With more enterprises beginning to experiment with Web services, there is a growing need for technology that enables businesses to monitor these applications.
AmberPoint Inc. on Monday rolled out a management package designed to make a businesss Web services system easier to manage, monitor and upgrade. It also adds another layer of security to systems, according to officials with the Oakland, Calif., company.
AmberPoint Management Foundation “delivers the missing pieces” of the first round of Web services implementations, said AmberPoint President and CEO John Hubinger.
The product includes monitoring capabilities that enable users to track the content of business transactions by various means, including transaction type, performance and usage patterns, and a flexible access control module that can limit what Web services can be viewed to those with permission only, Hubinger said.
Other capabilities include online upgrades and the logging of Web services traffic.
The software modules are based on Web services standards and can be installed in a plug-and-play fashion. They support both Java-based and Microsoft Corp.s .Net platforms.
TransCanada Pipeline Ltd. has been testing AmberPoints management product with a distributed list server on a Windows platform since April, according to Martin Vant Erve, lead Web services architect for the Calgary, Alberta, energy company.
“It worked quite well,” Vant Erve said. “It was easy to install and monitored what we were expecting.”
TransCanada, which is a Sun Microsystems Inc. Sun Open Net Environment user, is awaiting a Solaris version of the AmberPoint Management Foundation later this year to install across its Web services systems, he said.
AmberPoints Hubinger said his company will be rolling out additional capabilities later this year, such as exception management.
AmberPoint Management Foundation will be available at the end of the month, with pricing starting at $50,000.