IONA Open Sources ESBs With Celtix
| Type: |
Competitive Intelligence Report |
| Analyst: |
S. Willett,
|
| Report Date: |
June 20, 2005 |
|
| Current Perspective: |
Positive |
|
| Market Impact: |
Moderate |
|
| Vendor Importance: |
High |
|
|
 Summary |
June 20, 2005 -- IONA Technologies announced the company's intention to
make available an open source Java Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). The
project, named Celtix, will be hosted by ObjectWeb, an established and
respected open source community with a focus on the development of
industry-grade distributed middleware. IONA anticipates that the
community will deliver an initial release of Celtix by the end of 2005,
providing the industry with an open source Java ESB that can help drive
adoption of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)-based projects and
promote the incremental adoption of this computing methodology in the
enterprise.
| Analytical Summary |
• Current Perspective: Positive on IONA’s
move to open source an
ESB product, as it puts the firm ahead of
competitors and could help
identify the firm with this growing segment.
• Vendor Importance: High to IONA as the
firm needed to do more
to draw users into its ESB offering, Artix, via an
open source ESB
product that can be easily upgraded to the
commercial Artix offering.
• Market Impact: Moderate on the market
as IONA’s move, along
with other open source ESBs, will cause
competitors to respond, and
users to evaluate this technology. |
· Large Enterprises
· Resellers/Channels
· Systems Integrators
· Third Party Implementers
· Web Portals
| Perspective |
| Current Perspective |
: Positive |
We are taking a positive stance on IONA’s moves
to push an open source
ESB product in order to help jump start this market
category and sell
more of its commercial Artix product. IONA, as a
company, has made some
failed attempts over the years in new markets, but
seems to have a
decent grasp on the emerging ESB/SOA market.
The open source gambit,
while it may not pay off big in terms of services
revenues, will
certainly spur competitors to launch their own
offerings (particularly
JBoss) and will help popularize a separate “ESB”
product class.
With BEA’s release of AquaLogic Service Bus, a big
name vendor is
putting marketing dollars behind the ESB market
with a product with the
kind of features that really do represent a new
category (see “BEA
Splashes Into ESB Space with AquaLogic,” June 10,
2005). BEA joins
small firms such as Sonic, Cape Clear, and others
that have had “ESB”
branded products. Others in the EAI space such as
webMethods and
SeeBeyond have at one time or another had an
ESB branded product, but
in many cases it was a truncated, lower cost
version of their process
or EAI tool. IONA has caught onto this trend and
also has put its hat
in the ESB ring with Artix, which has a unique
feature set, but is
really geared toward building a system based on
WSDL services
(see “IONA Hits Right Niche with Artix 3.0,” March
22, 2005).
With its new open source ESB, dubbed Celtix, IONA
will bring more
attention to itself and this space. Celtix has a
subset of Artix
technology, with Java oriented features. In
particular, Celtix will
include the firm’s tools for defining WSDL “service
contracts” between
different messaging systems, adapters, Web
Services, or applications.
Included is out-of-the box support for various
transports such as JMS,
HTTP, as well as bindings to SOAP. There will be
support for some basic
message level security, as well as an
implementation of WS-Reliable
Messaging. The platform is geared toward Java
users, with out-of-the-
box application bindings for Java and POJO. It also
supports the
emerging “JBI” (Java Business Integration) spec,
which includes both
interoperability with other JBI components and a
container to host JBI
components. As JBI evolves, it is likely that users
will be able to fit
a variety of items into Celtix, including BPEL
process tools,
transformation tools, and message brokers. Celtix
has been accepted in
the ObjectWeb, a well respected open source
community, particularly in
Europe. As part of ObjectWeb, Celtix will mesh into
other integration
middleware type offerings without direct
duplication. This includes the
Jonas J2EE server, as well as emerging BPEL
process tools and message
broker/transformation type offerings.
ObjectWeb is strongest in Europe. While there is
evidence it is making
headway in North America, Apache is still a much
better known
community. The ObjectWeb portfolio of integration
technologies is also
not as well known in North America. IONA must do
better to publicize
and explain the various interlocking integration
technologies in
ObjectWeb and JBI. Also, the product won’t be
available until the end
of the year, giving JBoss a chance to respond with
its own open source
ESB. There is some chance that Apache will also
have some type of open
source middleware. The limited functionality will
limit Celtix’s
market. In particular, the absence of guaranteed
message delivery is an
obstacle. While the firm is supporting WS-RM, this
spec is still in its
early stages of maturity.
IONA’s move will certainly spur JBoss to be more
proactive in coming up
with a discrete ESB product and will be one more
force that is pushing
the concept of an ESB to customers. This will spur
IBM, Microsoft,
TIBCO, and others to reconsider their stance
regarding a separate ESB
product, particularly as the WS-* standards mature. |
| Positives and Concerns |
| Competitive Positives |
• IONA moves to release an open source
ESB (enterprise service
bus) product called Celtix to the ObjectWeb open
source community. The
product has a subset of functionality found in Artix,
with more Java
oriented features. Although this product doesn’t
fulfill all the
integration needs of customers with SOAs, it does
get them started with
some useful functionality. There is a good chance
that some of these
customers will move onto the commercial Artix
offering. IONA’s moves
raise the visibility of ESB as a product category in
any case, and the
company has managed to beat JBoss to the punch
with a more compact,
coherent ESB offering.
• In particular, Celtix will include the firm’s
tools for
defining WSDL “service contracts” between
different messaging systems,
adapters, Web Services, or applications. Included is
out-of-the-box
support for various transports such as JMS, HTTP,
as well as bindings
to SOAP. There will be support for some basic
message level security,
as well as an implementation of WS-Reliable
Messaging. There will be an
eclipse administration/configuration console. This
allows some basic
integration between different services in an SOA. It
is particularly
suited to open source developers who are
developing custom integrations
and don’t need heavy layers of graphical tools and
message brokers.
• The platform is geared toward Java
users. There are out of the
box application bindings for Java and POJO. It also
supports the
emerging “JBI” (Java Business Integration) spec,
which includes both
interoperability with other JBI components and a
container to host JBI
components. As JBI evolves, it is likely that users
will be able to fit
a variety of items into Celtix, including BPEL
process tools,
transformation tools, and message brokers.
• As part of ObjectWeb, Celtix will mesh
into other integration
middleware type offerings without direct
duplication. This includes the
Jonas J2EE server, as well as emerging BPEL
process tools and message
broker/transformation type offerings.
• In addition to upgrades to Artix, IONA will
gain services
revenue from Celtix and plans to jointly offer
services through key
systems integrators. |
| Competitive Concerns |
• Celtix could eat into Artix’s sales.
• The product won’t be available until the
end of the year,
giving JBoss a chance to respond with its own open
source ESB. There is
some chance that Apache will also have some type
of open source
middleware.
• IONA has also not given details on its
services offerings
(pricing, availability, etc.). Competitors such as
JBoss have made a
good start on developing a services channel.
• The limited functionality will limit Celtix’s
market. In
particular, the absence of common integration
technologies such as
transformation and message brokers, will limit the
appeal of this open
source integration product. The lack of guaranteed
message delivery in
particular is an obstacle. While the firm is
supporting WS-RM, this
spec is still in its early stages of maturity. Vendors
offering brokers
(even lightweight brokers such as Aqualogic) offer
a solution, even if
it doesn’t strictly comply to the distributed nature
of an ESB.
• ObjectWeb is strongest in Europe. While
there is evidence it is
making headway in North America, Apache is still a
much better known
community. The ObjectWeb portfolio of integration
technologies is also
not as well known in North America. |
| Recommended Actions |
| Recommended Vendor Actions |
• IONA should help publicize what
supporting ObjectWeb
integration technologies will be coming into the
market. For example,
an open source BPEL product, transformation, and
broker, will greatly
help out Celtix and Artix (while subtly undermining
competitors).
However, the details on these ObjectWeb projects
aren’t exactly clear
to audiences in North America.
• The firm should come up with a more
detailed tiered service
offering as well as a service channel plan that
includes integrators
and VARs.
• The company should selectively load
Celtix with WS-*
implementations as they mature. In particular, it
should choose WS-*
technologies that could help commoditize features
of their competitors,
while keeping value added WS-* services in Artix. |
| Recommended Competitor Actions |
• Competitors in the integration space
should monitor the ESB
market closely and consider a product for the next
12-24 months, in
case this market picks up steam. In the meantime
they should prepare
implementations of WS-* standards, particularly in
the area of
messaging and transactions.
• Competitors who already have an ESB
product (e.g., BEA, Sonic,
Cape Clear, etc.) should monitor the open source
market and see what
kind of users are attracted to this technology and
why. They should
then prepare marketing and product features
geared toward these users.
• ESB competitors should continue to add
QoS and extensibility
features in order to better compete with Artix.
• Competitors should not hesitate to
include open source
technologies in their suites, especially if it is a
technology that
they hope to “commoditize” for their own strategic
purposes. |
| Recommended End User / Customer Actions |
• End users who are implementing SOAs
should consider an ESB as
an alternative to heavy integration broker EAI type
products. However,
they should be aware that many of the standards
that would make an ESB
attractive have not yet matured.
• Users should consider the Celtix open
source ESB if they have a
need for a lightweight layer to mediate between
different integration
technologies using a WSDL services layer.
• Users considering Celtix should get more
information on the
various integration projects going on in ObjectWeb
that will mesh with
Celtix, especially BPEL, transformation, and
message broker. |
Event Assessment
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