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ESB: The lighter alternative for integration

Gary Flood ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 29 Jan 2004 17:25 GMT

All this talk of Java Messaging Service and J2EE shouldn't obscure the fact that Java itself is set to be more integration friendly. It's very early stages, but (yet another) new Java standard being worked over right now is called JSR 208, or Java Business Integration, which seems promising (see www.jcp.org to learn more).

Neither should the fact we've mentioned Java so often let us leave Microsoft out of the equation: look for announcements later this year of its so-called Indigo ESB-like technology, slated to be an interesting factor in its upcoming Longhorn operating system technology.

ESB seems definitely worth investigating then, especially if you are already a J2EE-oriented environment, with the proviso that Microsoft will soon have something to say here. On that same note, bear in mind that until the big boys produce their own ESB versions of their integration offerings you may be forced to bake your own. Gartner advises: "Leading-edge enterprises implementing a SOA-capable enterprise nervous system in 2004 should consider ESB vendors that are smaller than IBM and Microsoft, or create ESB-like infrastructure by using separate MOM and Web services products, integrating them through custom code."

So why not ESB uber alles? The short answer is that at the moment at least it seems to be being positioned as primarily a way to link new applications, more usually Web-facing ones. That's fine for that class of applications of course, but it may not be of too much immediate help to those of us struggling to integrate big back office systems, let alone legacy or bespoke software.

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