The way the Business innovates has shifted
Many businesses today are innovating by providing their customers with new ways to conduct business. This is a significant shift from how businesses used to run -- being directed from the enterprise out, with controlled applications, business processes, and information. Now those barriers are dissolving and technology has connected and empowered a new set of external stakeholders: customers, partners and even external app developers who demand a collaborative dialog with the business, while expecting highly secure access to their own information. The importance of technology to the business agenda continues to increase in priority, and IT needs to be able to respond quickly to these business needs by leveraging new capabilities like cloud, mobile and social computing for business advantage.
Many businesses today are innovating by providing their customers with new ways to conduct business. This is a significant shift from how businesses used to run -- being directed from the enterprise out, with controlled applications, business processes, and information. Now those barriers are dissolving and technology has connected and empowered a new set of external stakeholders: customers, partners and even external app developers who demand a collaborative dialog with the business, while expecting highly secure access to their own information. The importance of technology to the business agenda continues to increase in priority, and IT needs to be able to respond quickly to these business needs by leveraging new capabilities like cloud, mobile and social computing for business advantage.
New workloads must be supported
Enterprises need a technology platform that can address the escalating demands of new workloads (mobile, APIs, cloud), as well as core traditional ones (batch, web applications, transaction processing) all while also addressing security. You must be able to adapt to the workload styles dictated by new technology and market trends. The core workloads like OLTP, batch processing, and web applications must interact with mobile apps, API services, and social conversations. But how can you make the change to your infrastructure to support all of the workload requirements?
Enterprises need a technology platform that can address the escalating demands of new workloads (mobile, APIs, cloud), as well as core traditional ones (batch, web applications, transaction processing) all while also addressing security. You must be able to adapt to the workload styles dictated by new technology and market trends. The core workloads like OLTP, batch processing, and web applications must interact with mobile apps, API services, and social conversations. But how can you make the change to your infrastructure to support all of the workload requirements?
Mobile creates new security and integration issues
Building and connecting mobile apps has become essential as the business focus has shifted to the mobile enterprise space – both for employees using mobile as a productivity tool and for customers/partners using mobile to conduct real business. While mobile presents great opportunity, it also presents some unique challenges around security and integration. Most legacy applications were not built to handle the new challenges of mobile security. Sophisticated, targeted attacks designed to gain continuous access to critical information are increasing in severity and occurrence. (For details on increased threats, see the IBM X-Force 2012 Trend & Risk Report) For example, XML security threats are growing. Securing employee-owned devices and connectivity to corporate applications are top of mind to CIOs as they broaden support for mobility. Regulatory and compliance pressures are mounting as companies store more data and can become susceptible to audit failures. Cloud security is a key concern as customers rethink how IT resources are designed, deployed and consumed. How can you secure access to enterprise resources from these growing threats?
Building and connecting mobile apps has become essential as the business focus has shifted to the mobile enterprise space – both for employees using mobile as a productivity tool and for customers/partners using mobile to conduct real business. While mobile presents great opportunity, it also presents some unique challenges around security and integration. Most legacy applications were not built to handle the new challenges of mobile security. Sophisticated, targeted attacks designed to gain continuous access to critical information are increasing in severity and occurrence. (For details on increased threats, see the IBM X-Force 2012 Trend & Risk Report) For example, XML security threats are growing. Securing employee-owned devices and connectivity to corporate applications are top of mind to CIOs as they broaden support for mobility. Regulatory and compliance pressures are mounting as companies store more data and can become susceptible to audit failures. Cloud security is a key concern as customers rethink how IT resources are designed, deployed and consumed. How can you secure access to enterprise resources from these growing threats?
Characteristics of the ideal solution for IT ‘s needs
IT organizations are under tremendous pressure to reduce costs and do more with less, all while responding to business demands. The ideal solution would address:
IT organizations are under tremendous pressure to reduce costs and do more with less, all while responding to business demands. The ideal solution would address:
- Built-in Security for web apps, mobile, APIs, B2B and web services for both XML and non-XML traffic
- Workload Optimization by enabling self-balancing, providing dynamic load distribution to backend enterprise resources, and providing the option to cache certain types of data
- Superior performance to respond to growing workloads
- Industry standards support
- Flexible integration with backend services and data, shielding business applications from security requirements, protocol changes and service versioning
- Runtime SOA Governance to enforce different types of policies including Authorization Security and Service Level Agreements
- Reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) both for operational and development costs, with a minimal infrastructure footprint
- Simplified maintenance decreasing the time required to upgrade the environment
Assessing solutions from 4 key players in the market
There are a few technology vendors that provide a single drop-in
solution in a physical appliance form-factor to address some or all of these
requirements. But how does one choose the best solution? To help you decide,
Lustratus Research has assessed four leading vendor solutions in this space.
Read their findings in “A
Competitive Review of SOA Appliances.”