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 of Fiorano... 5 Summary... 5
How Sonic ESB compares with Fiorano ESB The table below illustrates the availability of SOA features in the respective platforms SOA features Fiorano ESB Sonic 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 Pluggable XSLT engine 7 Support for modeling composite applications - graphically defined business processes and rules 8 Security and management framework 9 Infrastructure QoS - service component level load balancing 10 Metadata and semantic definitions 11 Support for multiple transports (HTTP(S), TCP(S), FTP, JMS, SMTP, POP3, SMS, MOM implementations) 12 Scalable architecture 13 Webservices support 14 Content Based Routing Partial 2 15 Support for Industry standards EDI, HL7, SWIFT, AS2 16 Built in JMS messaging server 17 Business component framework (SDK to build custom service components) 18 JCA compliant adapters 19 Visual Load balancing configuration 20.Net interoperability 21 Integrated Event Monitoring 22 Integrated Document tracking Partial 3 23 Service Component level hot failover 24 Deployment Management rules 25 Service Component versioning 26 Integrated BPM capabilities 27 Data fragmentation and reassembly support for large sized messages 28 SaaS integration support Partial 2 Sonic requires complicated coding using JavaScript to do any type of content-based routing in the orchestration. Thus the CBR is only as effective as the user s technical proficiency. Partial 3 Sonic entails JavaScript coding of tracking listeners and cumbersome deployment processes.
Key technical differentiators 1. Visual process orchestration tools a. Fiorano includes a powerful service component orchestration tool built for business users and architects. This tool uses a single view for design (both service configuration and mediation), deployment, management and debugging. b. Sonic Workbench is a complicated package of disparate tools and editors. It requires the user to be technically adept and does not offer a complete no-coding environment for integrating applications. 2. Pre-built adapters a. Fiorano bundles 50+ pre-built components that are customizable for a number of integration scenarios, dramatically reducing time to market. Fiorano adapters are compatible with multiple transports including JMS, TIB/RV, WebSphereMQ and can also be deployed as a JCA resource in an application server. b. Unlike Fiorano, Sonic Adapters are not standards (JCA) compliant and the learning curve involved in creating custom adapters is steep. 3. HA setup a. Fiorano s distributed architecture allows HA to be set up in minutes via intuitive visual tools. b. It s a challenge to set up HA in Sonic; also failover configurations are inflexible and involve complicated configurations. 4. Single Integrated product a. Fiorano bundles all features and functionalities into one installation. The product is complete and independent, and does not require support from any other software to integrate applications. b. Sonic requires five products from the Sonic ESB family to provide functionality similar to Fiorano. This results in complex deployment processes and monitoring methods. 5. Event Process Deployment a. Fiorano s single view approach enables process deployment at the click of a button. b. Process deployment in Sonic is a complex multi-step process. Deployment starts with exporting selected Sonic projects stored in source control repositories, and building the selected projects into runtime ESB artifacts and classes that define the distributed composite business applications in deployment.
Additional Technical Benefits of Fiorano 1. Time to implement a. 50+ pre-built components and visual tools for orchestration, deployment, management and debugging enable a quicker path to an SOA with Fiorano b. With Sonic ESB, development and deployment is a complex, time-consuming process. A deeply hierarchical model, the process involves connecting to servers manually from the orchestration tool, creation of several levels of housings before the flow can be created and frequent manual intervention for monitoring the mediation. 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. b. Sonic ESB does not house development, design, deployment and monitoring in a single tool. The services are orchestrated using the Sonic Workbench and exported to be deployed from the Sonic Deployment Manager. Transactional visibility is therefore poor. 3. Ease of Use a. Fiorano s visual tools and robust pre-built components enable rapid process deployment. b. Sonic ESB has a steep and wide learning curve and users require considerable training before the product can be used effectively; Orchestration is complex due to the scripting involved at every stage, and users have to traverse a large number of menus and wizards before configuration is affected. Summary The time, effort and cost of implementing SOA projects with Sonic ESB are significantly higher compared to Fiorano ESB. It becomes necessary to purchase at least five separate products from the ESB family to implement even a simple integration scenario with Sonic. Fiorano scores over Sonic with its simple installation, intuitive graphical orchestration tool, messaging performance, Quality of service features and scalability, among others.