As I wrote here Network Computing was reviewing and testing 8 of the most prevalent ESBs. You can see the individual testresults and evaluations here and the summary here.

The Editor's Choice winner is now revealed and the winner is BEA Systems AquaLogic Service Bus 2.1 . The main arguments for selection of the winner is excellent Web services support, solid performance and a fair price. AquaLogic Service Bus supports WS-I Basic Security Profile, SAML 2.0 and the Web Services Security Username/Certificate profile. There are also testing facilities for WS-I compliance. According to the summary have AquaLogic a total score on 4,30, while IBM Websphere Message Broker 6.0 only got 3.15.

One nit with AquaLogic Service Bus is its lack of support for integration with external data sources, such as Network Computings Oracle9i database. AquaLogic Service Bus requires that such integration to be service-enabled using other mechanism, such as Web Logic Integration, and doesn't let you create a simple JDBC integration as part of the service orchestration.

I have seen the AquaLogic been demonstrated at a conference and it seemed to be userfriendly. The whole design-environment is completely Web-based with drag-and-drop functionality, which is unique among the 8 ESBs.

If your are an real ESB-geek, you can see the Webcasts from ESB-Con: Due Dilligence Day:-).

One of the upcoming initiatives from VTU is OIO SW-Component Library. The purpose with the SW-Component Library is a common online repository with SW-Components across the public sector in Denmark. The benefits of this is expected to be development of more Common SW-Solutions, more reuse and coporation about SW-development and –maintance.

The new OIO-portal and the SW-Component Library will be in production august 06 and you can see a prototype here. Though the SW-Component Library is still a prototype, you can already see SW-Components for Electronic Patient Journals (EPJ) from the Capital-Region (Region Hovedstaden) here . Some of the EPJ Components based on J2EE are described and their sourcecode, models etc. are uploaded.

The initiative is managed by the National Knowledgecenter for Software (Nationalt videnscenter for software), which was established as a part of the Danish Goverments IT-Strategy from 2003.

I am Project Manager for a project with development of an EA Documentation Framework and EA Analyzing Tool in Økonomistyrelsen. We have reviewed most of the commercial tools and tested Metis from Troux Technologies. The output was that most of the tools are not mature for EA and Metis is difficult to use.

Regarding the above project I had a meeting with Jørgen Thyme from VTU about the new upcoming initiative OIO Enterprise Architecture Library. The purpose with the EA Library is a common repository with EA-Artifacts across the public sector in Denmark. The benefit of this is expected to be knowledgesharing in EA and reuse of EA-Artifacts. The EA Library will be integrated in the new OIO Portal based on a Open Source CMS.

The new portal and the EA Library will be in production august 06 and you can see a prototype at http://ab.oio.dk/arkitekturbibliotek. The EA Library is designed with a high quality of informationarchitecture with welldesigned taxonomy, metadata etc. The organisation of the EA Artifatcs is based on the OIO EA procesmodel, which you can see here http://ab.oio.dk/arkitekturguide/arkitekturproces. - The excisting OIO Procesmodel from the OIO Whitebook have been expanded with elements of an EA Documentation Framework. We can not use the initiative in our search for an EA Documentation Framework and EA Analyzing Tool, because most of our requirements for functionality are not fulfilled. Examples on that are, that there is not a graphical representation of the As-is EA situation, we have not used the documentation elements and concepts and their organization in our EA work and there is not functionality for advanced analyzing of relations between elements of systems and business. Moreover are we planning to integrate our EA Documentation Framework and EA Analyzing Tool with the output of our EA-projects like RUP as our systemdevelopmentproces, common methods for requirement specifications and test etc. one single place in our Intranetportal.

Though the EA Library do not fulfill our needs, will we still share our EA Artifacts with others trough the Library after august 06.

I am working with RUP (Rational Unified Proces) as a new common Systemdevelopment-proces in Økonomistyrelsen. In this task I met the new term EUP as Enterprise Unified Proces from Scott W. Ambler.

EUP is an extension to the RUP, because RUP does not consist an EA-view on the systemdevelopment-process. The extensions include the two new phases Production and Retirement and several new disciplines, f.eks Enterprise Business Modeling, Portfolio Management, Enterprise Architecture, Strategic Reuse, People Management, Enterprise Administration and Software Process Improvement. More over the EUP works with new artifacts and roles. According to Scott W. Ambler are EA-Frameworks as f.eks. Zachman optional with the EUP.

I have doubt about how much value EUP give according to RUP. I think EUP is a strange mixing of EA-management, -processes, -artifatcs etc. with the systemdevelopment process. Maybe is the model benefitfull for organizations new in EA, which is not the case in Økonomistyrelsen. More are there lot of work in working with the iterations in RUPs 4 phases and the two extra phases will therefor give too much overhead. Therefor will we not use EUP in Økonomistyrelsen.

You can read more about EUP here.

The new initiative have the aim of establish a framework for the exchange of business documents over the internet in a secure and reliable fashion. It is interesting, that the initiative is targeted at small and medium sized business, and public government.

Some of the output of the initiative will be a new Webservice Interoperability profile. The profile is a specification of a collection of Webservice standards. While the OWSA – Model T had focus on profiling of Basic Profile 1.1, OCES and OIOXML, the new initiative will provide a couple of new OWSA - Models with profiling of UDDI, WS-Adressing, WS-security, WS-ReliableMessaging etc. Moreover have the OWSA - Model T focus on point-to-point Webservices, while the new OWSA-Models will have focus on more advanced Webservices, that can transport Business Documents securely and reliable. The main designprinciple is based on e-procurement (e-faktura) and e-business (e-handel), which is very interesting. The reason is, the success of e-procurement and that the concept of e-procurement/e-business can be generalizied for use in other sectors like Tax (SKAT), estate registering (Tinglysning) etc.

One of the idea is that sending of a business document like a procurement (faktura) should be easy and simple like sending an e-mail. Therefor is an another result of the initiative a software toolkit and a client reference implementation (message handler), which will be implemented in Java and .Net in order that software vendors and system integrators easily can offer endpoint lookup with the addressing mechanism, and exchange of business documents in accordance with the profile. The last result of the initiative will be an addressing mechanism which enables lookup of service providers and their endpoints.

I am engaged in the proces for Økonomistyrelsen and you can follow the proces here.

Legislation in e-goverment is discussed a much and for some it is an ideological topic, where f.eks. the danish goverment should not legislate in e-goverment projects and initiatives. I will not take part in this discussion, but I am pride of that Økonomistyrelsen have won the danish e-govermentprice for Nemkonto (Easy Account) . I am also pride that Nemkonto is developed by my former employer KMD A/S.

I november 2005 Økonomistyrelsen also got the firstprice for the best european e-goverment project in Mancheste for e-faktura (e-procurement).

Both NemKonto and e-faktura are a part of the law 'Lov om offentlige betalinger' legislated by the danish goverment.

The two projects save the public sector for more than 800 mio. dkr. and the private sector for 300-400 mio. dkr. a year on less administration.