Software AG upgrades registry and repository for SOA

Software AG is offering an updated registry and repository product for SOA, which had its genesis at Infravio and webMethods.

The Software AG CentraSite Governance Edition 7.1 is a rebranding and updating of the former Infravio X-Registry product. Infravio was acquired in 2006 by webMethods, which in turn was acquired by Software AG earlier this year. The product was unveiled this week

Available now, CentraSite Governance Edition manages services, policies, and business rules for SOA, Software AG said. Users can define a governance model and extend governance across an enterprise. Software AG defines governance as encompassing such factors as management of permissions, determining usage, and registration of services and policies.

“We have a new product, CentraSite Governance Edition, which is three things,” said John Conley, Software AG spokesman. “First, it is a rebranded version of the webMethods registry. The second, it is a number of developments and improvements that have been in the process of being developed, and third, some new elements [have been added] to maintain or take advantage of interoperability with existing Software AG products.”

CentraSite supports the storage of IT assets, such as a service, a document definition, or a process definition, said Susan Ganeshan, senior vice president of product management and product marketing at Software AG.

New features include automated governance process and policy enforcement directly in the platform. A more extensible metadata repository also is featured, along with a more intuitive user interface. Prepackaged best practices are featured, as are wizard-driven templates for lifecycle management of SOA assets.

Software AG, said analyst Ronald Schmelzer of ZapThink, approaches governance from two perspectives: From the design time perspective, where the main idea is managing services creation, and extending the runtime to manage policy and metadata for running services.

“So the big story is that Software AG sees SOA governance as being much bigger and broader than simply Web services governance and their products support a wide range of service implementation types,” Schmelzer said.

CentraSite Governance Edition starts at $100,000.

While a recent report on SOA by Nucleus Research found that the cost of registries and repositories has impeded adoption of SOA, Software AG officials noted the company does offer a community edition of its registry, which is free but lacks the full functionality of the enterprise-level product.

“It’s a competitive market,” in this space, Conley said. Use of a registry and repository can make developers more productive by ensuring applications are more reliable, he said.