IONA has announced Orbix E2A Web Services Integration Platform 'XMLBus Edition' version 5.4 as the latest release of its visual environment for developing, deploying, integrating, and managing secure Web services. XMLBus Edition v5.4 delivers enhanced features that enable the bridging of CORBA systems to Web services. New features such as an Operation Flow Designer address the problems inherent in mapping complex CORBA systems into more abstract, business-focused Web services. The XMLBus is "a highly productive visual environment that enables developers to rapidly develop, deploy, integrate, and manage secure Web Services. XMLBus lets developers create Web services from existing applications, including existing Java Classes, EJB's, and CORBA systems. The result is a SOAP gateway that conforms to a WSDL interface derived from the original Java code. XMLBus Edition also provides a graphical tool to define the sequence of calls on fine-grain back-end components -- a capability that is required to create complex and truly loosely-coupled Web services. And XMLBus Edition is integrated with IONA's Process Engine, which enables the coordination of various business activities and Web services in a way that lets you integrate multiple activities into a single executable business process.

From the announcement:

Examples of integration scenarios in which IONA customers have begun to deploy Web services to extend and optimize their CORBA investments include:

• Integrating CORBA applications with other internal applications -- typically based on J2EE, mainframe or Microsoft technologies -- without tampering with the stable CORBA system or incurring the expense of developing new CORBA interface code

• Exposing existing CORBA systems -- and their valuable information or functionality -- to other parts of the organization, where CORBA previously had been a barrier to interoperability

• Extending CORBA applications for use over the Internet, where they are accessible from browsers or other applications by partners, customers, etc.

• Migrating older CORBA applications to newer versions of CORBA -- or consolidate and rationalize redundant CORBA systems -- without disruption or functionality or availability.

Orbix E2A - XMLBus Edition v5.4 enhanced features include:

• Complete CORBA data type support, including ANYs and direct support for common CORBA design patterns such as the Factory Model

• Support for IONA's Orbix 2000, Orbix 3, and ORBacus, and Borland VisiBroker CORBA technologies

• 'Operation Flow Designer' capabilities, which solve the "impedance mismatch" problem inherent in bridging object systems and Web services

• Secure SSL-based dispatching of Web services to CORBA systems with propagation of security credentials

• Doubling of runtime performance over previous versions of XMLBus technology

• Built on IONA's Adaptive Runtime Technology (ART) bringing enterprise Qualities-of-Service (QoS) to Web services applications.

From the website:

IONA's XMLBus Edition, part of the Orbix E2A Web Services Integration Platform family, is an integration platform for the integration of heterogeneous applications built with .NET, Java, J2EE, J2ME, and CORBA. This platform provides the qualities of service that mission-critical Web services demand, including rapid development tools, scalable and reliable deployment infrastructure, and enterprise-class management for deployed Web services.

XMLBus Edition is the most interoperable Web services implementation available, with broadly-vendor-tested XML, SOAP, WSDL, and UDDI compatibility, and a wide range of standard API support, including JAXR (UDDI registries), JMX (Instrumentation and Management), JAXM (SOAP Message Handling), SAML (authentication and authorization assertions), DISCO (Microsoft discovery), and more.