I’d like to see FusionWare adopt a workflow standard, such as BPEL, and incorporate features for transaction compensation
and exception handling. Although a new tool has been added to test deployments, tighter integration of versioning, management,
and project deployment is needed. Debugging also could be more efficient. The IDE allowed me to set basic breakpoints, but
having to jump to a text-based, command line interface to execute debug processing was a pain. This would not pass muster
in high volume shops.
FusionWare is also light on administrative features. It provides only very basic insight into queue conditions and service
status. Better metrics and auditing will be a definite requirement for enterprise installs. Until FusionWare drops them in,
customers should plan on building their own.
This product also lacks a strong enterprise footing when it comes to transport support -- currently limited to HTTP and e-mail
-- and security, where FusionWare’s support for the basics, such as HTTP/S and simple password-based authentication, may not
be sufficient to meet advanced encryption and authentication requirements. These and other shortcomings, including the absence
of extensions to external management systems, the failure to support advanced b-to-b protocols (RosettaNet, ebXML, etc.),
and the lack of ERP or SCM adapters, for example, relegate FusionWare to small-scale implementations.
Iona Artix 3.0 Advanced
One of the biggest names in legacy integration is Ireland’s Iona Technologies. Not surprisingly, Iona brings to its ESB a
strong feature set for mainframe transaction bridging, MOM-based systems, and CORBA transports, as well as its Adaptive Runtime
Technology plug-in architecture and a new J2EE service connector.
What impressed me most about Artix is its ready adaptability for old-school protocols such as IIOP (Internet Inter-ORB Protocol)
and CICS, and support for security services such as single sign-on. Iona is truly a top-tier player in these respects.
The new Eclipse-based development environment could benefit from more wizard-driven shortcuts like the one for pulling WSDL
out of old Cobol Copybooks. Although a bit buggy, it does a wonderful job.
In addition to supporting port- and protocol-based routing, Artix can be configured to take routing directives from message
headers but not yet message content. Artix supports dynamic services binding through a central directory and repository called
the Locator service.
Data format translations within the bus are performed directly, without first having to convert data into an intermediate
language such as XML, speeding throughput but also creating hard-coded, application-specific interfaces. Artix supports XSLT
scripts, as well.
Security underpinnings are good. Artix supports LDAP and Microsoft Active Directory, ACLs, single sign-on, and role-based
authorizations, as well as Kerberos authentication and WS-Security.
Note, however, that this platform fails to implement process orchestration and activity monitoring. For simple, stateless
transactions, I linked together services using the included Chain Builder, a plug-in for constructing services and transformations
into preformed process definitions. For processes of any complexity, though, you’ll want to layer on third-party BPM.
Clearly Iona has chosen to focus on fundamentals, but a few other additions would help to round out the Artix package. These
include real-time dashboards, tighter services version control, the ability to monitor dependencies among services to better
facilitate change management, and better plug-ins for enterprise applications from vendors such as SAP and Oracle. Customers
in financial services, health care, and other verticals would also benefit from best-practices process templates.
Provisions for transactional reliability and integrity, however, are top notch. Artix supports session management, two-phase
commit (XA/2PC) for long-running processes, and the WS-AtomicTransaction and WS-Context specifications. It is solidly fortified
with redundancy, load balancing, and hot-swap of services, and it offers a run time that can be deployed on almost any platform
— from IBM AIX and z/OS to Linux and Windows. And the QoS features are among the best I’ve seen in an ESB implementation.
Naturally, such creature comforts (or enterprise necessities) come at a price. The per-CPU run-time licensing associated with
each distributed container means that large deployments won’t come cheap, especially when you consider that a good number
of enterprise “extras,” such as operational logging and management system adapters come at additional cost.
On the other hand, you get what you pay for. Committed to modernizing old-world systems with the new, Iona’s Artix 3.0 Advanced
does what it does very well. This package is a heavyweight contender for addressing large-scale system integration projects
in a services-oriented way.
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