Soaring SOA

BEA reports it has acquired Flashline, known for its powerful enterprise metadata repository. BEA reports the Flashline repository will be a key component of its service-infrastructure AquaLogic product family. It will enable tracking, governing and managing liquid assets in a common repository for sharing across multiple projects and measuring the resulting business value.

BEA adds that the Flashline repository will be renamed the BEA AquaLogic Enterprise Repository and fulfill a strategic role as a critical component for providing a more unified environment for service-oriented architecture (SOA).

The company explains the metadata repository is often cited as a critical component of SOA by providing a shared location to manage metadata, govern the asset life cycle and measure results. And, with growth in the SOA/Web services market, enterprises are increasingly looking toward repositories to provide visibility into their asset portfolios and optimize reuse.

Flashline's repository was first released in 2001 and provides enterprisewide visibility into an organization's software assets to help reduce IT costs and improve business agility. Both companies claim that customers using Flashline's tracking and analytics have demonstrated savings through reuse, aligned assets with architecture and business objectives and improved governance of their IT programs.

The companies further claim that the Flashline capabilities, combined with BEA's UDDI (universal description, discovery and integration) service registry and AquaLogic Service Registry, provide a complete metadata management solution. It will give BEA customers the capability to manage and govern the full SOA life cycle, from planning and design through runtime and maintenance.

Flashline is based in Cleveland, Ohio. Its employees, including founder and CEO Charles Stack, will remain in Cleveland and join the BEA AquaLogic business group.