All Contents © 2006 Burton Group. All rights reserved. Burton Group Take 5! Debunking ESBs Peter Lacey, Senior Consultant November 10, 2006

2 Quiz: What is an enterprise service bus? A.Whatever an ESB vendor wants it to be B.Mostly marketing C.Largely hype D.Useful, but non-essential part of your SOA infrastructure E.All of the above Answer: E. All of the above Burton Group Take 5: Debunking ESBs

3 Definition: Integration middleware (the latest incarnation of EAI) Service platform Simple and composite services Legacy integration via application and protocol adapters Supports XML messaging over multiple protocols SOAP, HTTP, MOM, sometimes others Request/response, queued, pub/sub; synch/asynch; reliable messaging Mediation services Message routing, filtering, and transformation Protocol brokering May be deployed in a distributed fashion – not hub and spoke May offer many advanced features and SOA-awareness Burton Group Take 5: Debunking ESBs

4 ESB Products Come in Three Flavors 1.SOAP-enabled, proprietary MOM-based, heavyweight integration brokers TIBCO BusinessWorks, IBM WebSphere Message Broker 2.Native-SOAP, proprietary MOM-based, lightweight integration brokers Sonic ESB, Fiorano ESB 3.Native SOAP, MOM-capable, integration suites BEA AquaLogic, IBM WebSphere ESB, Oracle ESB Cape Clear ESB, Iona Artix Open Source Mule, Apache Service Mix, Celtix Burton Group Take 5: Debunking ESBs

5 Vendor Hype An ESB is the single most important component of your SOA infrastructure – you must pick one for your SOA infrastructure All messages must flow through the ESB to get the benefits of SOA Debunking the Hype ESBs are optional components of your SOA infrastructure A periphery component, not a central component – useful for legacy integration Most organizations will have multiple ESBs All messages should be mediated, but an ESB makes a poor intermediary

6 Burton Group Take 5: Debunking ESBs Reality Better mediation systems: XML gateway appliances (some offer legacy integration too) SOA management systems The legacy integration capabilities of ESBs are not comprehensive Proprietary MOM-based ESBs are, well, proprietary Advanced messaging will soon be part of the SOA fabric Reliability, events, asynchronicity, etc.

7 Burton Group Take 5: Debunking ESBs Should you invest in an ESB? ESBs are ideal for service-enabling legacy applications But XML gateways are catching up Deploy ESBs at the edges to encapsulate legacy systems If advanced messaging is absolutely required today Should you make an ESB central to your SOA infrastructure? No. ESBs are about integration. Integration is about bridging application silos. SOA is about breaking them down SOA, by definition, requires a platform-independent mindset. Too much reliance on a single vendor solution will hurt your SOA initiative.

8 Burton Group References Enterprise Service Bus: EAI in Transition Web Service Management: Townsman of a Stiller Town Web Services Security: A Plethora of Products Service Oriented Architecture Infrastructure, Technical Position