WSO2, an open source firm that has based its approach to
services-oriented
architecture on light weight Web services, has built multi-tenant
versions of
its products to make them available as software as a service
(SaaS).
In effect, WSO2 is in the process of converting its products into
services
that are available online. And in doing so, it's launched what it
calls its WSO2
Cloud Platform. The first two SaaS services from WSO2 are identity
management as a service and service governance as a service. Other
middleware services to follow by mid-2010 include: data management;
security management; service hosting, mediation and management;
user interfaces and portals; billing and
metering; and management and monitoring of services.
"We want to make it easy to deploy our software anywhere," said
Sanjiva
Weerawarana, CEO of WSO2. The firm's name translates roughly as
oxygen for Web services. WSO2 products are open source code under
an Apache license and available for free download. By making them
available as on line services as
well, WSO2 may be able to play a greater role in helping form
private clouds, he
said.
A multi-tenant identity management service hosted by WSO2, for
example, would
make it possible for an IT staff to build a social networking
application that
could reach out to employees at partners and would-be partners.
No participating company's identity management or security would
be
compromised by use of the application, if it existed only outside
their
firewalls, and all users were required to be authenticated by an
outside system,
he noted. Each participating partner could manage the identities of
its
employees including in the social network via the WSO2 service.
Companies setting up internal clouds can also use WSO2 middleware
as a
service to get it up and running faster, he added. WSO2 is also
offering Cloud
Connectors as part of its new platform. Its Cloud Services Gateway
set ups
coordination between a public cloud and a private data center for
secure
inter-operation.
It invokes Secure Sockets Layer protocol with a secure messaging
system
working over a VPN. The enterprise user can declare that he wishes
to publish or
share documents or data with the server in the public cloud, and
that use will
be enabled. Weerawarana acknowledged that much data could not be
sent to the
public cloud for processing, but the gateway established a way of
exchanging
data that could be, if handled in a secure manner.
WSO2 supports the use of its products as an Amazon Machine Image,
the virtual
machine file format run by Amazon's EC2 cloud. It also supports the
use of its
products in a VMware ESX Server virtual machine or an open source
Linux KVM
virtual machine.
WSO2 is a Sri Lankan firm whose employees frequently contribute to
Apache
Software Foundation open source projects.