The catalog is not to be confused with its forthcoming WebSphere Service Registry and Repository, WSRR, which is expected to ship in October, and to be a place for organizations to distribute, store, and discover their own web services on their own premises.
Rather, the SOA Business Catalog is accessed via IBM’s web site, and features IT services and best-practice templates from IBM and its partners. IBM said by the end of the year the catalog is expected to include more than 3,000 SOA assets spanning more than 15 industries to help solve specific business problems.
The IBM SOA Business Catalog allows customers to search for information on service oriented architecture assets or IT ‘services,’ combinations of software code, intellectual property and best practices, used to solve specific business problems, IBM said.
It includes process templates, web services, tools, and adapters, along with details on how customers can obtain and integrate those IT services into existing IT infrastructures.
So far IBM is talking about the services, tools, and templates of its own that it’s put in the catalog, such as IBM Information Framework Process Models for financial services, IBM Insurance Application Architecture, and WebSphere Business Modeller industry-specific sample modeling projects.
It has also seeded the catalog with WebSphere DataStage TX Industry Pack for HL7 for healthcare; IBM QuickStart for WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus; and IBM Rational Unified Process, RUP, for User Experience Modeling.
IBM said business partners with IT services that have been qualified for the IBM SOA Business Catalog include Actuate Software, AdminServer, Alphinat, Argo, China Systems, Chordiant, Clear2Pay, Cognos, eMeter, i2 Technologies, Ilog, Inc, ItemField, Lawson, Mincom, Napersoft, Nimaya, Research in Motion, SSA Global, and TrueDemand, among others.
