IBM's big deal
This week marked a milestone in the intersection between Service Oriented Architecture and intelligent networking. IBM, a leader in application servers, middleware, and development tools acquired DataPower, a pioneer in network-based XML processing.
This is a big deal for several reasons:
1. IBM is blessing the network processing model. IBM gets it, network processing ads a lot of efficiency for SOA services like security, acceleration, and application certain types of application processes. This is a first step to the Pervasive Network Application Processing (PNAP) vision where various network appliances and servers cooperate dynamically to deliver new types of business services.
2. IBM can help drive standards. PNAP demands a standard way to call network devices and write application logic to the network. IBM can help make this happen.
3. The industry has to follow. With IBM and Cisco firmly behind the PNAP model, everyone has to take notice. This includes the big application/system players like Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP as well as the rest of the networking pack like Extreme, Juniper, Nortel, and 3Com.
On the IBM side, there must have been some SOA architectural issues that impacted server and mainframe performance. Kudos to Armonk for addressing this with infrastructure changes instead of generations of coding and server enhancements.
As for DataPower, I??m sure there was plenty of cigar smoking and back slapping but the ramifications of this deal are widespread.
It??s a big win for other PNAP specialists like F5, Forum, and Reactivity who can compete for non-IBM deals and industry partnerships. This announcement is also a boon for Cisco??s AON initiative. IBM will help spread the general PNAP gospel while Cisco focuses on owning all of the network smarts.
Users win as well. DataPower customers are really happy with the performance and flexibility they??ve gained by off-loading security, acceleration, and application processing to the network. IBM will certainly spread the word and accelerate market growth.
