One of the chief differences between the decentralized computing model defined by Web services and distributed computing models of the past is the shift in component ownership. In distributed architectures, most of the interacting software components operated in a single trusted domain that was centrally managed. In the new decentralized model, interactions between components span organizational boundaries, making it difficult to manage, configure, monitor, and update the components from a single operations organization. Core 3.0 from Confluent Software is a Web services manager that tackles this problem by providing a single point of configuration for far-flung Web service components. The architecture of Confluent Core is as distributed as the services that it manages. Core works through a set of active intermediaries called "gateways" or "agents," depending on how they are deployed. [Full story at InfoWorld...]

Confluent CORE was a different product that ones I'd reviewed before. There was not specific transport layer included, just gateways, agents, and management points. There are certain businesses that will be very interested in the model that Confluent uses. For example, I was speaking to Scott Loftesness a few month ago about Web services and he made the observation that the financial services industry is not likely to embrace a third-party active intermediary model because of the security risks that would have to be mitigated. I'm inclined to believe Scott on this. CORE is an alternative that provides many necessary features without the attending potential risk of a third party intermediary.