Start-up eyes open source Web services

WSO2 executives promise easier deployment and management of SOAs.

With an open source middleware platform designed for Web services, a start-up launched by former IBM executives promises easier deployment and management of service-oriented architectures.

WSO2 last week rolled out its Tungsten application server, the first product in what will be a complete line of Web services-based middleware. Tungsten supports XML, Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and other Web services standards. In contrast, Java-based application servers from vendors such as BEA, IBM and JBoss support Java-based transactional applications, so Web services support must be layered on top.

"The traditional application server is designed to support scalable transactional Web sites. . . . The whole [Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition] architecture isn't designed for SOA," says Jason Bloomberg, a senior analyst at ZapThink. "Java is all about portability - write once, run anywhere - while SOA is about interoperability, where now you have code, you leave it where it is and it interoperates via messages."

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With an open source middleware platform designed for Web services, a start-up launched by former IBM executives promises easier deployment and management of service-oriented architectures.

WSO2 last week rolled out its Tungsten application server, the first product in what will be a complete line of Web services-based middleware. Tungsten supports XML, Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and other Web services standards. In contrast, Java-based application servers from vendors such as BEA, IBM and JBoss support Java-based transactional applications, so Web services support must be layered on top.

"The traditional application server is designed to support scalable transactional Web sites. . . . The whole [Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition] architecture isn't designed for SOA," says Jason Bloomberg, a senior analyst at ZapThink. "Java is all about portability - write once, run anywhere - while SOA is about interoperability, where now you have code, you leave it where it is and it interoperates via messages."

The idea is to provide a simpler framework that will make it easier for customers to control Web services deployments, says Sanjiva Weerawarana, CEO and co-founder of WSO2. Weerawarana founded WSO2 after spending eight years working on IBM's Web services strategy.

"I came to the conclusion that the way IBM was implementing [Web services] was not the optimal approach. They took WebSphere and put a layer in front to make it speak Web services," he says. "I thought the Web services platform was more amenable to a lighter-weight, easier-to-use platform, rather than layering [Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition] with Web services."

Increasingly, companies are looking to Web services to create a flexible business environment in which applications communicate over the Internet. Web services are application components that can be cobbled together on the fly via such standards as SOAP.

"From an administrative perspective, with J2EE, you get two different views of the world: You have the Web services view, and you have the J2EE view," Weerawarana says. "Whereas in our case it's going to be simply the service-oriented view and nothing else," he adds.

WSO2 Tungsten is open source, built on Apache Axis2, an open source foundation that can expose existing or new applications as Web services. WSO2 makes its products available for free under the Apache License, but will charge for service and support. Annual support for Tungsten starts at $3,000 for as many as two servers.

WSO2 has not released customers' names but says there are several in the financial services sector testing the product.

A recent $4 million infusion from Intel Capital helps validate WSO2's business model, but like most open source companies, its biggest challenge will be in how successful it is in selling services and support around the software, Bloomberg says. "They've identified an important niche," he says. "WSO2 is an indication of the post-Java, non-Microsoft approach to distributed computing. It will be interesting to see if it pans out."