Oracle is offering a one-stop shop to customers seeking
to build a service-oriented architecture (SOA) by bundling together
several middleware products.
An SOA environment allows firms to deploy applications and
services over the web quickly so they can react flexibly to the
changing needs of their business.
Oracle is now selling a number of its Fusion solutions as the
Oracle SOA Suite.
The integrated products will have a common installation process
and similar management tools. Oracle said the new suite, which
incorporates its BPEL (Business Process Execution Language) and ESB
(Enterprise Service Bus) products, represented a one-stop shop for
SOA deployments.
Oracle said the suite was also designed to work with other
suppliers’ SOA offerings, although it would be cheaper to use with
Oracle application servers. Using the suite with Oracle's
application server costs around £29,500 per CPU, but about £38,000
per CPU with rival application servers.
The suite's components include Oracle BPEL Process Manager for
mapping business process flows, Oracle ESB for connecting existing
IT systems and business partners, Oracle Web Services Manager to
provide a console for setting web service policies, and Oracle
Business Rules Engine for defining and managing business rules, as
well as other tools.