iWay Adds File Transfer to SOA Suite

February 26, 2008 Alex Woodie

There are lots of benefits to implementing a service oriented architecture (SOA), according to iWay Software, which is in the SOA middleware business. Unfortunately, streamlining the transfer of files in enterprise environments is not one of those benefits. In fact, SOAs tend to complicate the matter. That’s why last week iWay added a new file transfer option to its suite of SOA software.

As SOA adoption creeps forward, organizations begin learning what works and what doesn’t work in an SOA. Apparently, there is quite a bit of work to do in enterprise file transfer in SOA frameworks, according to iWay, the Information Builders subsidiary has been moving to SOA in a big way.

The problem is that the enterprise service buses (ESBs) at the heart of SOA rollouts are geared more toward managing and recreating business processes than moving files among different systems. iWay cites a Gartner report that finds “ESBs are unable to gracefully move large files in an adequately managed way.”

So, instead of requiring organizations to maintain a managed file transfer environment that’s separate from the core ESB, iWay decided to add managed file transfer to its Java-based ESB, thereby maintaining central control. That’s the gist behind iWay Managed File Transfer (MFT) Option, a new set of extensions to iWay Service Manager Enterprise Edition, its flagship ESB and the heart of its SOA initiative.

The MFT offering joins a set of other add-ons to the iWay Service Manager, including Trading Manager, DataMigrator, Data Hub, the BPEL-based Process Manager, SOA Governance, Business Service Provider, and Enterprise Index (powered by Google and Apache‘s Lucene text-search engine). iWay’s expansive collection of 300 adapters and connectors also plug into the ESB, providing an array of connectivity options for MFT and other components of the SOA.

The MFT Option is available now. It costs an additional $75,000 above the cost of the iWay Service Manager. For more information, visit www.iwaysoftware.com.