SOA enables Web 2.0

The majority of organisations perceive service-oriented architecture (SOA) as a key enabler to the effective use of Web 2.0 technologies in the enterprise, reports ITPro.

A BEA survey of 330 respondents in 11 European countries conducted by Vanson Bourne reveals 55% of organisations view SOA as the best way to support the use of social networking and Web 2.0 development techniques in their IT infrastructure.

BEA said Web 2.0-based software, such as blogs, wikis, social networks and mash-ups, are being adapted for business use. They have the potential to deliver productivity gains for knowledge workers in areas, including marketing, sales, communications, research and development and human resources.

VMware will release three software packages by the end of the year to help small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) take on virtualisation projects, reports PC World.

The packages, which VMware calls "acceleration kits", are based on VMware Infrastructure 3, its virtualisation suite for servers and storage networks. VMware, a subsidiary of EMC, said between 60% and 70% of its customers are SMEs.

The packages offer varying levels of features depending on price. At the core of all three is either VMware`s ESX Server or ESX Server 3i, a product released last month; its hypervisor is embedded in flash memory in the server hardware.

IBM gave customers a preview of a new mash-up platform that purportedly helps even the most tech-averse employees create Web 2.0-style application mash-ups in minutes, reports Internet News.

Its Mash-up Starter Kit, available for download from the IBM alphaWorks Web site, includes a Mash-up Hub that stores information feeds from blogs and Web sites using RSS, ATOM and XML formats. It also has a QEDWiki that provides a fairly simple user interface to mash together data culled from enterprise business applications.

"Web 2.0 is happening within the enterprise, sanctioned or not," Anant Jhingran, CTO of IBM`s information management division, said in an interview with InternetNews.com. "So it`s very important to create the right technologies so our customers can embrace Web 2.0 in a business sense."