Fred Carter

Web services are like your local auto repair shop. You don't want to do business with them until you have a clear idea of the level of service you can expect. Despite the many advantages of these new, standards-based systems, they will not become core business assets without capabilities for gauging and controlling their quality of service (QoS) attributes. Consider the example of a manufacturer that uses internal Web services for order fulfillment as well as extranet Web services to automatically replenish its inventory. To make informed decisions about order fulfillment, the manufacturer needs current and comprehensive information on the services and systems consumed by its inventory Web service. Is the warehouse management service running when inventory updates are needed? How long do suppliers' services take to respond with a promise date? How should service prob... (more)

How H&R Block Has Maximized Its Return on SOA Web Services

Working with service-oriented applications is a lot like doing your taxes because: there's really no avoiding it, you need to keep track of a number of different factors, you must maintain a record of data to protect against audits and plan for the future, and you'd better catch any mistakes or you'll have a problem on your hands faster than you can spell "SOA." Unless you implement management and monitoring capabilities for your loosely coupled system, you expose yourself to any number of potential issues that can cripple a production SOA application. Worse yet, you might unleash... (more)

From Pilot to Production

Web services are starting to show dividends. After years of hype, this flexible approach to integrating disparate business systems is taking root in corporate IT, where it is enabling organizations to exploit new business channels quickly and cost-effectively. In large part this is due to the ratification of many Web services standards. Additionally, tools such as Visual Studio .NET have greatly simplified the tasks of building and deploying Web services. You can now write code, build a Web service, package it, and deploy it into the local container with consummate ease – and all... (more)