SeeBeyond positions its eBusiness Integration Suite as an interenterprise and B2B integration platform for solving information-integration problems and automating business processes. The solution is aimed at both business and technical users. The product's integration and modeling tools have auto-code-generating capabilities, which require little to no programming. The product also has a connector software-development kit, which lets programmers develop adapters in Java, C, C++ or Monk (a proprietary scripting language).
The product's distributed architecture is designed to offer high scalability and performance, as its solution comprises various components that are connected to the bus. Systems can be connected in any location and still maintain connectivity via the bus. SeeBeyond's e-Gate Integrator component provides centralized management, powerful data services and e-Way intelligent adapters that run business logic and can perform functions traditionally carried out by a message broker.
Business Object Brokers, or BOB, also a feature of e-Gate Integrator, provides multithreaded queue-to-queue communication and processing. Some key benefits of this architecture and componentized solution are centralized global management, enterprise deployment and intelligent load-balancing for queues. Centralized global management is handled via the registry, letting the system be configured, controlled and monitored from any location on the network, which makes it easy for new or existing configurations to be distributed inside or outside the enterprise. Deployment is a one-step generation of components or schema, from development to test to production.
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Editor's Note:
Since the publication of this article, Doculabs has requested
some modifications to the last paragraph of our SeeBeyond review. The changes are as follows:
"From Doculabs - SeeBeyond has made significant enhancements to their tool
sets, making them much more intuitive and user friendly. For example, the
product now has a graphical interface with drag-and-drop capabilities for
system configuration. The product also gives developers the choice of
developing collaboration rules in Monk (a proprietary scripting language),
JavaScript, VBScript or Perl. Additionally, the development environment now
has debugging features that facilitate error detection and troubleshooting
in a similar fashion to traditional development environments."
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EBusiness Integration Suite's two major differentiators are its Index Global Identifier and its registry. The Index Global Identifier is a cross-referencing engine that identifies users across all interconnected systems. The registry is a central repository for all adapter (e-Way) code and controls dynamic adapter configuration -- letting organizations centrally configure adapters and deploy them locally or to remote sites, reducing administrative and maintenance overhead.
SeeBeyond's solution requires experienced development and technical staff on hand for deployment and management, as its development and data mapping environment is not especially intuitive or developer friendly. It also lacks features to facilitate error detection and troubleshooting. In addition, its current interface is a bit dated, bearing a strong resemblance to an X Window environment. Additionally, the development environment lacks features and functions that lend themselves to troubleshooting effectively, increasing the complexity in finding and correcting errors.
eBusiness Integration Suite 4.1, pricing based on licenses and components. SeeBeyond Technology Corp., (800) 425-0541. www.seebeyond.com
webMethods Enterprise 4.1
WebMethods' enterprise integration platform is made for the technical user, as it has a Java framework for developing custom adapters.
The product's architecture is strong, with clustering and failover capabilities designed to support mission-critical enterprise operations. WebMethods includes a flexible asynchronous transaction-coordination engine, with an adapter available for MQSeries. Although the product is straightforward, ease of use is impeded by the confusing number of screens and utilities necessary to perform integration functions. WebMethods says it will remedy this shortcoming in the next release of its software. The product is ideal for midsize and large companies.
While webMethods is renowned for its B2Bi product, its EAI product is a strong offering as well. With webMethod's acquisitions of Active (EAI Solution) and IntelliFrame (Workflow Engine), webMethods Enterprise now offers a feature-rich end-to-end integration solution (EAI and B2Bi) with a broad set of packaged adapters available for integrating with major ERP programs, CRM (customer-relationship management) software, message-oriented middleware and all major databases. Once technologies from these acquisitions are fully integrated, webMethods will be well-positioned to extend its leadership in the B2Bi space into the EAI space.
webMethods Enterprise 4.1, Please contact vendor for current pricing. webMethods, (703) 460-2500. www.webmethods.com
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