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R E V I E W

Smooth Integrators

August 7, 2003
By Don MacVittie

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Sybase Integration Orchestrator 4.0

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	In this article
	Introduction
	Sybase Integration Orchestrator 4.0
	Vitria BusinessWare 4.1.1
	Tibco BusinessWorks 2.0.4
	BEA Systems WebLogic Integration 7.0
	IBM WebSphere MQ Integrator 2.1
	How We Tested \| Web Links
	Report Card

Integration Orchestrator 4.0 is a brand-new product. The disk set we got for testing was still warm from the oven--it was the same set that went to manufacturing for this release.

Orchestrator stands out from the crowd in many ways. Some of its added functionality is just a question of release timing, but it shows a clear future vision that pegs Web services as an integral part of EAI.

The installation process involved several well-documented steps, and it went off without a hitch. Configuration was pretty simple as well, with the exception of making JDBC (Java Database Connectivity) work correctly--this problem also plagued most other products. Once we had the system installed, we started to set up the transactions, first by making a database connection that could be used by the business process. Orchestrator, like almost all the other products we tested, became troublesome at this point. Connecting to databases using JDBC, as well as getting the connection to return valid data, was difficult.

Luckily, once we got the connection string in the format expected for each of our databases, things rapidly became easier, and the rest of our configuration was a breeze.

On the usability side, Sybase has retooled its EAI user interface. The result is a more intuitive development experience, combined with a streamlined management console that showed us everything we needed without gumming the works with extras. Sybase's use of the open-source Eclipse editor to implement the interface let the company concentrate on the important work of EAI instead of reinventing a UI. We are happy to report that this is a growing trend in the EAI market.

Orchestrator's BPM designer, which is based on the Eclipse editor, was excellent. Autodetection of UDDI Web services is a useful feature, and database endpoint creation was no more difficult than that of competitors.

More EAI Stats

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Just a word or two about autodetection: UDDI has not taken off yet, but we do see a place for it short-term with corporate directories behind the firewall.

Orchestrator makes creating objects defined in your corporate UDDI directory as easy as, "Point at the directory and say: 'Discover Web services!'" If you use this feature correctly, you might just reap some of that reuse that's been touted since the early days of SmallTalk. Using the designer as Orchestrator's management interface is a possible negative, but we found that completely separating the views minimized the hassle.

Sybase gave us a choice of JMS, MQ or files as transport mechanisms, meaning that we could work with our existing corporate infrastructure. The ability to query a UDDI server to define a Web service as an endpoint for an EAI service stands far above the competition at this time. Allowing us to retrieve interface information from a file or URL meant we were not restricted to Web services that were published in a directory.

EAI Suite Features

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Orchestrator also let us read WSDL (Web Services Description Language) from the file system or from the URL at which the Web service is deployed. We had a little trouble getting schemas/endpoints/operations to build on one another--operations repeatedly failed to map to the database correctly--but this is likely a learning curve issue.

Orchestrator's autogeneration of WSDL for EAI "services" is unmatched by any product we tested. Sybase has laid out the interface so services are already grouped under a "services" tab in the project view. Very intuitive if you're thinking Web services, and it also fits EAI nicely.

Orchestrator's mapping functionality was sound, allowing us to map from the output of a Web service in the same manner as mapping from the columns in a database. Both use XML to store the interface definition, meaning that we could look at the generated interfaces easily if there were translation problems.

Finally, Sybase offers "viewlets" free on the Web. These are a collection of tutorials done in Flash that walk you through each step of the integration process and give you a leg up on that learning curve. A small thing, perhaps, but indicative of the quality of this product.

Integration Orchestrator 4.0, $25,000 per CPU, $12,500 per CPU for standby license, $7,500 per CPU for development and testing license (from one to four CPUs), $75,000 as tested. Sybase, (925) 236-5000, (800) 8-SYBASE. www.sybase.com