and implement Business Rules Engine based projects to service-enable your enterprise. The implementation areas will apply to large enterprise applications with multiple dependencies.

Applying Process Orchestration in SOA Applications

Mon, 05 Jun 2006 11:00:00 EDT

This session will provide guidelines, best practices, and a methodology to design and design application leveraging Process Orchestration in the SOA initiatives. The implementation areas will apply to large enterprise applications with multiple dependencies.

SOA Web Services Journal Editorial: "Opening SOA"

Mon, 10 Apr 2006 14:30:00 EDT

The feasibility of adopting new technology in the computing world is governed in large part, as it is in other paradigms, by the cost-benefit-risk equation. In the world of electronic computing, whenever a cost-benefit analysis is done, the benefit/risk of adopting open source solutions almost always comes up for discussion. Open source solutions offer very feasible cost-effective alternatives to commercial vendor products for realizing an SOA.

But Will It Work?

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 11:45:00 EST

One of the biggest barriers to SOA adoption is fear of not meeting the high demands of the runtime environment coupled with the need to provide business agility. As more layers have been introduced by the components of the new technology stacks, the points of failure in distributed application have multiplied. While the IT side of the house is very enthusiastic about the plethora of features provided by technologies typically associated with the SOA stack - object-orientation, process orchestration, Web services, business rules, and so on - the business side of the house is usually hesitant to invest substantially in new territories that may lead to high risk for existing businesses.

SOA Web Services: "Ruling Out Services"

Thu, 26 Jan 2006 19:00:00 EST

Ask 10 people the question: What is SOA? You will most likely get 10 different answers. Chances are that in more than 50 percent of the cases, the word 'Web services' will be a part of the answer. Another 20 percent will talk about process orchestration, XML, integration, and so on. All of these answers definitely describe either the elements of SOA or the components used for the implementation of SOA. One of the technology paradigms that does not instantly come to mind though is 'business rules.'

Using Services

Mon, 19 Dec 2005 14:45:00 EST

It never ceases to amaze me how ambiguity in the definition of simple terms can lead to design choices that have a huge impact on the success of projects. Recently I had a long discussion with a colleague at a client site, where we are in the process of assessing the artifacts that have been created for a Web services-based service-oriented architecture. While we are talking about terms and definitions, let us be clear about the fact that there is a paradigm called service-oriented architecture, and there is a platform on which it can be realized called Web services. Often the two are confused. They are definitely not the same. One is a concept, the other is a technology platform.

Managing the Stack in Java Platform

Mon, 19 Dec 2005 14:30:00 EST

As the complexity of enterprise applications grows with the increased offerings in the Java platform, the management of the different building blocks that constitute the application also becomes very complex. The challenge in managing applications in the enterprise is posed from many fronts. Organizationally, the corporation has to decide whether they manage all the IT services for the applications in-house, or leverage the benefits of outsourcing to meet the needs of their environment. Typically the hosting of applications and the management of the lowest tier of the stack - the hardware - is outsourced. Next comes the management of the OS itself - administration of releases, patches, configuration, etc.

Open Source SOA Web Services: Openly Managing Web Services

Wed, 07 Dec 2005 13:00:00 EST

Last month I talked to a couple of vendors who are making new inroads in the services arena through open source offerings. Open source support in Web services is definitely very heartening. While the frameworks and utilities for implementing Web services in enterprise applications have matured, the standards of critical functions of promoting the 'service bus' concept, which decouples Web services from the realization of an SOA, and the effective deployment and management of services, are still evolving. ESB as a concept has caught on very well in architecture discussions and vision, but I haven't seen too many examples of where large enterprises have actually implemented the design in their applications.

Open Servicing

Sun, 02 Oct 2005 15:00:00 EDT

It seems as though as soon as the open source community rallies around a technology, the IT industry starts taking it more seriously - and finds practical application for it. Ironically, although organizations like the concept, despite the maturation of the open source community in a variety of platforms and technologies, adoption of open source products in large organizations is still an uphill battle. The good news is that mainstream vendor products are now based on a combination of open source technologies, and so mature products from the community are finding homes in many corporations.

SOA Web Services Journal Editorial – SOA Makes for a Strange Bedfellow

Wed, 21 Sep 2005 17:00:00 EDT

Over the last few years, Web services and SOA have made a lot of inroads into not only the IT departments of large enterprises, but also into the minds of the business owners of different LOBs (Lines of Business). SOA is more than Web services; it is the mantra for bridging the gaps and walls between IT and business.

One Little Service Jumping on the Net...

Fri, 26 Aug 2005 15:00:00 EDT

As organizations bravely venture into the world of Web services, they grapple with the age-old question - where do we begin? The main challenge that I have seen with key stakeholders looking to move towards the agile enterprise is solving the dilemma of which approach to take, top down or bottom up.

The G.E. of Software

Wed, 10 Aug 2005 09:00:00 EDT

At JavaOne this year, one of the biggest announcements (albeit this one had nothing really to do with Java) was the acquisition of SeeBeyond by Sun Microsystems. It looks like Sun is putting its cash, which it has plenty of, to good use. As we have seen over the last decade of Java, Sun is not really a poster child for making money from software sales. The SeeBeyond acquisition seems to indicate a shift in paradigm, an attempt to drive a stake into another tier (SOA) of the multi-tier enterprise application stack, a way to expand the customer base, and perhaps make some money on software.

Phasing in SOA and Web Services

Tue, 02 Aug 2005 22:30:00 EDT

Over the last couple of years, the industry has rallied around SOA and its main realization platform - Web services. While many of the clients I meet are still wary about the adoption of new technology, integration dilemmas posed by the variety of software and hardware platforms has led them to buy into the promise of improving on business agility through SOA. The ubiquitous nature of Web services is something that even business owners appreciate, as they have been burned before by the disparity in the technologies that their applications have been based on.

Distributing Excellence: SOA Web Services

Tue, 28 Jun 2005 10:00:00 EDT

As SOA and Web services adoption in the industry is gaining more momentum, the need to get quick wins and to show the value of adopting new (or old) paradigms is weighed against the risk of facing the repercussions of slapping something together in a quick and dirty fashion and paying the higher cost later. Many of our smart clients (not to be confused with .NET smart clients) are putting together the right groups to facilitate the adoption of these new technologies across their organizations.

On the Tenth Year of Java My Client Asked of Me...

Fri, 24 Jun 2005 07:00:00 EDT

If we consider JavaOne as the event when Java was born, then June 27-30, 2005, will mark its tenth birthweek. A lot has happened since the language that was trademarked with dancing dukes made its appearance into the world of computing. In its current incarnation, the Java platform is undoubtedly the backbone of distributed enterprise applications in today's IT.

BPM: Too Much or Too Little?

Wed, 25 May 2005 16:00:00 EDT

I'd like to take a moment to introduce myself. I've been working with SYS-CON for about eight years now, across different publications, so when Sean talked to me about providing regular content for WSJ, I thought to myself, 'Cool.' I am also the enterprise editor for JDJ - so you should see a lot of cross-magazine content. Part of what I want to bring in as 'International Technical Editor' for WSJ is some articles from around the world.

SOA, Web Services, and GDM

Fri, 22 Apr 2005 09:00:00 EDT

A couple of months ago I got an e-mail inviting me to keynote an SOA/Web Services conference in Beijing. My immediate reaction was - 'Good. China has reached the stage where it's hosting international conferences on the subject.' Actually, 2005 marks the fourth time this particular conference is being held. While China is growing rapidly in IT, it's fairly new to the services game. My subsequent thought was - 'This is great, the pitch for service orientation is becoming a reality.'

Report From Beijing: Web Services and SOA In China

Mon, 11 Apr 2005 00:00:00 EDT

China is second only to India these days when it comes to delivering global IT software services. How does a technology conference there differ from a North American one? Ajit Sagar, founding editor of XML-Journal and longtime editorial board member of JDJ, reports direct from Beijing - where 2 days ago he gave a keynote at 'Web Services China 2005.'

SOA, MSOA, and Java

Wed, 09 Mar 2005 00:00:00 EST

SOA is obviously the new buzzword of the day. Among the many acronyms, one that is seen very often is 'Same Old Architecture.' In many ways, this is true. The key differentiator between the paradigms that have been prevalent in the past and this new incarnation of 'service-orientation' is that the new definition of services is targeting the business as well as the technical side of the house. Same old architecture - different politics.

Migrating Enterprise Applications Between J2EE Application Servers

Wed, 09 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST

When I first got involved in the planning for a project that involved the migration of applications between versions of IBM's WebSphere product, I naively thought - 'This can't be that big a deal. After all it's just different versions of the application server. And the changes in the Java platforms between WebSphere versions is well documented. In fact, IBM even provides a Redbook to do the migration...'

Java Track - Migrating Enterprise Applications Between J2EE Application Servers

Tue, 14 Dec 2004 00:00:00 EST

This session will provide guidelines, best practices, and a methodology to tackle a problem that is sapping the budgets of enterprise which have invested heavily in J2EE technology - the migration of enterprise applications .

Take Two Patterns and Call Me in the Morning

Wed, 06 Oct 2004 00:00:00 EDT

Life is not easy for today's enterprise application architects. In today's IT world, the architect not only has to design solutions for a plethora of interdependent systems (as is obvious from the job description and title), he or she also has to conform to the ever-evolving standards in a shorter API life cycle, plan for the not-too-distant future, collaborate with business and technical environments, and work on a feasible roadmap for his or her application/application portfolio.

The Blind Men, the Elephant, and App Server Migration

Thu, 05 Aug 2004 00:00:00 EDT

The six blind men who attempted to describe the elephant eventually described it only from their perspectives - the parts and not the whole. The same malady can be found lurking in one of the problems that faces many organizations that have adopted J2EE as their platform of choice: the migration of these applications between J2EE application servers - be it vendors or versions.

SYS-CON Radio Interviews FiveSight Technologies, Inc.

Tue, 10 Jun 2003 00:00:00 EDT

SYS-CON Radio host Ajit Sagar interviews Paul Brown, CEO of FiveSight Technologies, Inc. about the future of Java development as its divided between higher-level tools and core development. The interview also covered the important things to look for when aligning development best practices with integrated platform offerings from BPM and workflow vendors.

The Proof Is in the Concept

Thu, 01 May 2003 00:00:00 EDT

In a large project, designing for performance often turns out to be a chicken or egg situation. In a J2EE project, this is even more evident. Typically when business and functional requirements are handed down to the technical team, the first step is to map the functional subsystems into software components, and then to hand out the design of those components to respective team leads for design and implementation. This is part of the responsibilities of the project architect.

How EE Is Your J2?

Tue, 01 Apr 2003 00:00:00 EST

My 2 1/2 year old son has a birth certificate on his door that says 'native Texan.' Now I've lived in Dallas for several more years than those he has covered in his short stint on this planet, but that doesn't make me a native Texan. I am in a strange state of flux right now. I am originally from India, have lived in Dallas for about 11 years and have a house there, am living out of Denver for a few months, and I spend five working days in Milwaukee every week.

Living Inside the Box

Sat, 01 Mar 2003 00:00:00 EST

One of my recent clients had an entire suite of applications that was built on an in-house messaging framework. Several years ago, when not many Java frameworks existed in the market and J2EE was still a few years away, this would have been considered a good thing; today, any new development on a proprietary framework takes the client further away from fully leveraging the facilities offered by J2EE. Although there is definitely a strong push to move to a J2EE enterprise type of environment, migrating legacy systems to J2EE is a formidable undertaking.

Integrate My Environment

Sat, 01 Feb 2003 00:00:00 EST

If you wanted a home theater system, would you buy a shrink-wrapped solution - a preconfigured system from a single brand? Or are you one of those folks who would like to buy a TV from here, a receiver from there, and speaker from hither, and the amplifier from yonder? Because you can mix and match the best with the best. Of course, if you are the latter type, you have to know enough about connecting electronic components to set things up on your own, because coordinating support from multiple vendors can definitely be a headache.

TCO for Linux and J2EE Projects

Wed, 01 Jan 2003 00:00:00 EST

A colleague of mine is an easy target for anything that's free. I'm not talking about free from the perspective of 'unshackled' or 'independent.' Rather, I'm talking about the type of free that won't make his wallet thinner. To him anything that looks, tastes, or smells 'free' is the most beautiful thing in the world, at least at that moment. As we all know, there's no such thing as free in real life. There is the concept of what's cheap, but cheap is relative.

'Tis the Season for Amalgamations

Sun, 01 Dec 2002 00:00:00 EST

By the time you get this issue, Christmas will be around the corner. From the J2EE arena, what is on your wish list for the coming year? More sophisticated tools? All-encompassing solutions for your business? More J2EE-related jobs next year? A utopia where J2EE and .NET can live together happily ever after? Better, cheaper, faster environments to build your solutions?

eXtreme J2EE

Fri, 01 Nov 2002 00:00:00 EST

When I first started programming, it was with a small company. Life was simple. I understood all the requirements, and knew all the aspects of the application and how to pull everything together. If I was working with a team of programmers, the projects were small enough that the team knew each other's code thoroughly.

JBuilder 7.0 Enterprise Edition

Tue, 01 Oct 2002 00:00:00 EDT

There's no doubt about it. Borland makes great products for developers. They're definitely expensive and usually complex but very powerful. I've been using JBuilder 6 for several months, and when I had the opportunity to review the latest version, I jumped at the chance.

Complex Relationships

Tue, 01 Oct 2002 00:00:00 EDT

EJB 2.0 is testimony to the fact that the J2EE model has come a long way. You can do a lot of things with 2.0 that were tedious and error-prone in EJB 1.1. The Container Managed Persistence (CMP) relationship management alone makes it worthwhile. Just define all database access through method calls on entity beans, configure the deployment descriptors to recognize the method calls, set the autogeneration of RDBMS tables to 'true,' start the server, and you're ready to rumble.

Verifying Java for the Enterprise

Sun, 01 Sep 2002 00:00:00 EDT

About three months ago, my two-year old son discovered the word 'cup.' He would call everything a cup, though he had no clue what a cup was. Finally we figured out a way for him to call a cup a cup we pointed to a cup every time he uttered the word. In my technological world of J2EE, I could map this activity to certification and verification.

Talking About My Generation

Thu, 01 Aug 2002 00:00:00 EDT

I'm sure you've heard many of the cannibal jokes. One of my favorites is a news flash in a cannibal tribe announcing the invention of the 'pressure cooker': 'We have news of a device that cooks a man within minutes, and even lets out a whistle when it's done.' Though technology brings to fruition concepts that were conceived of only a few decades ago, our expectations of technology far exceed the speed at which it makes solutions available.

Team Spirit

Mon, 01 Jul 2002 00:00:00 EDT

Here's a short pop quiz: Have you ever built an application in J2EE and taken it through the entire product life cycle? Or, for that matter, any distributed computing application? If the answer is 'Yes,' then answer this one: Have you handled all the facets of the application on your own - as a one-man team?

SYS-CON Radio Interviews Actional Corp.

Tue, 25 Jun 2002 00:00:00 EDT

SYS-CON Radio interviews Ken Rutsky, VP of Product Marketing from Actional Corp.

SYS-CON Radio Interviews Richard Hale Shaw

Tue, 25 Jun 2002 00:00:00 EDT

SYS-CON Radio interviews Richard Hale Shaw of the Richard Hale Shaw Group.

SYS-CON Radio Interviews Improv Technologies

Tue, 25 Jun 2002 00:00:00 EDT

SYS-CON Radio interviews Joe Brookman, Chief Marketing Officer of Improv Technologies.

Integrating Development

Sat, 01 Jun 2002 00:00:00 EDT

Some years ago I did all my coding in vi, then later in Emacs. I still believe these are great editors; I just don't use them anymore for Java development, especially J2EE application development. I'm much more productive if I use an IDE whose sole purpose in life is to facilitate product development. I can probably still write code faster if I use vi. However, I doubt I could meet my deadlines if all I had was a tool that was primarily meant to be an editor. Emacs is a great environment for setting up and using a development environment. However, it is for all purposes a code editor, not an IDE..

Are You Being Served?

Wed, 01 May 2002 00:00:00 EDT

I'll never buy a Casio watch again. Not just because they break down - that's just the luck of the draw - but because of their extremely poor service. I've spent months trying to get my $200 watch back from their service center, but to no avail. It isn't the money that matters; it's the principle of the thing. For a couple of months it was nearly impossible to get anyone on the phone, and there was no advertised Web address for contacting the service center.

Enterprise JavaBeans

Wed, 01 May 2002 00:00:00 EDT

Although I've been following EJB 2.0 very closely, it was only recently that I walked into a project that was the perfect venue for its new features, such as the much enhanced container-managed persistence and local interfaces. And Enterprise JavaBeans, written by Richard Monson-Haefel, fit the bill as a reference and learning guide.

First Impressions - JaveOne 2002 Show Report

Wed, 01 May 2002 00:00:00 EDT

Sun's seventh annual JavaOne conference was held March 25-28 at the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco. This was the sixth Java conference I attended and it was interesting to compare it with the previous shows.

The Changing Faces of XML

Thu, 18 Apr 2002 00:00:00 EDT

The XML landscape has been changing at the speed of light in the last couple of years. The rapid evolutions and new additions to the XML universe have increased in frequency even as the technologies and markets around it have consolidated. Add new paradigms such as Web services to the mix and you see XML blazing a trail that might seem to the nontechnical observer hard to keep track of.

Designing for the nth tier

Mon, 01 Apr 2002 00:00:00 EST

You want to develop a new business application based on your particular business problem. You get a software team to pull together the right mix of technologies to build the required software components. You choose an architect to capture your business requirements and to define the right mix of software and hardware to deploy the appropriate solution.