LOOKING TO MAKE Web services messaging more reliable, IBM plans to inject support for SOAP into its WebSphere MQ messaging platform.

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In the fourth quarter, Big Blue will release a "tech preview" of WebSphere MQ with Web services support, and a final product is forthcoming, officials said.

In addition, IBM will migrate its MQ tools to the Eclipse framework, which provides a common developer workbench for all of its WebSphere-related tools.

IBM officials said WebSphere MQ will give MQ customers the reliability for transporting Web services messages that is lacking in the commonly used HTTP protocol.

Likewise, WebSphere MQ also brings asynchronous messaging to the table.

For example, a Web service-based request can be fired off once and will proceed unimpeded across multiple systems in a long-running transaction -- even when a system in the chain is offline.

"It's assured delivery. When a system is brought back online, all the Web services will queue up and execute as expected," said Stuart McIrvine, WebSphere integration middleware program director at IBM in Research Triangle Park, N.C.

WebSphere MQ also allows users to assign rules to the Web service, such as specifying "return to sender" if a message delivery is delayed for a predetermined amount of time due to an offline system, McIrvine said.

In another move to open up WebSphere MQ, Big Blue earlier this year embraced JMS (Java Message Service) to facilitate delivery and integration of Java-based applications over the platform.

IBM is now at the center of a growing trend around integration bus architecture, a kind of ubiquitous, intelligent network backbone -- as opposed to a centralized broker -- that determines the routing of application data and messages.

Companies such as Bedford, Mass.-based Sonic Software and Milford, Mass.-based SpiritSoft play in this space, which analysts expect to expand to large players such as IBM and Microsoft as a less complex, cheaper approach to application integration.

"It's the concept of an 'enterprise services bus' or middleware that supports four things: Web services, messaging, transformation, and content-based routing," said Roy Schulte, an analyst at Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner.

These basic pieces provide for simple EAI, but the architecture's real calling card is its modularity. Value-added functionality such as BPM (business process management) can be plugged in to the bus as an enterprise needs it, Schulte said.

In addition, the concept of an enterprise services bus for integration also reduces the price point, while increasing ease of use.