Cape Clear boosts business processes in ESB

10.12.2004
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Paul Krill ist Redakteur unserer US-Schwesterpublikation InfoWorld.

Cape Clear Software Inc. this week is upgrading its ESB with the release of Cape Clear 6, enabling development of business process workflows based on BPEL.

The release also supports the WS-ReliableMessaging specification, to guarantee messaging over the Internet, and integration with the Eclipse open source development platform, according to Cape Clear.

The company describes its ESB as a lightweight, service-oriented integration platform based on XML and Web services standards. The product is intended to enable integration of applications and data and simplify development and management of business processes.

"It essentially gives you a cheaper, standards-based way of performing application integration," said Cape Clear Chairman and CEO Annrai O"Toole.

Adding BPEL backing means services can be quickly tied to an organization"s business processes, according to Cape Clear. The BPEL deployment server in Cape Clear 6 features a native BPEL 1.1 engine for deployment of business processes.

An Eclipse-based graphical environment is supplied for deploying business flows based on BPEL. The tool includes wizards to enable building of new processes and quick orchestration of existing Web services.

WS-ReliableMessaging support enables deployment of business-critical transactions over the Internet via this specification, according to Cape Clear. Guaranteed messaging is enabled over HTTP. Other message transports supported include JMS, SMTP, HTTPS, and FTP.

Cape Clear believes it differentiates its ESB from rival offerings from companies such as Sonic by relying on standards-based integration rather than proprietary mechanisms, O"Toole said.

"We"re the only one that"s completely based on Web services standards," said O"Toole.

Cape Clear more closely resembles a fabric product for services integration, not relying on a messaging backbone like other products being called ESBs, said Tom Rhinelander, analyst at New Rowley Group.

"The market really hasn"t chosen a term," Rhinelander said. "The market really hasn"t settled on fabric or ESB."

Other new features in Cape Clear 6 include:

* BAM (business activity monitoring) via a graphical environment, including support for handling of faults and events, as well as configurable business rules based on the content of message flow in the process, Cape Clear said.

* Extended database integration, for use in SOAs (service-oriented architectures). Web services can be created from multiple tables in any database for integrating that data with other services inside or outside a corporate network. "This (feature) removes a lot of the effort to get at data," O"Toole said.

The addition of orchestration services and improved database integration represent important steps for Cape Clear, said Rhinelander. Cape Clear has a strong portfolio, but needs to boost its profile, according to Rhinelander.

"Their biggest issue is really getting people to understand who they are, he said.

Cape Clear 6 features five integrated products: Studio, which is a development tool for services; Data Interchange, a graphical environment for integration of XML and non-XML data; Server, for integration; Manager, providing a Web-based services management console; and Orchestrator, a new offering featuring a suite of tools for building, deploying and managing business processes based on BPEL.

Priced at US$20,000 per CPU, Cape Clear 6 is slated to be available in January on IBM Corp. AIX, Linux, Windows 2000/XP, and Sun Solaris.