Sonic Fires Off New ESB Products

The updated Sonic line includes its Collaboration Server, Database Service, Workbench 6.1 and SOA Suite, and packages drivers for direct connectivity with a range of servers.

Sonic Software announced on Monday a series of enhancements to its Sonic SOA (service-oriented architecture) infrastructure product line, with both upgrades and new products.

Bedford, Mass.-based Sonic Software Corp. extended its ESB (enterprise service bus)-based line with the new Sonic Collaboration Server and the Sonic Database Service. The Sonic Collaboration Server extends the Sonic ESB to help integrate external business partners using Web services and B2B protocols, the company said.

Meanwhile, the Sonic Database Service facilitates access to and reuse of relational data sources, the company said.

The new product includes drivers for connection to DataDirect Technologies and direct connectivity with the Oracle database, Microsofts SQL Server, Sybase Adaptive Server, Informix Dynamic Server, IBMs DB2 and any JDBC (Java Database Connectivity)-enabled source, Sonic officials said.

Resource Library:

Sonic also introduced Sonic Workbench 6.1, a new version of the companys SOA development environment, which helps developers add services to the ESB, the company said.

Sonic also announced the Sonic SOA Suite, which includes the Sonic ESB, Sonic Orchestration Server, Sonic XML Server and the new Sonic Database Service, the company said.

To read about BEAs new SOA readiness tool, click here.

Ronald Schmelzer, an analyst with ZapThink LLC of Waltham, Mass., said, "The real big stuff is their new data-oriented items. Basically, while many of the ESB folks are still focused on application-level issues, Sonic is pioneering ahead with a few key products to fill the gap of getting data locked in databases and other data formats connected to the bus. So, that part is fairly unique, and Id expect more to come from Sonic around the need to solve semantic-level integration challenges."

Read more here about Sonics ESB 5.5 update.

Schmelzer continued, "So, when Sonic talks about the SOA Gap—theyre referring to the fact that most SOA deals with application-only integration challenges, while they are now going to talk about both data and application-related issues. Thats definitely good for the industry."

Gordon Van Huizen, chief technology officer of Sonic Software, said in a statement, "The dirty little secret of SOA products on the market today is that there is no common way of working with various types of services, which can include everything from Web services to relational databases, frequently requiring additional coding and significantly diminishing SOA flexibility. Sonic is the first software vendor to address this gap head-on."

Check out eWEEK.coms for the latest news, views and analysis on servers, switches and networking protocols for the enterprise and small businesses.

Reader Comments: Sonic Fires Off New ESB Products >>> Be the FIRST to comment on this article!

>>> More IT Infrastructure Articles          >>> More By Darryl K. Taft