Java Business Integration and Web Services
July 14, 2005 The JBI (Java Business Integration) standard provides the basic rules required to build SOA-based integration server software and related Web services applications. Some say JBI is the only way to go and it should be watched with interest as it evolves in the Web services industry. The Java Business Integration (JBI) standard, also known as JSR208, is finally that: a standard blessed by the JCP. Of course, like many recently defined standards, JBI may have little immediate impact on how end-users solve integration problems, but nevertheless it is well positioned as the only standard around which seriously starts to address the need to standardize SOA-based integration. All the other Web-Services standards (including BPEL) provide pieces of the puzzle, only JBI attempts to put these into a consistent context.  The Java Business Integration standard has followed good standards practise by focusing on what is relatively uncontroversial. Specifically, JBI provides the core standards required to build SOA-based integration server software. It focuses on standardising the interoperation semantics (and associated bindings and interfaces) between what it calls service engines and a normalized message router, which links the engines together. As can be seen in the figure on Sun’s site, service engines can be anything from the generic (such as BPEL engines, business rules engines and transformation services) to a service specific to a particular organization’s solution. Crucially, it does not attempt to specify what engines are required or what they should do. In that sense it is more focused on the vendor community than the user community, and hence does have limited immediate benefit for users – one of the criticisms levelled at JBI is that of irrelevance. However, standardising the underlying architecture, as JBI does, provides two benefits over time to users: 1) It becomes easier to plug together best-of-breed service engines – no vendor can or will be able to provide the full range of service engines: particularly when addressing industry specific requirements. JBI makes it easier to plug these 3rd party engines into any JBI supporting product. 2) It will increase the compatibility between integration products – making it easier to create solutions spanning multiple products: overcoming the common problem of ‘islands of integration’. Web Services on its own is helpful (as is XML-based messaging), but JBI takes it a step further.  Given all of the above, it hard to understand some of the comments made when BEA and IBM effectively dropped out of the JBI standards process last year. Specifically, there were suggestions that JBI was almost competitive to BPEL - comments that reflected a surprisingly common but to my mind mistaken perception that BPEL is a complete integration standard. I won’t rehash my previous comments about the limitations of BPEL, beyond noting that although the BPEL standard does what it says on the can: orchestration, that is not the whole story when it comes to successful integration. In fact it is a small subset, with mediation (the often complex and recursive sequence of transformations, validation and message enrichments required to bridge between service definitions) making up a much greater component. Confirming PolarLake’s long standing view of the integration problem, BEA’s director of Product Marketing, Bill Roth, recently stated that integration projects are typically 75% code – with the bulk of that code to my mind being mediation related. Returning to the main point, I strongly believe that JBI and BPEL are complementary technologies: JBI provides the framework to build a SOA-based integration layer, BPEL provides the standard for one of the key capabilities: orchestration. So how should interested organizations be reacting to the growing momentum behind JBI?. It is too early to suggest mandating JBI as a requirement for a project: the specification is not sufficiently mature to justify such an approach and implementations will only become available over the next year. However, it is now clear, I believe, that JBI is the only way forward, and it should be watched with interest as it evolves. On that basis, I think it is a valid question to ask vendors today: are they heading in the direction of JBI, and if not, what is their alternative? Source: Web Services.org USA & Canada, call toll free today at 1-800-547-4149 or just send us an email for additional information on any Web Services offered on this website. 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