Upcoming Events

Executive conference

Cloud Connect March 16-18

Comprehensive thought leadership for executives, IT professionals and developers. Topics include: the ROI, cost and economics of on-demand computing; Migration strategies to move from on-premise to cloud-based IT; Vertical cloud specialization, tailoring features and architectures to specific applications, industries, and customer ecosystems

More Events »

Subscribe to Newsletter

  • Keep up with all of the latest news and analysis on the fast-moving IT industry with Network Computing newsletters.
Sign Up
ESB

ESB Technology: The New SOA Backbone


By Lori MacVittie and Dave Stodder

In November we began our quest to find the ultimate ESB (enterprise service bus) suite by issuing an invitation to a dozen vendors. Eight took us up on our challenge and sent software to our Green Bay, Wis., business applications lab, home of our fictional widget maker, NWC Inc. Here are the results.

Market Analysis: Enterprise Service Bus
An enterprise service bus aligned with a service-oriented architecture can keep business processes flexible. Here's how to see through the hype on this new and complex technology and make the right choices.

Product Analysis: Review: ESB Suites
The promise of constructing applications by orchestrating services and processes without writing a single line of code is tantalizing. We tested 8 ESB suites to see which one offered the smoothest ride. Our top pick cruised into first place thanks to its powerful Web-based orchestration, monitoring and reporting.

ESB Invitation Letter
The invitation letter defines the parameters of and criteria to be used for the review.

Overview of Evaluation Criteria for Network Computing
The test plan provides a more detailed overview of the evaluation criteria for the review. It might be of use for enterprise users planning their own tests in this area.

Interactive Report Card

ESB: Wave of the Future
See the Enterprise Service Bus Forrester Wave results.

Enterprise Service Bus Products Reviews


Rolling Reviews
BEA Systems AquaLogic Service Bus 2.1
Despite limited built-in support for integration with external data sources, excellent Web services support and solid performance at a fair price makes BEA's service bus a strong option for enterprises.


Cape Clear ESB 6.5
A hefty price tag and some odd quirks and flaws encountered make us question if the total cost of the Cape Clear justifies its functionality and feature set.


Fiorano SOA Platform 2006 3.7
Fiorano SOA Platform 2006 confounded us a bit with its JMX terminology, and its pricing may leave some enterprises with sticker shock. But we liked its security focus, and the Fiorano Mapper is one of the best visual data mapping tools we've seen.


IBM WebSphere Message Broker 6.0
IBM's WebSphere Message Broker 6.0 is flexible and offers tons of options, but in this case, so many choices might be too much of a good thing.


Software AG Enterprise Service Integrator (ESI) 7.2
A veteran in the integration market, Software AG has included some nifty features in its Enterprise Service Integrator, but other parts need work.


Oracle SOA Suite
With SOA Suite, Oracle has bundled several tools, letting nearly any user bring about SOA implementations.


Sonic Software SOA Suite 6.1
Sonic's SOA suite has a few too many programming quirks to work out.

TIBCO BusinessWorks 5.3
TIBCO's BusinessWorks relies on its messaging know-how to deliver its integrated SOA suite.

Best of the Web

Data deduplication: Declawing the clones

Data deduplication is emerging as a critically important new arrow in the storage administrator's quiver to answer hard questions about the increasing problem in storage growth costs.

Quick Read

Compression, Encryption, Deduplication, and Replication: Strange Bedfellows

One of the great ironies of storage technology is the inverse relationship between efficiency and security: Adding performance or reducing storage requirements almost always results in reducing the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of a system.

Quick Read

WAN Optimization Whitelists and Blacklists

Optimization is a fantastic way of saving money and creating really happy customers at the same time, but it doesn't work flawlessly for all applications.

Quick Read

WAN Optimization as a Managed Service: It's Not About the Cost

This insight examines how organizations outsourcing their WAN optimization initiatives to a third-party go about achieving their goals for application performance, reducing operational costs, and streamlining enterprise infrastructure.

Quick Read

  Sponsored Links

Premium Content

Next Generation Data Center, Delivered, November 17th
NWC


Salary

Video