LANSA Gains Entry into IBM SOA Program

Published: April 10, 2007

by Alex Woodie

Development tool maker LANSA has been accepted into IBM's SOA Specialty, a certification program created to highlight software products that can further the creation and adoption of service oriented architecture (SOA). LANSA's primary tool for SOA development, called LANSA Integrator, was accepted into the program.

There are a myriad certification programs housed deep within Big Blue's PartnerWorld program. You've probably heard of the ServerProven and StorageProven certifications. Well, here's another: IBM's SOA Specialty, which is administered by the IBM SOA Foundation.

If you're a software vendor like LANSA, there are many hoops you must jump through in order to get your product certified under the SOA Specialty, as LANSA did with its Integrator software. On a technical level, SOA Specialty products must provide value to, and work with IBM's SOA Foundation group of products, a series of products in IBM's WebSphere, Rational, and Tivoli product groups that are designed to help model, assemble, deploy, and manage an SOA.

Besides the technical requirement, vendors must meet a series of other requirements, such as being an Advanced level partner, have at least one IBM Sales Connections opportunity (or be able to demonstrate an active IBM "sales cadence," whatever that is), and have an employee who has taken a minimum number of SOA-related classes. A participating vendor or consultant must also be able to successfully navigate various IBM Web sites, which are so intricate and Byzantine that it should be enough to qualify them straight away.

LANSA achieved all of the requirements, and has been rewarded with the capability to display the SOA Specialty logo on its LANSA Integrator product material. According to LANSA, its Integrator product provides value-add to IBM's SOA tools by providing a framework that allows easy integration between Java programs and business applications, using LANSAs Java Service Manager and a range of shipped Java services. The software also includes the SOAP Agent and SOAP Server services used to implement Web services, and includes a wizard-based approach to developing Web services.

John Siniscal, president of LANSA Americas, says he's pleased LANSA Integrator has been accepted into the IBM program. "Every IBM customer needs to be looking at how SOA solutions can improve their business agility by extending their legacy systems to new users and access paths," he says. "SOA technology will impact companies the same way the Internet did a decade earlier."

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