Best Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Solutions

The ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) architecture makes application integration possible by putting a so-called “bus” between two applications, enabling each one to communicate with the bus. By decoupling systems from one another, it allows them to communicate without needing knowledge of other systems on the bus and without dependency. ESBs can manage different formats - from applications to services and mainframes. An ESB transmits a direct message on a specific route between either the application or other components. The path by which the ESB sends the messages is determined by an enterprise's specific business policy. ESBs also function as an application gateway and work as a service proxy. Using an ESB helps companies implement a service proxy that exposes a web service interface.

Selecting an ESB platform should be based on your organization's needs. After company needs have been pre-defined, it becomes easier to evaluate which platform will be the best choice.

More often than not, proprietary solutions are similar and closely identify with ESB platforms offered by open-source competitors.

The following criteria should be considered before making a decision:

• Installation: Determine if installation of the ESP platform you are considering is easy, if certain tools are required, or whether or not the development environment is intuitive.
• Message transformation: Look for a solution that can both input messages as well as transform different formats (i.e. REST, EDI X12, JSON, CSV)
• Connectors: Make sure your ESB solution can handle connecting one system to another since bundled connectors are the reusable building blocks responsible for creating data flows through the bus. Connectors should also include a high-speed file transfer option so messages can be rapidly transported between locations.
• Security protections: Secure user authentication, file management and transfer, secure access, encryption, certificate management, and other security requirements are of utmost importance when considering which solution can accommodate all of your organization’s needs.
• Available support: It is important to make sure the required service is available and to know what options you are entitled to (email support vs. on-site, business hours vs. 24-hour hotline, etc.)
• Functionality: Does the ESB platform offer all functionalities that your company requires?
• Monitoring: The ESB platform you choose should be able to accurately and efficiently monitor data flows, enabling your organization to identify any problems quickly and easily.
• Customization: Decide if the functionalities of the product are flexible enough to suit your organization’s needs.
• Subscription model: Learn what licensing or subscription model the ESB platform uses and what the consequences are when requirements change (more CPUs, more computers, upgrades, etc.)
• Scalability: The ESB platform you decide to use should offer load balancing choices and high availability so you can scale.
• Cost: Evaluate the full cost (cost of ownership, maintenance costs, if additional ancillary products are required, or connectors, etc.)

The benefits of ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) include:

• Easy integration: Applications often already include built-in integrations. However, your company may require other integrations that aren’t necessarily natively included by the vendor you select. ESBs provide flexible integration, can connect many different systems, and are customizable to support a user's unique scenarios.
• Centralized dashboards: By using centralized dashboards, an ESB is able to connect to many applications, allowing for centralized management and the ability to troubleshoot if needed. Consequently, any problems can be addressed in a single place by one team, rather than having multiple teams responsible for tracking down errors in what would otherwise be widely distributed systems.
• Elimination of custom code: With an ESB, organizations no longer have to develop point-to-point integrations or write custom code for every integration. An ESB can abstract the integration, address connectivity issues for you, and make configuration simple.
• User-friendly: Prepackaged integrations and visual user interfaces make EBSs easy to use and lightweight.
• Deployment flexibility: ESBs provide multiple options for deployment, including hosted, cloud, hybrid cloud, and on-premises.
• Supports requirement modifications: Requirement modifications are typical and can be expected. ESBs make it easier to make changes because they offer flexibility.
• Rapidly accelerates projects: Because ESB architecture can be easily segmented and distributed, it enables teams to build their own integrations, rapidly accelerating the pace of projects.
• Reusable integration flows: An ESB allows companies to reuse integration flows and alter them as needed for future workflows by providing customizable templates.
• No coding: Central configuration makes it possible to change settings without using code.
• Drag and drop interface: User experience is improved by the easy-to-use interface which enables a drag and drop solution.

While an ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) is recognized as a software architecture that can integrate multiple applications into a single infrastructure, SOA is a service-oriented architecture that is used to create business applications that focus primarily on service-based development. Although they are both software architectures, ESB acts as the backbone of an SOA architecture; SOA makes it possible for decoupled services to interact with each other. The only way this exchange of data is possible, though, is via an ESB. In other words, an ESB is the tool that is used for application integration and is used to attain the ideas and principles that actually compose SOA.