Development

I am really pleased with the way Project Zero is shaping up. I especially like the way the web-based tools project is moving ahead a light speed. It looks like 2008 will be the year that we in IBM produce a product from the technology here on PZ.org. I wanted to take a moment and quickly describe where we are going with Project Zero and where it fits into the “bigger picture”.

Project Zero is part of our RESTful SOA movement. I’ve been talking about this for over a year now and the story has really taken form. Our RESTful SOA strategy has 3 simple aspects to it.

1. REST-enable our product portfolio. Doing this will liberate the content and assets within these products (WebSphere-brand and beyond) to the web. Today we have many of our products well underway to being REST and FEED (ATOM) enabled.
   The list includes: WebSphere MQSeries HTTP Transport, WebSphere Application Server – Web 2.0 Feature Pack, ObjectGrid, DataPower, WebSphere Service Repository & Registry, WebSphere Commence, WebSphere Process Server, WebSphere Business Monitor, CICS, and WebSphere Connectors/Adapters.
2. Enabling Agile Web Applications – Now that enterprise content and assets have been unleashed to the web, applications can be easily written to utilize this content as well as content on the internet. Zero technology is for developers and allows new web-oriented applications to be written, in a highly agile way, using dynamic scripting languages or visually using mash up assembly tools. Zero produces applications and assets that run on the server-side and are easily and cost effective to deploy. ALSO, our Lotus division announced a product called Mashup Maker. Which will complement Zero, by allowing iWidgets to be aggregated at the glass, creating mash-ups that run in your browser and utilize REST services and Feeds running on (among many other things) PZ.
3. Running, Managing and Hosting Agile Applications - The beauty of running RESTful application is that you probably already have the infrastructure in place to do so. Your web servers, caches, proxies and firewalls will all be able to work well and provide the foundation of your RESTful application infrastructure. Application-centric runtimes and management systems, like the Zero Runtime and WebSphere XD will help you cost effectively run and manage your Agile Applications. Last, a web-based infrastructure enables these agile application environments, both development and production as an on-line service. With Zero Alive and the web-based tools project, we will be experimenting more with SaaS as the year goes on.That’s our strategy in a nutshell… It appears that the “wind is at our backs” in 2008 and many of these solutions will be available before the year is out.

- Jerry