The latest phase in Borland’s application lifecycle management (ALM) strategy, Op-Center, is designed to assist development of Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs) and grids, Borland said.
Op-Center provides tools and a series of XML templates to help developers build Java. .NET and Corba applications according to the available networked hardware and software.
Developers can build applications which factor elements such as provisioning and maximum load on an application server into design considerations using Deployment Op-Center.
Key goals in SOA and grid include a software infrastructure that quickly responds to changing business demands, while also efficiently utilizing distributed computing resources.
A number of platform vendors such as IBM and Microsoft are taking steps to make software and software programming an integral part of building SOAs and grids.
IBM’s strategy is for increased integration between its Rational modeling and development tools and the company’s various software runtimes. Microsoft, meanwhile, has proposed Whitehorse, an application modeling runtime and framework that is also expected to access data files that contain information about servers and PCs.
Moty Aharonovitz, deployment solutions senior product manager, said Borland would not lock-customers into either a hardware or software stack as Op-Center runs on Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE), .NET and Corba.
It is Corba, though, that could prove particularly important for Borland. Aharonovitz claimed strong interest among financial and telecoms companies who wish to build applications for grid and SOA, but said ISVs are ignoring this market. Borland, meanwhile, has a strong presence in Corba with its VisiBroker-edition Enterprise Server, meaning Op-Center can help preserve this particular customer base.
People are telling us they are deploying for the next five to 10 years, but vendors are treating Corba like it’s dying, Aharonovitz said.
Op-Center also plugs into management frameworks like OpenView and Tivoli using SNMP, rounding out the software’s application management-level features.
Op-Center features include definition, modeling and mapping of models to define logical and physical assertions between network-based resources, and configuration management of J2EE, .NET and Corba applications, messaging software like Tibco and SonicMQ, web servers and database servers.
Roll-out is simplified with a set of XML templates and tools for automatic detection, isolation and recovery of an application. Templates are completed by developers who specify an application’s configuration and destination, so IT staff in the run-time environment do not need to make their own settings for applications.
This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire
