A Case Study for Synapse

I am presenting at the Colorado Software Summit on Web Services Architecture and Axis2 . I see a lot of interest in Axis2 and Synapse in particular. Most people who talked to me after my Axis2 presentation, mentioned that they already have exisiting Web Services based on Axis or some other framework. But now they are interested in Relaible Messaging, Security and Transactions.

So my next question was, why don't you guys switch to Axis2. And that's when they start scratching their heads and tell me that they are unable to do so bcos of so many non technical reasons like, my manager wouldn't approve as the effort is significant or I can do it on our side but we can't ask our clients to do so.

So their next questions, "is there an easy way to do this ??? ". I think thats where synapse adds value. Synapse can give them the quick solution they are looking for without breaking much sweat.

So here is what I suggested

Synapse versus JBI

I was presenting on Synapse at the Colorado Software Summit today, and I realized the key difference between Synapse and JBI. You can actually build the same architecture with both, but fundamentally, in JBI the "bus" is right inside a JVM. Its a logical bus that only exists between JBI binding components and service engines.

In Synapse our idea is that the bus is the whole enterprise network. At the edges XML stacks such as Axis/Axis2, JAX-WS, and other systems push XML into the "bus" - i.e. the network. Synapse grabs these and does the useful stuff - routing, management, transforms, and then sends it on.

I've been skirting around this definition for a while, but I think this actually captures it clearly.