Sonic builds a model ESB
Published: 09 Dec 2005 10:25 GMT
Sonic Software has taken a new step in its effort to create standards around the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) concept by publishing a technical definition based on its own established ESB.
The definition is an attempt to remove some of the ambiguity surrounding ESBs, even as giants such as IBM and BEA join the ESB bandwagon with their own interpretations. Sonic ESB: An Architecture and Lifecycle Definition is based on Sonic's own ESB, which the company says leads the ESB market with more than 250 live deployments.
"This reference model will help anyone interested in SOA infrastructure by providing a precise vocabulary and structural definition of an ESB," said Sonic chief technology officer Hub Vandervoort in a statement. He said users should be made aware of the difference between earlier-generation "fractional ESBs" and the real thing. Moreover, Sonic said it is the first to provide "a comprehensive and unambiguous vocabulary in a technology category rife with confusion and conflicting terminology". The text was written with architects in mind, and includes more than 20 UML class and object diagrams depicting the ESB's construction and operation, with a complete Class Diagram and a 100-term glossary, according to Sonic.
In August Sonic and Web services management company Infravio donated code to form the basis of an open source ESB or "Web Services broker" project backed by the Apache Software Foundation, called Apache Synapse. Synapse is designed to combine with other Apache Web services projects such as Axis 2 to provide a low-end, open source alternative to commercial Web Services integration tools.
Sonic hoped Synapse would create an industry standard and promote Web Services-based integration, according to Dave Chappell, Sonic vice president and chief technology evangelist. Synapse and Axis are also designed to be independent of platforms such as Java and .NET.
While Sonic has one of the more established ESB offerings, it faces stiff competition that is growing more intense as SOAs become more popular. IBM introduced an ESB aimed at SMEs in September. BEA's AquaLogic product line, introduced in June, spearheaded its own messaging plans. Other competitors include SAP, Oracle and Microsoft.
There is also competition on the open source front in the form of Celtix, a Java standards based, open source ESB project backed by Iona and ObjectWeb. Sun and JBoss are also building integration projects based on the same Java standard as Celtix, called Java Business Integration.
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