Near real-time from Interop

Well that was an interesting show... Aside from judging Best of Interop and spending an evening partying with our Well Connected Award winners (Fritz sure knows how to throw a party), I found time to squeeze in some briefings and walk the floor.
F5 Networks wasn't on the show flow this year, but had a suite just off the escalators. Saw some cool things coming from them on the BIG-IP platform, including integration with other F5 products and some help with iRules composition.
Reactivity has some cool things coming down the pike as well as the XML security/management space continues to grow. Its SOA Gateway has some awesome acceleration features that aren't based on an ASIC approach. Watch out for these guys.

Layer 7 is the first entrant into the 64 -bit platform for its SecureSpan line of products, and its partnering with IBM to create the monolithic giant's "security in a box" was an interesting move. Layer 7 isn't the only company embracing the 64-bit platform for appliance based products in this space, but it is the first. Expect to see more in the coming months from competitors. The move to the 64-bit platform ought to give XML processing yet another boost in performance - but we'll have to test them out to see if it pans out.

Forum Systems is one of the few SOA security focused vendors who is staying purely on the security road. Its Sentry and XWall products continue to remain security focused and I got a look at its upcoming version and hope to see it in the lab this year.

Rumors at the show point to more acquisitions and big announcements in the coming weeks by names you know and love, so keep your ears open.
Speaking of SOA, I've got an upcoming workshop on the topic in which we'll explore exactly what an SOA is and see if we can't build some composite applications for NWC Inc. on an SOA using some of your favorite technologies from Microsoft, IBM and possibly some of these SOA management/security products. If you've got an issue or question you'd like to see explored or answered, drop me a line soon as I'll be diving in as soon as I finish up testing these BPM suites in the next few weeks.