SOA Goes Open SourceSOA Goes Open Source

But one thing in Fuse's favor is that it comes with IBM's WebSphere Community Edition, the Java application server better known as the Geronimo project at the Apache Foundation. IBM acquired a version of Geronimo that's integrated with Linux, the Apache Web server, and the Apache Pluto Portal when it acquired Gluecode.

In addition, the Fuse service-oriented architecture stack includes Apache ActiveMQ, an open source project still at the incubator stage to develop a system that transports messages between the application server, a company's infrastructure applications and databases, and Web services. ActiveMQ is based on an implementation of Java Messaging Service, a specification of the Java Community Process, the multivendor consortium that makes additions to Java.

Another piece of the Fuse stack is Apache ServiceMix, an incubator-status piece of open source code that provides the messaging fabric for implementing ActiveMQ and bringing together different services.

Messaging is at the heart of many early service-oriented architecture attempts, with IBM's MQSeries and Tibco Software's Rendezvous able to invoke both proprietary and standard protocols. Java Messaging Service and the open source services LogicBlaze has linked to it are enough to let companies get started with service-oriented architecture, Damarillo says. For its service registry, Fuse also incorporates jUDDI, Apache's Java implementation of the Universal Discovery, Description, and Integration registry of Web services.

Service Appeal
These and other pieces of the Fuse stack appealed to the Colorado Department of Human Services as it sought to reorganize its mainframe-based child support services around SOA. It already used open source code such as Apache Web server, Linux, and JBoss on its child support services Web site. With a more complete open source stack, the department figured it could tie more mainframe services to the site, allowing more participation by contributors and recipients of the child support services, says Curtis Rose, technical manager for the Automated Child Support Enforcement System.

The site already hosts several thousand visitors a day. The department is in its first month of a pilot project, testing Fuse as the basis for a reorganized child support system, Rose says. "We wanted a broad enough platform so we don't have to do a lot of piecing together ourselves," he says. Either Geronimo or WebSphere CE was acceptable to state IT managers, he says, because they already had experience with open source code.

Fuse is offered at $5,000 per server and $10,000 per server per year, depending on the support level. Rose says the state preferred to spend on subscription licenses rather than package purchase licenses.