WSO2 joining open-source SOA registry field

WSO2 debuted its WSO2 Registry on Monday, providing registry and repository services for SOA.

Featuring SOA governance and Web 2.0 collaboration capabilities, WSO2 Registry offers a repository for storing information and a registry for locating it. A Web-based interface is included along with Web 2.0 features like tags, ratings, and comments systems. Users can store and manage enterprise metadata in a wiki-style model.
"It's a registry and repository product, so it basically organizes and lets you store in a versioned and REST-compatible way all the [SOA metadata] that happens to be in your enterprise," said Glen Daniels, director of Java platforms at WSO2. Metadata can include service descriptions, XML schemas, and configuration data.

The company follows MuleSource in announcing an open-source registry and repository for SOA. But don't expect open-source registry/repository products to displace commercial products, one analyst said.

"Commercial registry/repository products support significantly more capabilities than the open-source products," said Anne Thomas Manes, vice president and research director at Burton Group. "Organizations that are looking for solutions that can facilitate a comprehensive governance program will find the commercial products to be much more helpful than the open-source ones. The open-source solutions will put a lot of price pressure on the commercial products, though."

"[WSO Registry is] a simple, lightweight registry and repository product," Manes said. "It provides a means to manage SOA artifacts (e.g., WSDLs and schemas) and provides rudimentary lifecycle management of these artifacts."

Web 2.0 capabilities, such as tagging and commenting, helps link communities to SOA, Daniels stressed. This improves communication among team members and across the enterprise, WSO2 said. "We're trying to build middleware that sort of helps out not only with the storing of the technical information but helps out with the fostering of these community connections that actually makes SOA go," he said.

WSO2 views its Web 2.0 capabilities as a differentiator between the rival MuleSouce platform.

WSO2's structured repository supports XML and SOA metadata formats along with arbitrary data, such as Microsoft Office documents, images, files, and text formats. A catalog of enterprise information can be built that includes services, service descriptions, employee data, and ongoing projects.

Also, the product can be deployed in several usage scenarios, including being embedded in a Java application that needs to store resources. Also, a REST-style (Representational State Transfer) Web API allows the product to be used remotely from any language including Java, PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor), C++, and JavaScript.

A Web API in the product is built on Atom and AtomPub protocols enabling a feed reader, such as Google reader, to browse registry contents. An AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) interface is featured as well, allowing the registry to be used as a Web application. The product can be used with its embedded database or use an existing database, such as MySQL, Oracle, or SQL Server.

Other features include:

-- A single model of dependency chains, helping organizations understand the implications of changing a service
-- Deployment in any Java servlet container, such as JBoss or Apache Tomcat
-- Configurable security, including the ability to work with existing LDAP or Acegi directories.
-- Resource/collection versioning for browsing previous versions of resources or collections
-- Links to workflow systems or Web applications to integrate with governance and management processes
-- Searchable audit logs and search options, such as the ability to search based on tags
-- A client API to integrate with code that does not use HTTP to obtain configuration or other metadata.

WSO2 Registry is available for download Monday and is licensed under the Apache 2.0 License. WSO2 offers service and support options.