IONA Hits Right Niche with Artix 3.0
Type: Competitive Intelligence Report
Analyst: S. Willett
Report Date: March 22, 2005
Module: Application Infrastructure
ID: CIR13458 |
Current Perspective: Positive
Vendor Importance: High
Market Impact: Moderate |
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Summary
Event Summary
March 21, 2005 -- IONA Technologies, a world leader in high-performance integration solutions for mission-critical IT environments, announced availability of Artix version 3.0, the company's extensible Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). The upgrades included in Artix 3.0 are designed to strengthen the product's proven set of enterprise features and functionality including extensibility, platform support, and enterprise qualities of service. These improvements expand the range of systems and technologies that Artix users can service-enable and leverage in their service-oriented architecture (SOA) initiatives.
Analytical Summary
• Current Perspective: Positive on IONA’s new version of Artix, as the firm has carved out a high-end niche in the growing ESB/SOA market with an extensible product with a number of differentiators over competitors.
• Vendor Importance: High to IONA as the firm needed to put high-end availability and other features in Artix to appeal to large corporate users dealing with issues around building an SOA right now.
• Market Impact: Moderate on the market as competitors need to pay attention to the growing ESB market as it will eventually impinge on traditional integration market share.
Target Markets
End Users, Global 2000, Large Enterprises, Systems Integrators
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Perspective
Current Perspective: Positive
We are taking a positive stance on IONA’s new version of its Artix ESB product. The company has honed its target market to large customers implementing SOAs who need something that is more extensible and lightweight than current integration offerings. This makes sense, especially for firms such as large telcos or financial services organizations who have very large development staffs and are used to “building their own.” The new version’s features map nicely to this target market. IONA, which has had trouble expanding out of its CORBA base, may have finally found the right niche.
IONA’s definition of an ESB product, however, doesn’t map too nicely with other ESB vendors. It has no process tool and no messaging engine, unlike Sonic, Cape Clear, and others. The price point, at around 10k a CPU (or around 200K average selling price), is comparable. IONA can boast a lightweight architecture that relies solely on Web Services end points, rather than any centralized hub or application server. That fits nicely into the theory of an SOA and may appeal to many corporate customers.
With version 3.0, specifically, IONA has added failover and load balancing features (with a proxy and multiple service instances) for its services. For management, the product supports the emerging WSDM (Web Services Distributed Management) so it can feed into a variety of consoles, and also supports a JMX plug-in. There are also improved logging capabilities. This will appeal to high-end accounts with existing consoles. The company is improving extensibility with a plug-in architecture and several pre-built plug-ins. The plug-ins basically help customers map between applications, messaging systems, and transports, in the context of a WSDL type of service. Included with 3.0 are plug-ins for Java Servlets, JMS durable messaging, and SOAP message attachments. IONA is taking the first step to enabling transactions in the context of an SOA with its support for WS-Transactions, as well as the CORBA oriented Object Transaction Service (OTS). Also, the firm’s service designer tool is now built on Eclipse and there is Visual Studio integration. This helps Artix fit into existing corporate networks and fills corporate mandates on development tools.
On the negative side, as noted earlier, IONA doesn’t have a process tool, which most vendors have identified as going hand in hand with an ESB in order to link together services. The firm should consider at least a lower level tool for multi-step integrations. The company also doesn’t seem to be investing much on providing a management console. It should consider an enhanced management console with some configuration features. This can always feed into enterprise systems management consoles as an option. Also, many of the standards IONA is supporting are just emerging (WSDM, WS-Atomic Standards). Standards that will make an ESB much more attractive (WS-Reliable Messaging, WS-Messaging, WS-Eventing, etc.) are also in the development phase or are caught up in political wrangling. The firm should aggressively support these and promote their development, as they will only help the adoption of ESBs.
Competitors in the ESB and integration spaces need to closely monitor IONA, especially in high-end accounts in telco, financial services, and possibly insurance, where there is a large in-house development staff. IONA’s positioning and feature set are too unique to imitate right now without a major reworking of products and packaging, so competitors will have to see if it gains significant traction.
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Positives and Concerns
Competitive Positives
• IONA announces version 3.0 of Artix, its ESB offering. The company has honed its target markets to high-end accounts implementing SOAs who have a need for a more extensible toolset for building and managing distributed services. The feature set of 3.0 is well-mapped to this target market and there is evidence of interest among customers (there are 38 customers so far). High-end accounts in telecom and financial services, with significant custom applications and infrastructure pieces, are particularly well suited to such a solution. The product is unique from other so-called ESB products and from mainstream EAI or application server offerings on a number of fronts, including its lightweight distributed architecture that doesn’t rely on any hub or messaging system, its Web Service creation tools geared toward WSDL, and its extensibility and plug in architecture.
• With 3.0, the company has added failover and load balancing features (with a proxy and multiple service instances) for its services. This will appeal to high-end accounts. For management, the product supports the emerging WSDM (Web Services Distributed Management) so it can feed into a variety of consoles, and also supports a JMX plug in. There are also improved logging capabilities. These features also appeal to users who need to manage SOAs, but may want to feed into their existing consoles.
• The company is improving extensibility with a plug-in architecture and several pre-built plug-ins. The plug-ins basically help customers map between applications, messaging systems, and transports, in the context of a WSDL type of service. Included with 3.0 are plug-ins for Java Servlets, JMS durable messaging, and SOAP message attachments. Also, the company is supporting XSLT transformations. The company’s well established Web Services creation tool and the new extensible plug-ins differentiate the firm from many ESB firms, and provide an alternative to application server dependent tools from IBM, BEA, and others.
• IONA is taking the first step to enabling transactions in the context of an SOA with its support for WS-Transactions, as well as the CORBA-oriented Object Transaction Service (OTS). The firm plans to support messaging standards as well as other Web Services standards that will, in theory, lessen the need for a heavy hub-oriented integration infrastructure. This trend can only help IONA, since it is betting on customers moving toward distributed services.
• The firm’s service designer tool is now built on Eclipse. Additionally, there is Visual Studio integration. This helps Artix fit into existing corporate networks and fills corporate mandates on development tools. As noted in past reports, the company is also including its mainframe integration tool as part of Artix (see “IONA Revs Its Artix Integration Product,” March 18, 2004).
Competitive Concerns
• IONA doesn’t seem to be investing much on providing a management console. Instead it is depending on larger systems management vendors for much of this functionality. As customers move to a true distributed SOA, management will be key, and much of the configuration, load balancing, and exception handling may be done through the management console.
• Many of the standards IONA is supporting are just emerging (WSDM, WS-Atomic Standards). Standards that will make an ESB much more attractive (WS-Reliable Messaging, WS-Messaging, WS-Eventing, etc.) are also in the development phase or are caught up in political wrangling.
• The firm must realistically still rely on third-party adapters for much of the application integration.
• IONA does not have a process tool, instead it is relying on third parties. A high level BPM type of process tool will help realize the potential of SOAs by allowing composite applications. A low level process tool can help multi-step integrations.
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Recommended Actions
Recommended Vendor Actions
• The firm should consider providing an enhanced management console, as this will likely be a key requirement of distributed SOAs. It may want to license or purchase technology in this area. It should allow some configuration for load balancing, and other options, through this console. This can always feed into systems management consoles as an option for customers who have “too many consoles.”
• The company should also consider a process tool, at least to enable lower level, multi-step integrations.
• The company should aggressively support and promote new WS-x standards in the areas of messaging, eventing, notification, coordination, etc. as these will enable distributed “non-hub” ESBs.
• The company is on the right path in targeting telecom and financial services. It should go further, at least for telecom, and should consider a vertically oriented suite for these customers with support for protocols and transports common in that environment.
Recommended Competitor Actions
• Competitors in the ESB space such as Sonic, Fiorano, and others should consider Web Services creation tools, perhaps through an acquisition.
• Competitors in the ESB space should consider better SOA management tools and a centralized console. Again, an acquisition is a possibility.
• Competitors in the general integration space should monitor IONA’s ESB pitch, as it is aimed at many of their target markets. They should work to support the next generation of WS-x standards as they emerge.
Recommended End User / Customer Actions
• End users should consider IONA’s Artix ESB as an alternative to traditional hub-and-spoke or messaging-oriented integration solutions.
• End users building SOAs should consider IONA’s approach of allowing a more flexible definition of a service that can bridge different messaging systems, applications, and protocols using WSDL definitions.
• End users should realize that since all the WS-x standards are not in place, they will need traditional technologies (messaging or other) to ensure transaction integrity and reliable messaging in an SOA for the time being.
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