All the products we tested concealed some of EAI's complexity. But there are differences in how each product insulates you from the fray. Fiorano and Cast Iron provide preconfigured "drivers" to connect with many different systems, and both also offer tools to connect with data sources they don't support. Rhapsody requires the creation of an XML file to define JDBC data sources, and BIE provides a browser-based wizard to create connections to JDBC-compliant data sources.
Each product also provides a different amount of management information. And though all let us look at the logs descriping each integration production, each vendor defines production differently. For our purposes, we expected the basic unit of work--a single integration--to be viewable.
EAI Pricing
We based our price score on our testing environment, wherein one integration developer and one systems manager have access to a dual-processor EAI server, and Oracle, SQL Server, DB2 and MySQL clients are required. As always, pricing schemes varied: Cast Iron Systems charges a flat fee per application router; Orion will site-license; WDI is open-source, and Fiorano is priced using the "what you use" EAI cost model.
Based on our scenario, Fiorano cost $70,000, Orion's Rhapsody Integration Engine cost $85,000 (site license), and Cast Iron cost $75,000. Cast Iron also offers a smaller version, the Application Router 250, for $15,000. For WDI's open-source BIE, there's no charge for downloading the software. WDI distributes the source code under a GNU General Public License and provides documentation, technical support and professional services on a fee basis. The company also offers exclusive-use commercial licenses.
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