Our weekly From the Vault series highlights classic resources from the Layer 7 Library. This week, we’ve got not one but two items, both of which will prove highly valuable to anyone who is researching options for purchasing or replacing a SOA Gateway – a white paper called Not All SOA Gateways are Created Equal and a webinar called How to Choose a SOA Gateway.

Not All SOA Gateways are Created Equal notes that most Gateways on the market are able to address a good deal of the most common functional requirements. However, the white paper explains, the total cost of ownership (TCO) varies widely between Gateways – and TCO extends well beyond the initial licensing fees to encompass a range of significant factors.

The white paper goes on to examine those factors that will have the greatest impact on TCO, namely:

• Ease of deployment and customization
• Manageability, scalability and reliability
• Cost of upgrade or repurchasing

Click here to find out more about the white paper and to download the PDF

How to Choose a SOA Gateway expands upon the content of this white paper to provide business managers with practical instructions on which key operational and functional needs, as well as potential pitfalls, to consider when selecting a SOA Gateway, including:

• Portability considerations
• Scalability risks
• Extensibility and upgradeability needs
• Global management implications
• Hidden operational costs

You can either click here to find out more about the webinar and to download a copy or you can stream it in the player below, courtesy of the Layer 7 YouTube channel:

At Layer 7, we like to think of this blog as place where our SOA, Web API and Cloud experts can tell the world about new ideas and techniques they’re formulating, as these ideas and techniques develop. We also want the blog to be a portal to our substantial library of thought leadership content, which is why we’re launching a new series of posts called From the Vault.

We’d like to start the series by drawing your attention to a really successful webinar we held a few months back. Called The Expanding Role of XML Gateways in SOA, Mobile & Cloud, this webinar explores how XML gateways can be used to enable on-premise, partner, mobile and Cloud connectivity.

The Expanding Role of XML Gateways features Randy Heffner, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research, Inc. – one of the leading experts on SOA as well as its extension to the Web and Cloud. For seven years, Randy has been a driving force behind Forrester’s research on application architecture trends, concepts, patterns and best practices.

Randy Heffner, Vice President & Principal Analyst, Forrester Research, Inc.

The webinar explains how far XML Gateways have come since they were initially developed in the early 2000s. Originally used for XML acceleration and security, they are increasingly being implemented both inside and outside the enterprise, to streamline information integration in a secure, scalable way.

Topics covered include:

• The expanding range of use cases for XML gateways
• New requirements for on-premise, Web API and Cloud functionality
• Key considerations when choosing a gateway

You can either download the webinar recording and watch it at your leisure or simply stream it right now in the player below.