An alliance of software vendors has announced progress on specifications to define a language-neutral programming model for application development within service-oriented architecture environments. The vendors have been working together to create Service Component Architecture (SCA) and Service Data Objects (SDO) specifications.
The new progress includes the development of new draft SCA specifications for a declarative policy framework; improved description of connectivity with bindings specifications for JMS, JCA and Web Services; and new BPEL and PHP authoring models. In addition, draft specifications for Service Assembly; Java and C++ service authoring; and SDO have been updated.
Since agreeing to work together on new industry specifications to simplify SOA application development in November 2005, BEA Systems Inc., IBM, IONA, Oracle, SAP AG, Sybase, Xcalia and Zend have been joined by Cape Clear, Interface21, Primeton Technologies, Progress Software, Red Hat, Rogue Wave Software, Software AG, Sun Microsystems and TIBCO Software Inc. With the new partners on board, the group of 17 organizations spans SOA and applications companies to infrastructure and open source providers.
The progress report of the team said they have achieved considerable technical progress in developing SCA and SDO technologies, including new and updated draft specifications. The SCA specifications are designed to help simplify the creation and composition of business services while the SDO specifications focus on uniform access to data residing in multiple locations and formats.
According to a March 2006 Gartner report entitled "SCA Is a Winner in the Quest to Establish a Common Notation for SOA", Gartner Research VP Jess Thompson states, "One of the most important aspects of SCA is that it establishes a foundation for a standard notation for expressing a standard set of concepts for specifying service-oriented architecture."
The team claims that the SCA and SDO specifications can help organizations to more easily create new and transform existing IT assets, enabling reusable services that may be rapidly assembled to meet changing business requirements. These specifications promises to reduce complexity associated with developing applications by providing a way to unify services regardless of programming language and deployment platform.
The group also launched a vendor-neutral Web site (www.OSOA.org) to serve as an information resource for access to draft specifications, white papers, and for providing a forum for industry input and feedback.
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