Vitria Technology
Vitria's BusinessWare integration server uses a distributed application architecture that can be deployed in a network-centric bus or hub and spoke configuration. For reliability, it has component-level fault tolerance and built-in proprietary transaction monitoring with two-phase commit capabilities. It automatically restarts components if they fail, but doesn't restart the system or apps. System notifications can be sent via E-mail, mobile page, and wireless connections.

Adapters are available for integrating with Tuxedo and CICS transaction systems. In addition to the product's native publish and subscribe messaging capabilities, it has adapters for MQSeries and Microsoft's MSMQ message-queuing software. BusinessWare supports the new Java Message Service for component-level interprocess communications, so it can integrate with any JMS-compliant message queue, such as Sonic MQ.

BusinessWare embeds the Rational Rose modeling tool for building business process flows. Aimed at business users, this product requires little or no scripting and includes process flow templates. It has nested models and can perform parallel, serial, fork-and-join, and rule-based routing. While BusinessWare doesn't support ad hoc processes, it has basic return, reject, and approval capabilities, and supports digital signatures.

BusinessWare is intuitive and easy to use. It should be a good fit for companies that want to give business users control of process modeling and that have skilled Java developers in-house.

webMethods
The design of webMethods Enterprise is a distributed hub-and-spoke architecture, with a message broker as the hub. Among the adapters provided are connectors for integrating with enterprise resource planning, customer-relationship management, major databases, and CICS transaction environments. In addition to its native publish and subscribe messaging capabilities, it offers adapters for message-oriented middleware, including IBM's MQSeries.

For reliability, adapters can be clustered to function as a single logical unit. This enables processing loads to be distributed for better performance. This feature eliminates the possibility of an adapter becoming a single point of failure.

Although a proprietary asynchronous transaction coordination engine is included, there are no packaged adapters available for integration with third-party transaction processors such as Tuxedo. With some development effort, the product can be configured to automatically restart components if they fail, but not the system or applications. System notifications are sent via E-mail and mobile page.

WebMethods Enterprise has a graphical process-modeling tool that supports only fully automated processes that require no human intervention. It doesn't have native report-generating capabilities but can integrate with third-party products such as Crystal Reports. Enterprise 4.1 has unit-testing features that let users simulate input parameters for testing process flows before putting into production.

With webMethods' acquisition of Active Software, the company now offers an end-to-end integration solution for both EAI and B-to-B integration. However, the tool's complexity can be cumbersome for a typical line-of-business user trying to design complex process flows.

WRQ
Verastream's architectural design supports distributed configurations of the application in a hub-and-spoke model. The product has evolved from the company's screen-scraping technology heritage. Verastream has come a long way, providing adapters to more than 25 databases and systems from Baan, CICS, MQSeries, Microsoft MSMQ, SAP, and Siebel Systems.

For reliability, it offers component-level fault tolerance and dynamic load balancing. It automatically restarts components if they fail, but doesn't restart the system or apps. System notifications can be sent via E-mail, mobile page, and wireless networks. It doesn't yet have process-management capabilities.

WRQ's tools are intuitive and lend themselves to line-of-business users. However, the lack of process-management capabilities and other product limitations will make it challenging for WRQ to expand beyond its position as a screen-scraping software vendor.

When looking at an integration server, it's important to understand its architecture and the impact it will have on your company's applications and infrastructure. A hub-and-spoke architecture is easier to implement than a message bus, but its scalability is more limited. You also should consider the particular application adapters the integration server supports. And look at the amount of work required to get those adapters connected to your existing systems. Going forward, process-management support will be one of the most important features you'll implement to automate the business processes across multiple systems.

Eric Sanchez, Kaushal Patel, and Joe Fenner are analysts with Doculabs, an independent advisory firm that helps companies choose the right technologies and strategies for E-business. Contact them at info@doculabs.com.