AmberPoint is critical to having a firm grip on what a Web service is doing, Mercado added. He also applauded increased integration with identity management systems. MedicAlert's SOA features a service exposed to the Internet that allows for clients to retrieve and update personal health information, with the rest of the deployment primarily for internal Web services.

Competing with companies such as SOA Systems, Infravio, and Actional, AmberPoint believes its service level and exception management capabilities provide an advantage over rivals. AmberPoint is not intimidated by long-established system management platforms such as Hewlett-Packard's HP OpenView or Computer Associates' Unicenter.

"In competitive situations, I don't think there's ever a case where we've ever lost to any of those guys," meaning HP and CA, said Horst.

In existence since 2002, AmberPoint has about 86 customers. Horst acknowledges that other vendors have pondered AmberPoint as a potential acquisition target, but the company wishes to remain independent.

"We're not trying to get bought. We always talk to people about OEM relationships and that's what we end up doing," Horst said. He cited a deal with Microsoft as an example.