Sonic(WSM + ESB) : Good Times Ahead

Post the acquisition of Actional, Progress announces that web services management platform will become a product unit within Sonic. This should extend the leadership that sonic has and would serve to increase the breadth of capabilities in SOA infrastructure offerings from Sonic. This acquisition marks a key milestone for Progress, and Sonic, where they are changing the shape of the industry by bringing together two major SOA infrastructure technology segments: Web services management (WSM) and enterprise service bus (ESB). The Actional and Sonic products can be used independently of one another, or combined to support the entire SOA lifecycle from service definition and deployment, to process definition and staging, to runtime visibility and real-time optimization. Dave chappell explains - Everybody has the target of SOA in their sights. But each organization views the path of how to get there somewhat differently – based on their immediate needs and concerns. Many organizations identify the need to secure and govern their web services – so we offer SOAPstation for those customers. Others see that they need to monitor and measure their SOA – so we offer Looking Glass for those customers. And others view their most immediate problem as being how to connect and orchestrate their services – and for these we have been offering the ESB. Regardless of the entry point there is an appropriate and best-of-breed solution to satisfy those requirements and a broader set of infrastructure capabilities when they move beyond those immediate requirements. It’s a good move by Sonic software, already recognized as the leader in the ESB space. The timing is also right - Web services and ESB are expected to drive further into the enterprise in 2006, with coverage focusing far more on management of Web services than on development and deployment Clearly, good time ahead for Sonic.