SOA Rolls On

Service-oriented architecture has faded a bit in buzz in recent months, as has its cousin IMS. But it got a profile boost in the last week, thanks to moves from Nortel Networks and IBM to use SOA to deliver IP-based telephony mash-up capabilities.

Nortel announced that it has waded into the SOA waters for the first time with the Raptor toolkit. It will partner with IBM to leverage Web services and SOA technology for operators and businesses, with the aim of giving them the ability to mash-up services and seamlessly support them on the IT side. In other words, Raptor will let developers integrate click-to-call and presence into existing applications and business processes without having to worry about configuring the underlying network. So, giving a call center, say, the ability to click-to-chat directly from a customer record becomes a simple matter of dragging and dropping those modules from a user interface.

Nortel aims to make the software open and applicable across vendors and domains. "Existing vendor communications enablement approaches, even if based loosely on SOA, include network-centric approaches or are narrowly focused platforms that only work with the vendor’s own products or are restricted to individual domains like the enterprise," said Richard Tworek, general manager for SOA and next generation platforms at Nortel.

Nortel will be integrating IBM's WebSphere Web Application Server with its own communications software to enable the mediation, along with Lotus Sametime for the presence and IM capabilities. The two will jointly sell and market the software, and will perform the integration and implementation of Raptor inside a business. Initial targets will be the health care, retail and finance verticals. Raptor is due in the first quarter of 2008.

Nortel also unveiled a comprehensive Communications Enablement strategy, based on four core components: Enabling Web services on selective products and solutions; the development of a software-based foundation environment to simplify the creation of customized communications-enabled applications and business processes; alliances with industry leaders like IBM; and the development of a global services practice to support these SOA-based applications and solutions.

"Businesses today are faced with too much complexity as they work to provide real-time access to information and people across a growing number of devices and applications" said Joel Hackney, president of enterprise solutions at Nortel. "In the near future, every application and business process that should have built-in communications capabilities will. Nortel is eliminating today’s complexity to make these communication-enabled applications a reality by integrating presence, location, identity, conferencing, and other communication and network capabilities within the Nortel portfolio into business process."

Nortel plans to make several existing products available as a Web service, as well as introduce a new generation of products and solutions that are built specifically to meet the needs of SOA-based environments. Nortel recently unveiled Web services enablement on the Application Server 5200 and Communication Server 2000 IP Multimedia Softswitch, which allow service providers to offer their enterprise and residential customers interactive multimedia communications tools for their Web sites based on functionalities such as instant messaging, video conferencing and presence. Nortel has also rolled out extensive Web services capabilities on its Contact Center and Advanced Speech platforms.

Meanwhile, IBM this week announced new and enhanced SOA and Web 2.0 products for carriers, equipment providers and application developers, with the familiar mantra of enabling rapid and affordable creation, deployment and management of voice, video and data services. It also revealed that AT&T Inc. is using IBM’s WebSphere Application Server and BladeCenter systems to leverage SIP in its IP service profolio.

IBM www.ibm.com
Nortel Networks www.nortel.com

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