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Computerworld - Delta Air Lines Inc. this week is launching a three-year project to replace its core IT backbone with a service-oriented architecture (SOA).

Delta Technology Inc., the IT arm of the Atlanta-based airline, this week will begin the process of updating the Delta Nervous System, an IT backbone used to route messages among multiple systems. The DNS manages everything from tracking passenger check-ins and boarding to the SkyMiles frequent-flier program, the company said.

The goal of the project — dubbed DNS 2.0 — is to replace proprietary Tuxedo middleware from BEA Systems Inc., which now runs DNS, with standards-based SOA technology, said Rawls Whittlesey, Delta Technology’s chief architect and director of enterprise architecture and middleware frameworks.

The SOA will allow the company to use industry standards to develop new systems and to move data between systems, she said.

“We wanted to implement an industry-standards type of architecture and move to the next generation of products and technology within that architecture,” Whittlesey said. “Ultimately, our goal is to speed time to market and to be more flexible.”

She declined to disclose the cost of the project.

Freedom From Tuxedo

Delta is not unhappy with Tuxedo, Whittlesey noted, but is instead looking for software that supports industry standards so “we’re not locked into the proprietary stuff around Tuxedo.”

Delta plans to use the Active­Matrix set of SOA tools from Tibco Software Inc. to create the foundation of DNS 2.0, Whittlesey said.

The ActiveMatrix tool set, which Tibco unveiled just last week, is designed to help developers write core business logic for an application and deploy that logic as a “virtualized service” that can automatically manage all configuration details, Tibco said. ActiveMatrix also includes a services registry and an SOA policy management tool, the company said.

Over the next year, Delta will port more than 100 Java, C++ and .Net services written with Tuxedo to ActiveMatrix, Whittlesey said.

In addition, the service virtualization will help reduce application configuration requirements, she noted. “You want to try to insulate the applications from having to know what server they are on and what environment they are in,” Whittlesey said. By using virtualization, “the application teams don’t have to know where a service lives,” she added.

Whittlesey acknowledged that the move to an SOA will provide challenges for both business users and developers.

Business users, for example, are worried about how they will devise policies to govern business processes built with the services, she explained. “Just getting the developers to go and look to see what services are [in the registry] to really get the reuse ... is really going to require a change in mind-set,” she said.

Randy Heffner, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc. in Cambridge, Mass., said that Delta’s use of virtualization technology is aimed at solving a common problem that is increasingly challenging companies that are moving toward an SOA: making the IT infrastructure transparent to an application as it moves within the company.

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