Ability to easily define 'ad-hoc' workflows and distributed applications across multiple component-models and platforms deployed within an organization

Most process-driven platforms for SOA are limited in their support for multiple component-models and platforms, being heavily biased towards development using particular component models such as EJB, J2EE (for most vendors) and COM/.NET for Microsoft based solutions. As such, current process servers are unable to easily compose distributed integrations across multiple component models already deployed within an enterprise. Modern integrations require support for all of these models, with added support required for legacy applications and protocols.

In contrast, the only thing really required to make Message-Driven SOA multi-platform is the ability to deliver and receive messages from each given platform. Fiorano’s Enterprise Service Bus™ allows the creation of distributed workflows using application components based on a variety of component models including EJB/J2EE, COM, .NET and a variety of Legacy systems, across a heterogeneous network. For instance, consider the following application:

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The diagram shows a simple order processing workflow in which an order is extracted from a CRM system, passed on to an ERP system for processing; on acceptance, an appropriate XML transformation is applied and email sent to multiple recipients via the SMTP component; on rejection, further processing is performed as required.

In this example, the CRM Service could be an EJB-based application hosted within an Application Server running on a Solaris or other Unix machine, while the ERP Service could be a legacy application running on a mainframe; one could perform the XML transformation using a .NET component running on Windows machine, and the SMTP service can be a C-based application running on Linux.

Fiorano's Message-Driven SOA infrastructure allows the easy deployment of workflows across all these component models over a heterogeneous network. The incorporation of new component models and additional systems requires no programming or additional setup. For instance, to route the output of the Rejected orders to an SMS Service, all that's needed is to drop the SMS service from the palette within the Studio tool onto the application screen, followed by the creation of a connection between the reject port of the ERP system and the input port of the SMS component, as illustrated in the figure below. This is a simple point and click operation accomplished in seconds, requiring no programming: the SMS component can be deployed on any machine across the Fiorano network at the click of a button.

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The only requirement for imposed by the Fiorano SOA™ platform on external systems is the requirement of a JVM, since the Fiorano Peer and Enterprise Servers and Tools are all Java-based applications for easy portability.