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JBoss Projects Form Red Hat SOA Stack


Open-source ESB, BPM form core of new middleware suite

By Alex Handy
February 14, 2008 — 
Red Hat has thrown itself into the enterprise SOA ring. Although its acquisition of JBoss in June 2006 hinted at middleware aspirations, today the first fully formed fruits of that move were finally released Feb. 14.


The JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform is formed by the intersection of many JBoss open-source projects, and includes the JBoss enterprise services bus (ESB), the JBoss jBPM for process management, and JBoss Rules. Each piece of the SOA puzzle is designed to work with outside sources of data and with existing SOA infrastructure from companies such as Amberpoint, SOA Software and Vitria.

The platform, announced at the annual JBoss World in Orlando, Fla., will be bolstered by a new initiative within Red Hat, called Enterprise Acceleration.

Craig Muzilla, vice president of the middleware business at Red Hat, said that his goal is to expand the open-source ecosystem around the new JBoss platform. By creating integration projects and completing middleware projects under JBoss, Muzilla and his team hope to push the gas pedal on SOA adoption in enterprises, with the help of simpler tools, more dynamic stacks and vibrant third-party participation.

However, at least one analyst isn’t impressed. Jason Bloomberg, managing partner at ZapThink, called the SOA platform “new labels on old stuff.”

He added that JBoss middleware has been “setting the bar for all the [competing] commercial products. All the commercial products have to be better than JBoss,” said Bloomberg, because the value proposition of these open-source projects is high enough to make them reasonable alternatives to expensive commercial solutions.

But that doesn't mean Red Hat's SOA future is assured, he cautioned. “The SOA story is not particularly strong. They have Web services support, but Red Hat is still struggling to compete with other vendor-driven initiatives,” Bloomberg said. He argued that no software provider should be driving an SOA project for the client, but that many companies do allow that to happen. And, in these cases, the door is firmly closed to Red Hat.


Open Middleware

Kicking off this initiative are three projects from JBoss revealed at the conference. The first is BlackTie, an effort to build the facilities for Java applications and environments to deal with legacy distributed transaction systems. BlackTie takes its cue from BEA's Tuxedo and will be compatible with systems using that project. The primary goal will be to integrate existing mainframe C/C++ applications with Java-based middleware environments.

Next on the list is the JBoss.org DNA project. Already under way in the open-source community, this project is based on the technology Red Hat acquired when it purchased MetaMatrix in April 2007. The ultimate goal is an SOA governance solution that includes a UDDI registry and repository.

The final project announced was RHQ—the product of a combined effort from Red Hat and Hyperic Inc. RHQ is a management platform that will form the basis of JBoss Operations Network 2.0, which will arrive later this year. The platform will be used to manage services and the environments and systems that bring those services to bear in an SOA environment.

Bloomberg expects Red Hat's new projects and middleware offerings to help keep the company well armed in its battles against IBM.


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