{"id":20,"date":"2006-04-21T12:13:09","date_gmt":"2006-04-21T20:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.formtek.com\/blog\/?p=20"},"modified":"2006-04-21T12:13:09","modified_gmt":"2006-04-21T20:13:09","slug":"does-it-really-stack-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/formtek.com\/blog\/does-it-really-stack-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Does it Really Stack Up?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week Red Hat<\/a> announced<\/a> plans to acquire open-source software maker\u00a0JBoss<\/a>\u00a0for $350 million in cash and stock.\u00a0\u00a0This is yet\u00a0another data point\u00a0showing the intense\u00a0industry-wide effort now underway by software vendors to be able to claim single-vendor end-to-end software solutions\u00a0for the enterprise, software ranging from the OS to high-level applications.\u00a0 These end-to-end bundles of software components are\u00a0often called\u00a0“stacks”.\u00a0\u00a0 This particular announcement is interesting because it signals an important step towards creating an open-source<\/a> stack.<\/p>\n

JBoss\u00a0had been\u00a0seen by many as a very attractive takeover candidate.\u00a0 Months before the announcement of the acquisition there\u00a0was talk of potential match-ups with Oracle<\/a>, Novell\u00a0and Red Hat, and just days before the announcement, there were still rumors<\/a> of Oracle discussing a $500 million buyout of JBoss, a deal that seems to have fallen apart because of a clash of corporate cultures.\u00a0<\/p>\n

JBoss is known for its open-source Java-based JBoss application server but JBoss products include other well-regarded middleware offerings like a jBPM workflow engine, and a rules engine.\u00a0 The middleware building blocks\u00a0in JBoss’ product line are key components needed to power the services\u00a0of an SOA architecture.\u00a0<\/p>\n

JBoss offers Red Hat a well-recognized\u00a0brand and a chance to expand its stack beyond just the Operating System.\u00a0 Red Hat<\/a> is currently the market leader for offering support and services around Linux.\u00a0 Novell<\/a> SUSE Linux<\/a> is Red Hat’s major competitor in that market.<\/p>\n

Red Hat has\u00a0been trying\u00a0to put together\u00a0the foundations\u00a0of a stack for some time, but they haven’t been successful on their own.\u00a0 They do offer a Java-based application server that is based on the open-source JOnAS application server developed by the European ObjectWeb consortium.\u00a0\u00a0They\u00a0also have an LDAP-based directory server<\/a>.\u00a0 Neither of these products have gained significant traction, but with the addition of JBoss middleware, Red Hat has the potential to become a powerhouse player\u00a0in the open-source space.<\/p>\n

Compared to Red Hat, prior to this announcement, Novell has been more successful in their efforts to build a stack, and they\u00a0already\u00a0claim<\/a>\u00a0to have done so.\u00a0 Interestingly, one component of\u00a0the Novell stack\u00a0is JBoss.\u00a0 Just how\u00a0the merger\u00a0between JBoss and\u00a0Red Hat will affect\u00a0Novell’s\u00a0strategy is not entirely clear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Microsoft has\u00a0long offered a unified one-vendor stack strategy.\u00a0\u00a0Microsoft has\u00a0approached the market from the bottom-up, tending to be more popular with departmental solutions rather than across the enterprise.\u00a0 Java-based\u00a0solutions, on the other hand, have tended to dominate the enterprise, but those solutions have typically been multi-vendor — different vendors for OS, DB, middleware, and application.<\/p>\n

Java-world players, both open-source and commercial,\u00a0have been\u00a0trying to match the one-stop vendor strategy.\u00a0 Oracle has aggressively signaled that this is their plan.\u00a0 IBM, Novell, and now Red Hat are on the same course.<\/p>\n

There’s much to be said about the simplicity of a Microsoft-style solution that’s based on software from a single vendor.\u00a0 “Stack certification” from a single vendor\u00a0provides reassurance that all components of a solution have been designed to work well together.\u00a0 But it can also create an enterprise-wide dependency\u00a0with a single vendor.<\/p>\n

It’s interesting to note that a major reason why JBoss was an attractive acquisition candidate\u00a0was for\u00a0the middleware capabilities that JBoss brings to the area of SOA enablement.\u00a0 Red Hat is adding another tier to their stack.\u00a0 But SOA isn’t really about the stack.<\/p>\n

The beauty of SOA is that it creates an infrastructure that allows mix-and-match interconnectivity between data services.\u00a0 In an SOA implementation the origin of the individual components is not as\u00a0important as it may have been in pre-SOA implementations.<\/p>\n

But really how important is a stack?\u00a0 At Formtek<\/a> we’ve found that the use of Java has provided us great flexibility.\u00a0 We’re not tied into supporting a single OS.\u00a0 Our ECM solutions are currently Oracle-based.\u00a0\u00a0Formtek is a\u00a0long-time Oracle partner, but our JDBC implementation provide us\u00a0the flexibility to easily migrate to a different database, should we decide to.\u00a0 And our Web Services allow us to operate and co-exist with applications and services in both .Net and Java dominated worlds.<\/p>\n

Technologies like SOA, Web Services and Java weaken the relevancy of single-source stacks and provide more options and flexibility to the customer.<\/p>\n

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Last week Red Hat announced plans to acquire open-source software maker\u00a0JBoss\u00a0for $350 million in cash and stock.\u00a0\u00a0This is yet\u00a0another data point\u00a0showing the intense\u00a0industry-wide effort now underway by software vendors to be able to claim single-vendor end-to-end software solutions\u00a0for the enterprise,…<\/span><\/p>\n

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