Bernhard Borges

Enterprises have become increasingly sensitive to the need to become sense-and-response- enabled. That is, enterprises perceive a strategic need to be able to both respond faster and more effectively to, and initiate changes in their environment. On-demand capabilities require extensive flexibility and adaptability, which in turn require a highly integrated, zero-latency enterprise with respect to both IT systems and business and IT integration within and across organizational boundaries. Collectively, these requirements stipulate a new approach to both business and IT design and service-oriented architecture methodologies and technologies to address these issues. From a design and architectural perspective, SOA, Web services, and associated technologies, such as BPEL, have been accepted as integral components to solve the integration of distributed systems. Not su... (more)

Service-Oriented Architecture

In many respects, SOA is an evolution of the fundamental tenets governing component-based development (CBD). It also represents a quantum leap in bringing business and information technology into closer alignment through a set of SOA services grounded in business goals in support of business processes. While SOA services are visible to the service consumer, their underlying components are transparent. For the service provider, the design of components, their service exposure and management reflect key architecture and design decisions that enable services in SOA. Making these dec... (more)

Navigating Web Services

Web services promises to finally provide a universal mechanism for connecting loosely coupled systems. If the dream bears fruit, it will represent a huge advance in enterprise computing, facilitating distributed, transaction-centric collaboration in an inexpensive, quick, and reliable manner. As with every "next big thing," the combination of analyst buzz, Silicon Valley expectations, and incessant media attention has led to a manic state of frenzy. A heady mix of confusion is rarely a good thing and can derail businesses and get CIOs fired. Fast. To date, we face several issue... (more)

On - Demand Computing

When an enterprise needs more electrical power, it doesn't usually build a generating station. When it needs to transport employees to meetings in far-flung places, it generally does not build its own aircraft. Instead, an enterprise would consume services from an existing network of available services. The growing mantra of On-Demand Computing (ODC) suggests that similar ease and efficiencies may one day be available for enterprise computing. That day is not yet here. The end game of perfect ODC - in which resources flow seamlessly from where they are available to where they ar... (more)