BEA bullish on Taurus transaction software

BEA Systems with the planned Taurus version of its Tuxedo transaction processing platform is eyeing enhanced Web services support, improved integration with the WebLogic Server application server and boosted security.

Performance also is to be improved, along with scalability, said Rich Lee, director of engineering at BEA, responsible for Tuxedo products. “Primarily, we’re very bullish on this release of the product,” Lee said, referring to the code name being the astrological sign of the bull.

The kernel release of Taurus is slated for release in the summer of 2005.

To improve Web services support, BEA is looking at providing XML Schema samples. XML to FML (Field Manipulation Language) transformations support also is planned.

Meta data backing for Web services also is planned, through a Tuxedo service meta data repository to provide for generation of WSDL, Lee said.

Security improvements include a default PKI plug-in and Kerberos authentication. “Out of the box, we’re going to ship a default PKI plug-in,” Lee said. The plug-in will support Cert-C for handling digital signatures.

Integration between WebLogic and Tuxedo will be improved through adding MBSTRING support in WebLogic Tuxedo Connector (WTC), providing globalization and multibyte code conversion.

Better Cobol support, for migrating large-scale Cobol applications, also is planned in Taurus. XATMI (X/Open Application Transaction Manager Interface) data type support is being added as well.

To boost performance, BEA is pondering more improvements to the Domain Gateway in Tuxedo, which provides for message-passing between Tuxedo and BEA Top End systems.

“The Domain Gateway itself will probably have many more threads and that, we hope, will boost the performance even more,” Lee said.

Infrastructure enhancements planned include providing finer control over service-level timeouts, offering them at a per-call or per-context level. BEA also is investigating CORBA failover for IIOP clients in Tuxedo.

Client-side improvements in Tuxedo include backing a .Net C# client. In the wireless realm, the company plans disconnected client support in the form of transparent local storage for messages on mobile devices.

Core platforms for Taurus upon release include Solaris on Sparc, Hewlett-Packard HP-UX, Windows, and IBM AIX. Within three to six months after the release, BEA plans support for 64-bit versions of Solaris, HP-UX, and Windows. Support also may be extended to Red Hat Linux.

Beyond Taurus, BEA is pondering support of Web services specifications in areas such as security and transactions, Tuxedo Control enhancements such as asynchronous services and seamless integration between Tuxedo and WebLogic. Tracing enhancements also are being considered, such as user-level tracing, Lee said.

The WTC after Taurus is expected to sport enhanced clustering.