ESB Features Comparison

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Basil Rich
8 years ago
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1 ESB Features Comparison Feature wise comparison of Mule ESB & Fiorano ESB

2 Table of Contents A note on Open Source Software (OSS) tools for SOA Implementations... 3 How Mule ESB compares with Fiorano ESB... 4 Key technical differentiators... 5 Additional Technical Benefits of Fiorano... 6 Process orchestration in Mule Vs Fiorano... 7 Summary... 8

3 A note on Open Source Software (OSS) tools for SOA Implementations Studies done in real-world projects estimated that the development costs for OSS SOA would be 30% higher with OSS tools than with commercial ones that provide, on average, over 200% software ROI. The key difference is the lack of mature programmer productivity tools and the lack of a truly integrated and highly-reliable open-source SOA infrastructure platform. There is too much coding in OSS tools (versus modeling with the commercial packages). Current OSS tools provide more of a low-level framework for the technical aspects of SOA such as messaging within the ESB. Ultimately, the cost of the SOA software is small compared to the development effort over time. Most OSS SOA offerings are still immature and lack many of the productivity features found in commercial offerings.

The key difference is the lack of mature programmer productivity tools and the lack of a truly integrated and highly-reliable open-source SOA infrastructure platform.

4 How Mule ESB compares with Fiorano ESB The table below illustrates the availability of SOA features in the respective platforms SOA features Fiorano ESB Mule ESB 1 Model driven : Not Code driven 2 Programmer productivity tools: Graphical IDE 3 Programmer productivity tools: Integrated Debugging 4 Visual schema mapping integrated with metadata and semantic definitions 5 Interoperability in heterogeneous environments 6 Standards Support 7 Adapters for legacy systems 8 Support for modeling composite applications - graphically defined business processes and rules 9 Security and management framework 10 Infrastructure QoS - fault tolerance and load balancing 11 Metadata and semantic definitions 12 Support for multiple transports (HTTP(S), TCP(S), FTP, JMS, SMTP, Partial POP3, SMS, MOM implementations) 13 Scalable architecture 14 Webservices support 15 Content Based Routing 16 Support for Industry standards EDI, HL7, SWIFT, AS2 17 Built in JMS messaging server 18 Business component framework (SDK to build custom service components) 19 JCA support 20 Visual Load balancing configuration 21.Net interoperability 22 Event Monitoring 23 Document tracking 24 Hot failover 25 Deployment Management rules 26 Service component versioning 27 BPM capabilities 28 Data fragmentation and reassembly support for large sized messages 29 SaaS integration support

heterogeneous environments 6 Standards Support 7 Adapters for legacy systems 8 Support for modeling composite applications - graphically defined business processes and rules 9 Security and management

5 Key technical differentiators 1. Visual process orchestration tools a. Fiorano includes a powerful service component orchestration tool built for business users and architects b. Mule ESB does not have any visual configuration tool. All configurations are manual and very tedious, taking an order of magnitude additional time for equivalent operations in comparison 2. Prebuilt adapters a. Fiorano bundles 50+ pre-built components that are customizable for a number of integration scenarios dramatically reducing time-to-market b. Mule ESB does not bundle any pre-built components. All services have to be built manually from scratch. 3. Zero coding a. Once custom components (if any) are built on the Fiorano platform, the process orchestration does not involve any coding or even file level configuration. It s a simple drag-drop-configure-deploy game, with a single view of composition, deployment and monitoring. b. Mule ESB requires you to manually code every service interface and transport gateway; process orchestration involves extensive file-level configuration 4. Testing the process a. Fiorano process flows can be easily tested by connecting pre-built feeder and display components to send dummy messages and view results. b. Mule ESB requires test scripts to be written using the JUnit framework and all tests have to be manually deployed in the service assembly for testing. Such manual testing can be tedious and error prone. 5. Runtime Debugging a. Fiorano components write debug logs on the peers during runtime. In addition, Fiorano implements Message Interception, a powerful feature for debugging distributed message flows at run-time. This feature allows breakpoints to be set across machines and geographical boundaries, giving users a live representation for data-flow inspection and modification. b. Mule ESB does not provide message interception tools and debugging techniques involve tedious coding and manual efforts for error detection. 6..Net interoperability a. Fiorano includes a.net runtime allowing you to build service components in any.net language. b. Mule ESB has no native.net support.

Prebuilt adapters a. Fiorano bundles 50+ pre-built components that are customizable for a number of integration scenarios dramatically reducing time-to-market b.

6 Additional Technical Benefits of Fiorano 1. Faster time to Deployment a. 50+ prebuilt component and visual tools for orchestration, deployment, management and debugging enable a quicker path to an SOA with Fiorano b. With no prebuilt components or visual composition tools, the time to implement a integration project is exponentially higher with Mule ESB in comparison to Fiorano. 2. Transactional visibility a. Fiorano s intuitive visual interface provides a single view for development, deployment and management of event driven business processes. This gives the user unprecedented transactional visibility into implemented business processes with a multitude of concomitant benefits including easy identification of bottlenecks and incremental, dynamic extensibility. 3. Ease of Use a. Visual tools and robust pre-built components enable rapid process deployment. b. Mule ESB s code-driven model for the ESB requires in depth technical knowledge and coding experience.

With no prebuilt components or visual composition tools, the time to implement a integration project is exponentially higher with Mule ESB in comparison to Fiorano. 2. Transactional visibility a.

7 Process orchestration in Mule ESB Vs Fiorano Scenario: The table below presents a step-by-step comparison of the process orchestration of a simple use-case of reading from a file and sending the contents over . Mule ESB Pre-requisites Advanced knowledge of the following is a must 1. Java, J2EE programming 2. ANT scripts 3. XML 4. JMS 5. Maven 6. XSLT 7. SMTP 8. WebServices 9. Spring Framework Installation The ESB installation is a multi-step manual process and has a non-trivial learning curve. Orchestration (Steps discussed below) Building the components for File and SMTP services and XSLT transformation Configuring the service components Process Orchestration Need to be developed from scratch. Requires manual editing of multiple XML file(s) - a tedious process. Orchestration involves the following: 1. Manually registering service units. 2. Manually creating schemas for service component 3. Manually coding XML translations 4. Manually configuring the service assembly Fiorano Familiarity in following will help 1. XML Simple installation (wizard driven). Takes less than 5 minutes. Available prebuilt Each component has an attached pointand-click configuration interface. Process composition and deployment performed via a single visual tool. Event/Data flows between services set up visually; Underlying JMS middleware autoconfigured to create on-the-fly destinations for communication across machines. XML schemas for service components are auto-generated. Point and click deployment to multiple machines.

Spring Framework Installation The ESB installation is a multi-step manual process and has a non-trivial learning curve.

8 Monitoring and Management Error handling and document tracking Total time to implement, run and monitor the status of this business process using XML files 5. Compiling and deploying using ant scripts from the command line 6. Running by invoking scripts 7. Each step above is tedious and error prone Limited visual monitoring via a JMX based monitoring console. Limited or no support Three weeks on average Summary Managing the deployed event process is via the same visual tool (and same view) used for composition. A browser-based dashboard is also bundled, providing dynamic status notifications, debugging information, event handling, system statistics, alert registration and more. Visual tools to configure custom error handlers and document tracking. One to two days on average The time, effort and cost of implementing SOA projects with Mule ESB are significantly higher compared to Fiorano ESB. Mule ESB is a bare-bones implementation of the concept of an ESB and is for the most part simply a means of stringing together custom developed code components. With no graphical orchestration tools, help libraries, monitoring and management tools, Mule ESB has limited value for commercial SOA deployments. Fiorano scores over Mule ESB with its simple installation, intuitive graphical orchestration tool, messaging performance, Quality of service features and scalability, among others.

Each step above is tedious and error prone Limited visual monitoring via a JMX based monitoring console.

ESB Features Comparison

ESB Features Comparison Feature wise comparison of Sonic ESB & Fiorano ESB Table of Contents How Sonic ESB compares with Fiorano ESB... 3 Key technical differentiators... 4 Additional Technical Benefits