IBM recently announced a wide-scale program of support for "production-ready infrastructure software and services to enable Web Services," involving open Internet standards and secure management of high-volume transactions and integrating complex business processes. Also announced is systems integration support from IBM Global Services to help businesses build Web services applications using IBM's infrastructure software. To support the growth of business-process integration, projected to approach $50 billion by 2005, IBM is enabling all of its middleware infrastructure software with comprehensive support for open Internet standards to enable the development of Web services applications. The support spans IBM's entire middleware portfolio, including DB2, Lotus, Tivoli and WebSphere software. Software for developing, publishing, hosting and deploying Web services includes WebSphere Application Server Version 4, which supports the variety of open standards and technologies necessary to develop, publish and deploy Web services applications, including: Universal Description Discovery and Integration (UDDI); Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP); Java2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE); Web Services Description Language (WSDL); and enhanced integration of leading XML technologies. Software enabling Web Services applications to manage and access data includes DB2/XML Extender, which enables Web services applications to access data stored in DB2 or any other database, providing businesses with greater ease and efficiency in accessing, analyzing and managing information across multiple computing systems. Software for availability, performance and security of web services applications involves the Tivoli Manager for WebSphere Application Server, which provides a single point of control to enable businesses to manage the distributed environments that use WebSphere Application Server to host Web services applications. Software for enabling web collaboration, knowledge management, and e-learning includes the Lotus Web Services Enablement Kit with the Lotus Domino Application Server; the collaboration, workflow, and messaging capabilities of Domino can be accessed as Web services by adding SOAP interfaces and WSDL descriptions to new or existing Domino applications. The built-in support for Web, XML, and Java technology provides a straightforward approach for enabling custom Domino applications as Web services, with workflow, knowledge discovery system, and instant messaging." IBM is also developing an XML-based 'Web Services Flow Language (WSFL)' which describes how Web services may be composed as 'usage patterns' and 'interaction patterns' into new Web services to support business processes.

From the announcement:

Software for developing, publishing, hosting and deploying Web services includes:

WebSphere Application Server Version 4, available June 30, which supports the variety of open standards and technologies necessary to develop, publish and deploy Web services applications, including: Universal Description Discovery and Integration (UDDI); Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP); Java2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE); Web Services Description Language (WSDL); and enhanced integration of leading XML technologies. Version 4 includes improved capabilities for managing high-volume transactions, including new caching capabilities that increase application speed 200-300 percent in high-volume environments; faster transaction performance; and better management of multiple connections to applications stored in a variety of computing systems.

WebSphere Studio Technology Preview for Web services, new tools that enable software developers to build Web services applications. The tools enable programmers to create, test and deploy Web services applications and connect them to existing business processes. The tools also enable businesses to "publish" Web services applications for existing and potential trading partners via a UDDI Registry. The software will be available in a preview version this July with a targeted general availability starting this fall.

WebSphere Business Integrator, software that enables businesses to integrate and manage the "flow" of Web services applications. WebSphere Business Integrator helps companies manage diverse information and processes within and between enterprises. This software enables businesses to use the reliability and transactional characteristics of MQSeries to deliver SOAP messages from one Web services application to another -- linking the applications together and managing their interaction. WebSphere Business Integrator will be available at the end of June.