Common questions about SO-Aware?

During the first few weeks after the lunch of SO-Aware we have had a few very interesting sessions with customers. Interestingly enough, our customers seem to have similar questions when comes to evaluating the SO-Aware value proposition. Although the answer to those questions becomes apparent after they see or test the product, I thought I would take a few minutes to summarize some of the answers that hopefully will help to clarify the role SO-Aware can play in your SOA.

If you are evaluating SO-Aware against traditional SOA Governance frameworks you might want to review the Five Reasons Why SO-Aware is Different sheet on our website.

Here are some of the common questions we have been hearing from our partners and customers.

• Is SO-Aware a service registry?
• Can SO-Aware manage J2EE Web Services?
• Does SO-Aware hosts my Web Services?
• Does SO-Aware enables service discovery?
• Does SO-Aware competes with the Windows Server AppFabric?
• How is service testing different with SO-Aware?
• Does SO-Aware integrates with BizTalk Server?

Is SO-Aware a service registry?

Absolutely!!! SO-Awareprovides a very broad functionality set but at its very core is a repository for cataloging services, endpoints and other WCF artifacts such as bindings and behaviors. SO-Awarealso enables the capability of modeling versions of a service as well as dependencies between services.

Can SO-Aware manage J2EE Web Services?

Yes!!!!! SO-Awareprovides a consistent model for managing SOAP and REST services developed on multiple Web Services technology stack such as the ones included with the major J2EE application servers. In addition to the ability of managing services developed on heterogeneous platforms, SO-Awaretruly excels of the management of WCF services by cataloging WCF-specific artifacts such as bindings or behaviors.

Does SO-Aware hosts my Web Services?

No!!!!! SO-Awarehosts only the metadata associated with Web Services and clients and not the services itself. We enable a creative model for exposing the service configuration stored in SO-Awareso that it can be used by the Web Services host itself. Following this model, SO-Awaredoesn't need to act as a message broker and consequently it does not impose any performance or scalability constraints in your SOA.

Does SO-Aware enables service discovery?

Yes!!! In SO-Aware, discovering a service endpoint is as simple as executing an HTTP GET against our REST-OData API. SO-Awarecan not only resolve the endpoint address but also the bindings and behaviors required to interact with the target service.

Does SO-Aware competes with the Windows Server AppFabric?

Not at all!!!! SO-Awareand the Windows Server AppFabric are complementary technologies. Whether the AppFabric provides a sophisticated model for hosting WCF and Workflow Services enabling capabilities such as persistent, tracking and caching; SO-Awarefocuses on centralizing the metadata associated with WCF services which might or might not be hosted in the Windows Server AppFabric. For instance, you can envision scenarios on which a series of Workflow Services hosted in the Windows Server AppFabric resolves their configuration from SO-Aware.

How is service testing different with SO-Aware?

Most, if not all Web Service testing  tool can only test service endpoints configured with the basicHttpBinding. Unfortunately, this couldn't be further from the reality of enterprise SOAs on which that have services configured using various protocols such as WS-* security models or transports such as TCP or MSMQ. Additionally, most web service test stacks are incredibly difficult to integrate into other test or build frameworks use by enterprise applications.

SO-Awareis an ideal platform for modeling and executing web services tests given that it hosts and bindings and behaviors associated to different web services. This makes possible to test services that use arbitrary complex security or transport configurations. Additionally, SO-Awareprovides a model for scheduling the execution of tests and a tracking mechanism to report its details. The most important aspect of our testing engine is the fact that in SO-Awareevery test is a RESTful resource that can be executed using an HTTP GET. This capability makes the integration with other testing or build frameworks completely seamlessness.

Does SO-Aware integrates with BizTalk Server?

Absolutely!!! As part of our SDK you can find a custom resolver that integrates SO-Aware with the BizTalk ESB toolkit. Additionally, we will be releasing more samples that integrate SO-Aware with different components of the BizTalk technology stack such as adapters, business rules, pipelines etc.