(enterprise application integration) has

come a long way since our early ancestors fashionedthe first custom connectors out of wood, shell, and

stone. Back then, the goals were modest, the work was diffi-cult, and the results were brittle. They were also costly tomaintain. Change required starting over from scratch.

Today we know that IT systems must adapt more quicklyto business needs, and there’s no shortage of middleware ven-dors promising to make that happen. The magic ingredientsare SOA (service-oriented architecture) — an integration par-adigm that prescribes open standards and lightweight, dis-tributed components — and the ESB (enterprise service bus),a newfangled integration platform designed to support theSOA paradigm and tie into legacy assets.

The golden dream behind the ESB is to replace proprietaryintegration brokers with open communication layers throughwhich distributed services and business processes are readi-ly exposed and easily managed. The immediate reality, how-

Cape Clear, Iona, and Sonic lead the way

toward services-orientedintegration

BY JAMES R. BORCKILLUSTRATION BY CELIA JOHNSON

26 I N F O W O R L D . C O M 0 7 . 2 5 . 0 5

EAISERVICE

Inside the ESB Roundup28 Cape Clear 6.1

29 Cordys 4.2

31 FioranoESB Suite 3.7

32 FusionWare IntegrationServer 3.0

34 Iona Artix 3.0 Advanced

34 PolarLake IntegrationSuite 4.0

36 Sonic SOA Suite 6.1

I N F O W O R L D . C O M 0 7 . 2 5 . 0 5 27

ever, is that it may be too soon to leave the old messaging sub-systems behind.

Regardless of the underlying messaging core, an ESB mustsomehow — through open standards or by proprietary means— create a foundation for reliable messaging. Until WS-*specifications for reliable messaging fall into place, that reli-ability continues to come from the likes of JMS (Java Mes-sage Service), homegrown messaging engines, proprietaryMOM (message-oriented middleware), and J2EE servers.

Among the seven ESB packages in this roundup, all but twoincorporate an old-school messaging subsystem; Fiorano Soft-ware and Sonic Software are based on proprietary messagingmiddleware. Iona Technologies extends its legacy EAI archi-tecture. PolarLake and FusionWare take a server-centric, con-nector-based approach. Only Cape Clear Software and Cordysuse a truly open and distributed SOA.

What else must an ESB suite provide? It should have toolsthat streamline development, a data-transformation engine,

intelligent message routing, and a management interface sup-porting real-time monitoring and exception handling, as wellas deployment and management of actual services. Most ofthe products reviewed here meet all of these requirements tovarying degrees.

Additional features may include process orchestrationand management, BAM (business activity monitoring) andQoS capabilities, support for enterprise management sys-tems such as HP OpenView and IBM Tivoli, and the inclu-sion of ready-made adapters for quick integration of enter-prise apps, data sources, application servers, alternativetransports, etc. These were all key differentiators amongthe products tested. Further, not all of these suites supportservice discovery and re-use, accelerate XML processing,or offer content-based message routing. In short, each ofthe products offers a distinct set of strengths. Not all ofthem, however, would meet the challenges of large, com-plex integration projects.

BUSES HIT THE ROAD

Cape Clear 6.1Born from members of team Iona, Cape Clear made its nameas an early pioneer in Web-services platform infrastructure.Cape Clear 6 is a well-equipped Java-based ESB suite thatcombines Web-services messaging with content-based rout-ing and data-transformation capabilities, BPEL (BusinessProcess Execution Language)-driven orchestration and work-flow, and a battery of wizard-driven helpers and administra-tive tools for monitoring and managing system health.

Striving for completely standards-based integration, CapeClear eschews the need for proprietary messaging subsys-tems, like Sonic’s, in favor of open WS-* specifications. CapeClear also has opted not to supply a J2EE/JMS messagingbackbone, choosing instead to mesh with those from BEASystems, IBM, Sonic, Tibco Software, and others. Thisapproach will change July 26, when Cape Clear 6.2 ships witha fully integrated version of the JBoss JMS.

Version 6.0 supports the WS-ReliableMessaging protocol,a QoS mechanism for building delivery assurances betweenend points. Version 6.0 also ushered in a BPEL orchestrationengine and an Eclipse-based orchestration toolbox for build-ing composite applications from process flows.

The Version 6.1 update makes some notable orchestrationenhancements including support for the missing Waitaction — necessary to support multibranching, asynchro-nous processes — and auto-generation of BPEL variables.It also improves the orchestration engine’s ability to recov-er from system failures, adding database persistence thatallows the orchestrator to resume processes exactly wherethey were left off.

The WS-ReliableMessaging specification has yet to be offi-cially locked down, but Cape Clear is firmly committed to itssupport. Using a plug-in adapter, Cape Clear can also speakwith JMS transports such as SonicMQ and WebSphere MQ.

The Orchestration Studio’s BPEL scripting toolkit is one ofthe best I’ve used. Using the drag-and-drop building blocks,it was a cinch to define and build up workflows. Debuggingand simulation capabilities could use a kick-start, however.

Cape Clear’s monitoring and management tools are suffi-cient for smaller deployments, but they’re not up to the taskof managing large numbers of distributed servers as a group.The admin interface shows a general overview of runningprocesses but offers limited reporting and BI insights. Thebuilt-in monitoring and alerting cover the essentials, but

28 I N F O W O R L D . C O M 0 7 . 2 5 . 0 5

Cape Clear 6.1Cape Clear Software capeclear.com

GOOD 7.6Interoperability (30%) 8

Features (20%) 8

Management (15%) 6

Scalability (15%) 8

Security (10%) 7

Value (10%) 8

COST: $10,000 per CPU plus 15 per-cent maintenance. Developer:$2,500 per seat

PLATFORMS: Linux, Solaris,Windows

BOTTOM LINE: Cape Clear is anestablished player in the Web ser-vices platform space, and its stan-dards-based ESB shows it. GoodXML processing, a good toolset, andsolid orchestration make this Java-centric and cost-effective vendor amust-see. The future inclusion ofJBoss JMS will help address enter-prise messaging requirements.

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Cordys 4.2Cordys cordys.com

FAIR 6.5Interoperability (30%) 7

Features (20%) 6

Management (15%) 7

Scalability (15%) 6

Security (10%) 6

Value (10%) 6

COST: Subscriptions start at $2,500per server per month; licenses start at$75,000 per server

PLATFORMS: Red Hat Linux,Windows

BOTTOM LINE: Although Cordysrequires a number of third-partycomponents to bring it up to enter-prise grade, the core stack for thisrelative newcomer hits some highpoints. An XML object cache, goodgraphical tools, decent businessintelligence, and a useful collabora-tive portal layer may be a sign ofmore good things to come.

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FioranoESB Suite 3.7Fiorano Software fiorano.com

FAIR 6.8Interoperability (30%) 7

Features (20%) 7

Management (15%) 7

Scalability (15%) 7

Security (10%) 6

Value (10%) 6

COST: Starts at $50,000 per CPUplus 20 percent maintenance; addi-tional servers $10,000 per CPU

PLATFORMS: AIX, HP-UX, Linux,Solaris, Windows, more

BOTTOM LINE: IncorporatingFioranoMQ as the messaging back-bone, this enterprise service busdelivers an effective if proprietaryblend of hub-and-spoke integrationand support for distributed Web ser-vices. Fiorano would do well to addfull support for BPEL and WS-*specs, as well as support for addi-tional transports.

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FusionWare IntegrationServer 3.0FusionWare fusionware.net

POOR 5.3Interoperability (30%) 6

Features (20%) 5

Management (15%) 4

Scalability (15%) 5

Security (10%) 5

Value (10%) 6

COST: Starts at $14,995 for two con-current processes; additionalprocesses start at $3,995 per pair

PLATFORMS: AIX, Linux, Solaris,Windows, z/OS, more

BOTTOM LINE: FusionWareIntegration Server offers a per-process-thread licensing model thatcould be cost-advantageous tosmaller shops. Its centralizedapproach to integration, administra-tive shortcomings, limited analytics,and absence of enterprise adaptersconfirm that small shops areFusionWare’s best target.

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they’re inadequate for keeping a close eye on QoS. Servicesmanagement is also very basic, with no change-managementor dependency-checking features.

On the plus side, I drilled down easily through process-activity lists to examine run-time conditions and intervene togive stuck processes a manual push. Thanks to support forXPath and XQuery, which allow dynamic routing based onboth document header and body content, Cape Clear handledcomplex routing and errors without a hitch.

Specifying XSLTs (XSL Transformations) proved straight-forward using the included graphical mapper, a wizard-driven tool made for quick and easy mapping of unstructureddata and Excel documents, hiding much of the underlyingcomplexity in data translation. I did run into a minor bug ina date-transformation function, however.

Security mechanisms are good but not spectacular. CapeClear can handle SOAP digital signatures and client-side cer-tificate authorization as well as SAML. Tapping LDAP andWindows NT domain controllers for authorization is not aproblem, and JAAS (Java Authentication and AuthorizationService) can be plugged in as well. It would be great to seeCape Clear round out the security choices in a future release.

Good load balancing and fail-over management, as well asintegration with SNMP and JMX (Java Management Exten-sion)-ready management platforms, make a good case forenterprise deployment. Cape Clear could further strengthenthe case by beefing up the management tools and adding someindustry-specific process templates or best-practice workflows,such as those in Fiorano.

Nevertheless, with solid links to J2EE and provisions forORB (object request broker)-protocol integration, Cape Clearpresents a finely wrapped, pure-play ESB package suitable forboutique and midsize integration projects.

Cordys 4.2Founded by Jan Baan, Nordic creator of the once-innovativeBaan ERP system, Cordys is the only vendor in our roundup toincorporate a collaborative portal in its suite. Formerly knownas the Cordys Business Collaboration Platform, Cordys 4.2 alsoincludes integration middleware, an orchestration engine, anda design studio for developing business rules and modelingprocesses and workflow.

In addition to being the window into graphical activitymonitoring, the portal serves as a foundation for centralized

content development and e-learning, thanks to a WebExplug-in. (No surprise; WebExis a company in which Baanalso has a hand.) Although theportal is a nice touch, the spe-cific KPI (key performanceindicator) templates and busi-ness intelligence capabilitiesstill have room to grow.

Unlike the other vendorshere, Cordys requires you tosupply your own Web server(Microsoft IIS or Apache) anddatabase (Oracle Database orMicrosoft SQL Server),increasing up-front licensingcosts. Cordys also requires youto set up a central LDAP reg-istry for storing configurationinformation. The CordysAdmin Repository Server(based on OpenLDAP) is pro-vided, but Netscape DirectoryServer 4 may also be used.

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Iona Artix 3.0 AdvancedIona Technologies iona.com

GOOD 7.6Interoperability (30%) 8

Features (20%) 6

Management (15%) 7

Scalability (15%) 9

Security (10%) 9

Value (10%) 7

COST: Starts at $10,000 per CPU;Developer kit: $1,500. Maintenancefee starts at 17 percent

PLATFORMS: AIX, HP-UX, Solaris,Windows, z/OS

BOTTOM LINE: Iona’s Artix is oneof your best last chances for legacyintegration before busting the bud-get on a monolithic integration suitefrom a big vendor. It’s missingprocess orchestration, but transac-tion support is top notch. If yourgoal is to modernize Cobol, CICS,IMS, or IDL-based applications, youwould do well to look here first.

PolarLake IntegrationSuite 4.0PolarLake polarlake.com

FAIR 6.8 Interoperability (30%) 7

Features (20%) 7

Management (15%) 7

Scalability (15%) 7

Security (10%) 5

Value (10%) 7

COST: Starts at $55,000 per CPU;Maintenance: 18 percent per year.

PLATFORMS: AIX, Red Hat Linux,Solaris, Windows

BOTTOM LINE: PolarLake’s recentaddition of BPEL-based orchestra-tion and content-based routing makeit a meaningful contender in the ESBspace. The suite also offers goodprocess simulation, SNMP manage-ment integration, enterprise applica-tion adapters, and basic QoS.Limitations in tools, BPEL support,and activity monitoring hold it back.

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Sonic SOA Suite 6.1Sonic Software sonicsoftware.com

VERY GOOD 8.3Interoperability (30%) 9

Features (20%) 8

Management (15%) 7

Scalability (15%) 9

Security (10%) 9

Value (10%) 7

COST: Suite: $35,000 per CPU;Collaboration Server: $35,000 perCPU; Workbench: $3,700 per user.

PLATFORMS: AIX, HP-UX, Red HatLinux, Solaris, Windows

BOTTOM LINE: Sonic’s SOA Suiteis complete, flexible, and powerful,delivering an out-of-the-box experi-ence that is superior to the competi-tion. Its reliance on proprietary mid-dleware proves more costly, but withexpense comes reliability that can-not be overlooked for high-volumetransaction scenarios. Sonic shouldaim to simplify coding requirements.

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ESB Roundup

Fiorano’s messaging subsystem is hardy, but the bus and related components remain light on features.

Cordys’ browser-based interface offers access to centralizedmanagement and development tools, including run-timemonitoring and debugging. The IDE provides good graphicaltools for process and application modeling, easy configura-tion and deployment of applications, and standard mappingfor XML data transformations. On the downside, processsimulation is absent and Cordys’ WSDL format is proprietary.

The Cordys IDE allows development from several vantages,focusing either on value chain, business context, or straight-forward process modeling. Although modeling is currentlybased on BPML (Business Process Modeling Language),Cordys indicates that BPEL import is forthcoming with even-tual migration to full native support.

Architecturally, deployment used to require that eachSOAP-processing end point be configured in its own JVM.With this release, Cordys allows you to reduce resource over-head by running multiple processors in a single virtual

machine. Caveat deployer, however: Doing so would alsomake it possible for one nasty bug or system restart to bringdown your entire system.

All of the Cordys platform’s functions are extended asWeb services and reachable through SOAP calls. Cordys’message bus also supports Microsoft MQ and includes fairprovisions for fail-over. Cordys also offers a JMS connector,but it has not been certified as compliant with the Sun specand it has never been tested in a customer deployment.

The basic security features include support for Windows-based authentication and ACLs (access control lists). Thebundled ACL editor is a nice touch.

Cordys’ ESB shows good promise. Despite various short-comings, the components of the suite are surprisinglymature for a five-year-old company. The absence of provi-sions for enterprise management systems (SNMP orJMX), and overdependence on third-party adapters for

30 I N F O W O R L D . C O M 0 7 . 2 5 . 0 5

Communications backbone /transport support

WS-ReliableMessaging / HTTP, JMS, WS-RM, HTTPS, SMTP,FTP, SonicMQ, WebSphere MQ

Cordys CatsQueue / MSMQ, HTTPS, JMS

FioranoMQ / JMS, HTTPS, FTP, CORBA

HTTP / SMTP

Adaptive Runtime Technology / CORBA (IIOP), JMS, HTTPS, JMX

Homegrown XML Transport / JMS, HTTPS, SMTP, FTP

SonicMQ / JMS, HTTPS, SMTP, FTP

Different Routes to SOA Differences among product suites include the basic architecture and messagingtransports supported, and extend to process orchestration, message routing, and activity monitoring capabilities.

Infrastructurestyle

Distributedend points

Distributedend points

MOM

Centralizedserver

Distributedend points

Centralizedserver

MOM

Cape Clear 6.1

Cordys 4.2

FioranoESBSuite 3.7

FusionWareIntegrationServer 3.0

Iona Artix 3.0Advanced

PolarLakeIntegration Suite 4.0

Sonic SOA Suite6.1

Transform / routing /enrichment

XPath, XQuery,XSLT

XSLT

XSLT withfunctions

Basic XSLT

Non-content-based routing

XSLT and XPath;good XPath editor

XSLT, XQuery,itinerary- andcontent-based

Reporting / auditing

General logging

Good reporting

Basic reporting

General logging

General logging

Basic reporting

Good reporting

Process language

BPEL

BPML

Fiorano, limit-ed BPEL

FusionWare

None

Limited BPEL

Sonic

Modeling tools

Good graphical model-ing; Eclipse-based

Good modeling frommultiple business focus-es; no simulation

Graphical modeling withreal-time feedback

Basic text layout

Chain Builder enablessmall, stateless transac-tions

Graphical modeling withgood simulation;Eclipse-based

Workbench includesgraphical process model-ing; no simulation

ORCHESTRATION

Web-services call-outs, XML transformations, and data-aggregation services, developers gain some good tools to con-struct intricate processes fairly easily.

The development interface goes a step further with supportfor real-time simulation, and the debugger enabled captur-ing and inspecting message-queue contents on the fly. Iviewed the flow of transaction data among components, whilesimple plug-in adapters offered display services that simpli-fied real-time message inspection and even the capability tochat with other admins and troubleshooters.

Not that the IDE couldn’t be improved. The terribly inef-ficient drawings quickly became convoluted without man-ual reorganization, and the inability to specify start andend points in the event process — allowing data flows, intheory, to start at any point along the chain — proved dis-orienting. In the plus column, Fiorano’s XSLT mapper,which graphically depicts its Funclets (functions you insertinto translations) for easy manipulation, was one of theeasiest I’ve used. And the content-based routing capabili-ties are finely grained.

In addition to Fiorano’s own orchestration, BPEL develop-ment is offered to a lesser degree. BPEL is not completelyimplemented, resulting in limited transaction managementand fault- and event-handling capabilities.

Administration and service-specific management also needimprovement. For example, although you can easily viewactive sessions, the queue manager interface makes it diffi-cult to trace past ones.

Furthermore, although Fiorano’s messaging subsystem ishardy, the bus and related components remain light on fea-tures. Not all system components can be exposed as Web ser-vices without programming, and supported transports don’tgo beyond the basics (HTTP, FTP, e-mail). Fiorano doesn’tsupport JMX-based management systems or integrate withLDAP for access control. Security features do include pro-grammatic support for JAAS and JSSE (Java Secure SocketExtension), but not good options for federated security, forexample. Finally, performance can be sluggish, although theinclusion of FioranoMQ 8 in the next release will likely pro-vide a boost.

On the upside, FioranoESB offers solid messagingunderpinnings and a good set of prebuilt services. You caneasily extend the system using a variety of programminglanguages, including Java, C/C++, COM, and C# for .Netclient development. Fiorano’s messaging architecture maycreate a lot of overhead, but the end points are chock-fullof resources.

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business-to-business and mainframe integration may limitits appeal in certain circles.

FioranoESB Suite 3.7Fiorano Software steps into the ESB arena with a Java-basedintegration stack that combines JMS messaging (Fiora-noMQ), BPM, and SOA adaptability. Although Fiorano hascome to refer to its architecture as “brokered peer-to-peer,”the reality is that — in the absence of a WS-* spec like WS-ReliableMessaging, which Fiorano does not yet support —ensuring the reliability and integrity of transactions willrequire deploying FioranoMQ (or a similar middleware com-ponent) centrally or at the end point.

Fiorano’s Event Process Orchestrator, a NetBeans-basedIDE, presented a great palette of prebuilt components thatcould be modified, saved, and inserted into my flows. Fromflow controls, database adapters, and MOM connectors to

QoS facilities / alerts

Minimal built-in

Alerting possible

General alerting

Minimal built-in

Very good QoS features

Basic alerting

Good alerting andprocess triggers

Reporting / auditing

Basic process insight;would benefit fromgraphical depiction

Portal layer providesgood graphical BI

Basic process insightwith minimal detail

Basic process insightwith minimal detail

Basic process insight;would benefit from BIenhancements

Good process overview;details not easily accessible

Good process insight;needs additional BI

Enterprisemanagement interface

SNMP, JMX

None

SNMP, JMX

None

JMX, SNMP; alsoTivoli, BMC Patrol

SNMP; BMC Patrol,HP OpenViewvia JMX

SNMP

ESB Roundup

ACTIVITY MANAGEMENT

ESB Roundup

FusionWare Integration Server 3.0FusionWare’s flagship product features a Java server frame-work for mediating communications, backed by a Windows-native IDE for designing process workflows and a GUI forserver management. The Integration Server’s licensing modeloffers an interesting way to control deployment costs, and theIDE provides some nice wizards for easing development. Ulti-mately, however, this suite is suitable only for small, central-ized integration projects.

FusionWare’s licensing structure is unique among vendorsin our roundup. Licensed by the number of concurrent pro-cessing threads, the server ticks down the number of avail-able threads with each inbound request. When a server’sthread count is exhausted, new requests sit in the messagequeue until a running process completes or is suspended, anda thread becomes available again.

The licensing scheme offers a sign of the solution’s limitedscalability. Although you can purchase and install additionalworker threads to meet growing demand, I was disappointedto discover that there was no way to pool licenses acrossmultiserver installations.

FusionWare’s tools are also a mixed bag. The Designer IDEis adequate for creating workflows, but can be somewhatcumbersome at times, as it lacks many of the visual queuesand graphical tools for streamlining tasks that are common-ly available from competing vendors. On the upside, the Busi-ness Process Wizard does a good job of jump-starting a pro-ject framework, including storing assets and text-basedworkflow configurations.

FusionWare’s XSLT wizard takes a different approach thanmost XSLT tools, which typically offer a visual map of inputs

to outputs. Instead, XML transforms are done through aninteresting two-step process, which involves pre-parsing theinput structure to isolate pertinent data items before map-ping them out. I personally found the process somewhat con-voluted, but it would certainly minimize complexity in han-dling large document structures.

I’d like to see FusionWare adopt a workflow standard, suchas BPEL, and incorporate features for transaction compen-sation and exception handling. Although a new tool has beenadded to test deployments, tighter integration of versioning,management, and project deployment is needed. Debuggingalso could be more efficient. The IDE allowed me to set basicbreakpoints, but having to jump to a text-based, commandline interface to execute debug processing was a pain. Thiswould not pass muster in high volume shops.

FusionWare is also light on administrative features. It pro-vides only very basic insight into queue conditions and ser-vice status. Better metrics and auditing will be a definiterequirement for enterprise installs. Until FusionWare dropsthem in, customers should plan on building their own.

This product also lacks a strong enterprise footing when itcomes to transport support — currently limited to HTTP ande-mail — and security, where FusionWare’s support for thebasics, such as HTTP/S and simple password-based authen-tication, may not be sufficient to meet advanced encryptionand authentication requirements. These and other short-comings, including the absence of extensions to externalmanagement systems, the failure to support advanced b-to-bprotocols (RosettaNet, ebXML, etc.), and the lack of ERP orSCM adapters, for example, relegate FusionWare to small-scale implementations.

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Cape Clear’s Eclipse-based BPEL process designer makes for quickdevelopment but lacks process simulation.

Cordys processes are based on BPML and its WSDL is nonstandard.BPEL support is slated for a future release.

Clearly Iona has chosen to focus onfundamentals, but a few additions would help toround out the Artix package.

Iona Artix 3.0 AdvancedOne of the biggest names in legacy integration is Ireland’sIona Technologies. Not surprisingly, Iona brings to its ESB astrong feature set for mainframe transaction bridging, MOM-based systems, and CORBA transports, as well as its Adap-tive Runtime Technology plug-in architecture and a newJ2EE service connector.

What impressed me most about Artix is its ready adapt-ability for old-school protocols such as IIOP (Internet Inter-ORB Protocol) and CICS, and support for security servicessuch as single sign-on. Iona is truly a top-tier player in theserespects.

The new Eclipse-based development environment couldbenefit from more wizard-driven shortcuts like the one forpulling WSDL out of old Cobol Copybooks. Although a bitbuggy, it does a wonderful job.

In addition to supporting port- and protocol-based routing,Artix can be configured to take routing directives from mes-sage headers but not yet message content. Artix supportsdynamic services binding through a central directory andrepository called the Locator service.

Data format translations within the bus are performed

directly, without first having to convert data into an interme-diate language such as XML, speeding throughput but alsocreating hard-coded, application-specific interfaces. Artixsupports XSLT scripts, as well.

Security underpinnings are good. Artix supports LDAP andMicrosoft Active Directory, ACLs, single sign-on, and role-based authorizations, as well as Kerberos authentication andWS-Security.

Note, however, that this platform fails to implement

process orchestration and activity monitoring. For simple,stateless transactions, I linked together services using theincluded Chain Builder, a plug-in for constructing servicesand transformations into preformed process definitions. Forprocesses of any complexity, though, you’ll want to layer onthird-party BPM.

Clearly Iona has chosen to focus on fundamentals, but a fewother additions would help to round out the Artix package.These include real-time dashboards, tighter services versioncontrol, the ability to monitor dependencies among servicesto better facilitate change management, and better plug-insfor enterprise applications from vendors such as SAP and Ora-cle. Customers in financial services, health care, and other ver-ticals would also benefit from best-practices process templates.

Provisions for transactional reliability and integrity, how-ever, are top notch. Artix supports session management, two-phase commit (XA/2PC) for long-running processes, and theWS-AtomicTransaction and WS-Context specifications. It issolidly fortified with redundancy, load balancing, and hot-swap of services, and it offers a run time that can be deployedon almost any platform — from IBM AIX and z/OS to Linuxand Windows. And the QoS features are among the best I’veseen in an ESB implementation.

Naturally, such creature comforts (or enterprise necessi-ties) come at a price. The per-CPU run-time licensing asso-ciated with each distributed container means that largedeployments won’t come cheap, especially when you con-sider that a good number of enterprise “extras,” such asoperational logging and management system adapters comeat additional cost.

On the other hand, you get what you pay for. Committed tomodernizing old-world systems with the new, Iona’s Artix 3.0Advanced does what it does very well. This package is aheavyweight contender for addressing large-scale systemintegration projects in a services-oriented way.

PolarLake Integration Suite 4.0Built on PolarLake’s Java-centric service bus, JIntegrator, thePolarLake Integration Suite 4.0 sports a nice collection oftools and connectors plus some basic features for ensuringquality of service that make it worthy of consideration forsmall to midsize deployments. Limited BPEL support andshortcomings in tools and activity monitoring make it a diffi-cult sell for large installations.

PolarLake makes use of a “circuits” metaphor to representcollections of XML-based configuration files, processes, andtransports controlled by its servers. Circuits may contain

34 I N F O W O R L D . C O M 0 7 . 2 5 . 0 5

Fiorano’s process designer offers good real-time simulation capabili-ties and provides good message interception for debugging.

ESB Roundup

details for data transformation, database integration, attach-ing to a JMS pipe, or adding monitoring and reporting func-tionality within a process, to name a few. A unique XMLstreaming architecture boosts performance by “pre-process-ing” inbound XML documents before transmission of thedocument is complete.

For process modeling, the Eclipse-based IDE was not bad.Its graphical interface offered a pallet of drag-and-drop com-ponents for assembling processes and let me test the flowsbetween my circuits before they were deployed. The capabil-ity to simulate run-time testing within the development envi-ronment sped up debugging tremendously. On the downside,I could not perform debugging during true run time, norcould I manually intervene in live processes. These would benice improvements to PolarLake’s activity monitoring.

PolarLake’s newly added BPEL engine enables sophisticat-ed exception handling, transaction compensation (rollbacks,alerts, and workflows in response to failed transactions), andmessage correlation (re-syncing a stream of messages for con-tinued processing). Data transformation was standard stuff,although the graphical interface quickly became clutteredwhen handling anything beyond a one-to-one mapping.Transformation and content-based routing are strong thanksto XPath and newly added XQuery support.

On the development front, PolarLake’s biggest shortcom-ing is limited support for WS-* standards, but there are oth-ers. For example, you get no tools for tackling complex, non-XML-ready data structures. Incorporating Excel docs inprocesses won’t go as easily as with Cape Clear. Convolutedpop-ups in the new WSDL editor had me pining for a sim-ple text editor.

Security, too, could use some improvement. PolarLake’sSecureXML module, which provides basic public key supportfor XML signatures and encryption, is a good step in the rightdirection, but the only adapter included is for the VeriSignTrust Service Integration Kit. For anything else, such as Bal-timore’s KeyTools or Apache signatures, you’ll need to createyour own adapters.

A basic management console, drawing on the sensorfeedback data I built into my circuits, let me monitor andrestart applications, as well as view error messages. I couldnot drill through to underlying specifics, making trou-bleshooting difficult, but remote monitoring and alerting— key to managing distributed services — were good. Thesystem can generate SNMP traps to integrate with enter-prise management systems.

Large customers may want a more complete toolset, richeractivity monitoring, and fuller BPEL support from their ESBvendor, but the PolarLake Integration Suite has a lot goingfor it, including good process simulation, adapters for enter-prise applications, and decent QoS provisions. Support forSWIFT, FIX, and XBRL document formats warrant a lookfrom financial services companies.

Sonic SOA Suite 6.1Sonic SOA Suite may be the most well-rounded and matureESB solution in the marketplace today. This Java-poweredpackage combines separate servers for the ESB, processorchestration, database services, and even XML processing.A separate product, the Sonic Collaboration Server, offersstrong support for integrating external business partners.

Like Fiorano, Sonic lays a services bus atop its own mes-

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FusionWare takes a stab at process design, but despite several wiz-ards and good component reuse, lags behind the market.

Iona Artix’s Eclipse-based toolkit makes Web services configuration amanual process, but it gets the job done.

The PolarLake suite has a lot going for it, includinggood process simulation and decent QoS.

ESB Roundup

saging backbone, SonicMQ, to provide a cushion of reliabil-ity across transactions — raising the same concerns as Fiora-no about vendor lock-in and the rigidity of centralized, heavy-duty hubs versus the more flexible, lighter-weight distributedend points that are the hallmark of true SOAs.

Sonic’s CAA (Continuous Availability Architecture), a soft-ware-based approach to high availability and guaranteed mes-sage delivery, demonstrated good performance and fault tol-erance in my tests. Although hardware clustering for loadbalancing is still supported, CAA can help reduce your relianceon costly hardware as a hedge against system failures.

Although I’d prefer to see a cross-platform IDE, I didn’tmind the Windows-only development kit. Sonic Workbenchincludes a UML-style interface for building and managingbusiness process flows. Workbench does not support BPELand lacks process simulation capabilities, but its process-orchestration capabilities hit the mark.

Workbench made easy work of developing complex rout-ing scenarios, using XSLT for transformations and XQuery

for content-based routing, in addition to its itinerary-basedrouting, using specified instructions within the document.

Workbench also provided good facilities for testing anddebugging, but be prepared to bring your programming skillsalong. Workbench demands a good degree of Java andJavaScript programming to get things done. I would prefer asimpler way, but the results were superb. Tools for editing,testing, and debugging SQL queries, as well as a newly addedCall Editor for testing Web services, round out the set.

Sonic makes the movement from development to stag-ing server to deployment a seamless process. I easily con-figured, deployed, and checked dependencies among ser-vices with little effort. A solid security foundation includespluggable authentication and encryption options, as wellas embedded RSA support, which can be uniformly imple-mented across multiple domains for completely federatedmanagement. Also, although the majority of Sonic’sadapters will require additional third-party expense, thecompany offers one of the best selections of tried-and-test-

38 I N F O W O R L D . C O M 0 7 . 2 5 . 0 5

A Bus by Many Different Namesthe definition of the esb (enterprise service bus) isoften in the eye of the beholder, especially when the beholderis a major vendor with a product line to protect. While thevendors in our roundup were busy working out packaged so-lutions, the big boys were outside buzzing with promises andrevised road maps.

How do BEA, IBM, Microsoft, and Oracle spell ESB? ForBEA and Oracle, the core is the J2EE app server. For IBMand Microsoft, it’s their message queue.

BEA’s just-unveiled AquaLogic line of service-infrastruc-ture products layers Web-services messaging on its WebLogicapplication-server architecture. In addition to a centralizedrepository for discovery and reuse, there appear to be de-cent provisions for security, monitoring, and lifecycle man-agement of services-enabled applications. Tools for processorchestration and application composition remain on thedistant horizon.

Oracle’s April christening of its Fusion Middleware likewisemakes the J2EE app server the foundation of an ESB. NativeBPEL (Business Process Execution Language)-support, by wayof Oracle’s Collaxa acquisition, adds open process orchestrationto the mix. Also included are a rules-execution engine andseemingly decent tools for gleaning business intelligence.

IBM describes its recently released WebSphere MQ 6 as aworthy foundation for an ESB. As such, MQ 6 lacks certain essentials such as advanced message brokering and a repository,for example, but Big Blue maintains that by including othercomponents from its WebSphere portfolio, an ESB can bestitched together.

Along similar lines, Microsoft’s Indigo paints the picture ofa future communications infrastructure that incorporates theMSMQ messaging bus and extensions for Web services. Whencombined with BizTalk, Indigo may begin to conceptually approach an ESB, although its modularity will remain a key dif-ferentiator. Further, the success of Indigo will be directly linkedto the degree of WS-* protocol support that Microsoft imple-ments.

As established middleware vendors step up their effortsaround the service bus model, it will become increasingly dif-ficult for early leaders to maintain their edge. Many will be con-sumed, others will fade away. For today’s buyer, this naturallypresents a sticking point. If you can’t seamlessly swap the ser-vice bus assets acquired today for those of another vendor to-morrow, how will the cost of adoption have been better thanwalking the EAI line in the first place? Plan your trip carefully. Theroad ahead may turn sooner than you think. — J.R.B.

ESB Roundup

ESB Roundup

ed application, b-to-b, and transactional adapters I’ve seen. Sonic’s new Collaboration Server, which focuses on trading-

partner integration, may seem redundant. Shouldn’t an ESBnatively support your SOA-based business partners? More-over, the cost of the b-to-b server will double the initial outlayrequired. Nevertheless, Collaboration Server’s support for pro-tocols such as ebXML and RosettaNet, the capability to buildad hoc run-time bindings, and the ease with which humanworkflow is integrated make the b-to-b server worthwhile.Best of all, you can manage the Collaboration Server and theESB within the same management framework.

Sonic maintains a thumb firmly in its proprietary SOA pie.Like Fiorano’s MOM, Sonic’s SonicMQ goes beyond the JMSspec to bring a layer of transparency to variations in clientconnectivity (point-to-point, store/forward, publish/sub-scribe, sync/async messaging) and hide the complexities ofqueue structure, process prioritization, transaction manage-ment, and session control. True SOA it’s not, but there’s nodenying its suitability for enterprise deployments. Sonic hasthe stuff for high-volume utilization.

Waving a Checkered FlagAs with all of the EAI frameworks that came before, an ESBmust be able to improve access and control over applicationresources, streamline development, and ultimately reduceintegration costs over the long term. Among the productsreviewed here, Sonic’s SOA Suite is best equipped to achievethese goals on an enterprise scale.

Cape Clear, with the most open approach to ESB imple-mentation, delivers a good solution for boutique and midsizeintegration projects in need of strong process orchestration,

advanced routing, and open transformation capabilities.Despite a strong (and potentially costly) reliance on third-

party infrastructure, as well as an aging BPML-based orches-tration engine, Cordys’ focus on collaboration will appeal tosome shops striving to integrate the human factor into enter-prise processes. Cordys also provides analytic insight thatsmall groups might find useful.

Fiorano’s ESB offers strong middleware but came off a lit-tle too proprietary in the absence of healthy transport andadapter libraries and the lack of support for advanced Web-services specs. Its advantages, though, can be found in areassuch as process management and real-time simulation.

The unique per-process-thread licensing of the FusionWareIntegration Server makes it a likely candidate for smallershops who don’t mind the centralized server approach, don’trequire visual tools, and don’t need strong analytics.

Iona Artix will bring strong and reliable messaging capa-bilities to your legacy integration projects at an affordableprice, but at the cost of some features, including lifecyclemanagement tools, process orchestration, and advanced rout-ing capabilities.

Like Sonic, PolarLake Integration Suite requires too muchJava-centric programming, but supplies good process simu-lation, some basic QoS, and good enterprise application adap-tors. Ultimately, this suite comes up short on activity moni-toring and management that would be essential to largerdeployments.

Despite a proprietary architecture that is sure to alien-ate SOA purists, the Sonic SOA Suite is the most powerful,flexible, and scalable ESB among the group. Customersshould weigh the risks of vendor lock-in and be prepared tofoot additional costs — both with respect to price and skill-set requirements. Until the Web-services fabric maturesenough to support a fully reliable open integration plat-form, however, or until larger players finally enter the ESBarena, Sonic is best overall for larger-scale SOA imple-mentations in need of high transactional reliability. i

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Sonic Workbench offers a UML-style interface for composing processflows but lacks process simulation capabilities.

PolarLake’s well-designed Designer takes a circuit-based approach toBPEL orchestration and process simulation.

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