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F E A T U R E

Review: EAI Systems Bring IT Together

January 21, 2002
By Eric Sanchez, Dan Beery and Joshua Shehab


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iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions iPlanet Integration Server 2.1

IPlanet Integration Server is one of many components of the Sun Open Net Environment (ONE) software architecture. The solution is aimed at developers and IT departments with highly skilled programmers. IPlanet Integration Server provides high-availability features, such as load-balancing, fault tolerance and security, that are necessary for integrating mission-critical applications within and across the enterprise.

IPlanet Integration Server's Business Process Manager (screen view)

Click here to enlarge

IPlanet Integration Server offers a solid development environment with good debugging capabilities, source-code-revision control and rollback. The system also offers extensive platform support, excellent security features and capabilities to promote high availability. However, the product lacks tools geared toward the business user, such as a graphical interface for data transformation. The product uses XML to represent data within and across integrated systems, using XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation) to perform translations between systems -- an approach that places potential limits on the system's performance.

In our opinion, iPlanet has two major flaws: It uses JMS as the preferred transport method, and it uses XML/XSLT for integrations within an organization (EAI). These approaches are limited in their ability to handle the high volume of daily transactions of a typical large organization, which can lead to performance problems. Furthermore, because the product is so developercentric, we experienced great difficulty in working through our scenarios.

iPlanet Integration Server 2.1, pricing not available. iPlanet E-Commerce Solutions, (650) 254-1900. www.iplanet.com

CrossWorlds Software CrossWorlds 3.11

CrossWorlds' interenterprise and business-to-business integration platform is targeted toward technical users. It's designed to solve information integration problems and automate business processes. The product also has a connector software-development kit, which allows more experienced programmers to develop custom adapters.

CrossWorlds' Process Designer
(screen view)

Click here to enlarge

CrossWorlds' top-down approach enables organizations to streamline business processes. The product's patented isolation layer, which ties event tables instead of queues to applications, offers tight integration. CrossWorld's Common Object Model allows generic business processes to be defined using data in an application-specific way. The product also includes a patented cross-indexing component that identifies customers across all interconnected systems.

While CrossWorlds offers some strengths, its lack of support for workflow, limited packaged adapters and limited security features place it a notch below the other integration servers we evaluated. Given CrossWorlds' approach and capabilities, we feel the solution is best suited for small to midsize organizations.

CrossWorlds 3.11, pricing not available. CrossWorlds Software, (650) 685-9000. www.crossworlds.com

WRQ Verastream 8.0

WRQ's Verastream integration platform is aimed at business users, and the product's integration and modeling tools have tight host-integration capabilities. Verastream also has a connector software-development kit to allow for development of custom adapters. While the product has come a long way since its screen-scraping days, it fails to deliver in key areas, including process management, transport/communication and transaction coordination.

The product's graphic data transformation and data-typing tool is outstanding, both in ease of use and in technical capability. WRQ also offers strong graphic host connectivity tools that allow for access to host applications through a well-designed interface. These qualities make it a good fit for companies looking to integrate traditional host applications.

From a business-user perspective, the tools are intuitive and user-friendly. But from a technical perspective, the product fails to fulfill the critical business and functional needs of organizations with complex integration problems. As a result, Verastream couldn't complete half of our integration scenarios. WRQ must add a number of missing pieces.

Verastream 8.0, contact vendor for pricing. WRQ, (206) 217-7100. www.wrq.com

The authors are analysts with Doculabs, an industry analyst and advisory firm that helps companies plan their e-business strategies and select and exploit technologies for their e-business. Send your comments on this article to them or contact Doculabs at info@doculabs.com or (312) 433-7793.