Apache Synapse

WSO2 ESB-2.0 is released!!

2009-02-06T11:07:00.000-08:00

WSO2 ESB-2.0 brings the power and performance in Apache Synapse mediation and the modularity of the OSGi framework into a single space.

WSO2 ESB-2.0 is based on Apache Synapse-1.2 and it will bring a magnificent tool to the Synapse configuration development. It is not only a development tool because it allows you to monitor the mediation through the web console.

WSO2 ESB is comprised with a set of good new features to make it easy to build a synapse configuration graphically. Some of the features implemented on the WSO2 ESB-2.0 are;

This ESB release is based on Carbon "Middleware a' la carte" which is an OSGi based SOA platform by WSO2 Inc.
Transactional JMS transport and the Transaction mediators
Integrated graphical user management
Integrated graphical key store management
Configurable logging through the management console
Graphical data source declaration
WS-Eventing support and Event Sources making it an event broker
Enhanced sequence and proxy service editor
Module management capability
Transport configuration management through the graphical console
Graceful/Forced shutdown/restart
Enhanced integrated registry and search functionalities
User permissions support
Enhanced monitoring tools for statistics and tracing
Try-It tool to try an existing service
Graphical policy editor
Administration console fully internationalized
Better modularity and extendability through OSGi component architecture

You could find more information on this release over here. The project home page will contain all the relevant information while it has a comprehensive documentation, You can download the ESB-2.0 release and give it a try.

ApacheCon Streaming

2008-11-04T12:38:00.000-08:00

ApacheCon live video streaming available; keynotes and Apache 101 are free

Can't make ApacheCon this week in New Orleans? You can still watch all
the keynotes, Apache 101 sessions, and system administration track in
live video streams:

http://streaming.linux-magazin.de/en/program_apacheconus08.htm?ann

Keynotes and the Apache 101 lunchtime sessions are free; the full
sysadmin track, including httpd performance, security, and server stack
administration talks are available for a fee.

Keynotes include:
- David Recordon, Six Apart (Wednesday 09:30)
"Learning from Apache to create Open Specifications"

- Shahani Markus Weerawarana, Ph.D. (Thursday 11:30)
"Standing on the Shoulders of Giants"

- Sam Ramji, Microsoft (Friday 11:30)
"struct.new("future", :open, :microsoft)"

Reminder: New Orleans is CST or UTC/GMT -6 hours.

Advance notice: ApacheCon EU 2009 returns to Amsterdam, 23-27 March. We
had a great response to our CFP and look forward to announcing the
schedule in the next month.

Synapse/ESB clustering guide

2008-11-03T17:43:00.000-08:00

Finally we got it published on WSO2 Oxygen Tank.....

We have been trying our best to get a clustering guide for synapse and especial thanks should goes to Eric Hubert from Jamba! GmbH, (one of the great users of Synapse/ESB) for providing the great feed back and the support he given as an author.

This clustering guide describes how to enable clustering as well as the basics of clustering and preferred deployment model. At the same time this further specifies a set of samples of clustered deployment of statefull mediators like Throttle and Cache.

Synapse artifacts are OSGi compliant

2008-07-21T01:20:00.000-07:00

Synapse artifact jar files are now OSGi compliant...!!

This means that you can now use the synapse artifact jar files within an OSGi container, but Synapse standalone server is not yet an OSGi container.

You may read more on this in this blog

Apache Synapse Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) Performance Testing - Round 3

2008-06-23T22:12:00.000-07:00

We have just concluded the third round of Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) performance testing here at WSO2! The WSO2 Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) v1.7 embeds the Apache Synapse Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) v.1.2 at its core, and thus the performance numbers between these are identical.

Its great to hear that even BEA / Oracle was very much interested about the performance numbers we demonstrated last year, and wanted to beat our numbers with their latest release of AquaLogic Service Bus 3.0 on Weblogic 10. I think this demonstrates a level of trust by the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) vendors and users alike, on the tests we conducted. The fact that we made the configurations/tuning and the tools used openly available, and asked for help from the vendors to optimally configure their ESB's for the scenarios, and reporting back any problems we encountered adds to the level of openness we demonstrated. Additionally this round of testing shows that even the WSO2 Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) / Apache Synapse Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) has room for improvement against a proprietary ESB that we benchmarked against, but also shows a very clear lead against the other open source alternatives.

It should be noted that the advantages of the WSO2 Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) / Apache Synapse Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) does not lie only on its low resource usage foot print, excellent performance or scalability or its free and open source Apache License v2.0 alone; but in its ease of use, the ability to define a configuration graphically, and the fact that it ships over 55 working samples and documentation that demonstrates various features to help users become effective from day 1.

Let me just highlight some of the observations and conclusions here

- Mule CE 2.0.1 couldn't handle the cases where we used a concurrency level of 80; while other ESB's scaled to support to over 2500 concurrent connections. This was after tuning the maximum active thread count to 100 from its default value, which limited Mule to a very few concurrent connections.

- A proprietary version of an open source ESB had the same problem described above.

- Mule CE 2.0.1 also dropped 1% of ALL requests it received

- Apache ServiceMix 3.2.1 failed to forward the incoming SOAPAction for proxy services, and this was now a known issue (I would consider this a blocker, and would suggest that ServiceMix folks follow up a 3.2.2 release just to fix this critical issue)

- A proprietary ESB we benchmarked and beat last year, did some major improvements to their performance, and did 1.6~1.9 times better than us for some of the scenarios

- The WSO2 Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) / Apache Synapse Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) shows a clear lead and dominates the open source ESB space

Read about it all here: http://wso2.org/library/3740 and run the benchmarks yourself!

Synapse 1.2 released!

2008-06-10T01:37:00.000-07:00

The Apache Synapse team is pleased to announce the release of
version 1.2 of the Open Source Enterprise Service Bus (ESB).

Apache Synapse is an lightweight and easy-to-use Open Source
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) available under the Apache Software License
v2.0. Apache Synapse allows administrators to simply and easily configure
message routing, intermediation, transformation and logging task scheduling,
etc.. The runtime has been designed to be completely asynchronous,
non-blocking and streaming.

The Apache Synapse project and the 1.2 release can be found here:
http://synapse.apache.org

Apache Synapse offers connectivity and integration with a range of
legacy systems, XML-based services and SOAP Web Services. It supports
non-blocking HTTP and HTTPS using the Apache HTTPCore (http://hc.apache.org)
components, as well as supporting JMS (v1.0 and higher) and a range of
file systems and FTP sources including SFTP, FTP, File, ZIP/JAR/TAR/GZ
via the Apache VFS project (http://commons.apache.org/vfs/filesystems.html).
At the same time Synapse 1.2 release adds the support for the Financial
Information eXchange (FIX) an industry driven messaging standard through
QuickFixJ, Hessian binary web service protocol, as well as other functional,
stability and performance improvements. Synapse supports transformation and
routing between protocols without any coding via configurable virtual services.

Synapse provides first class support for standards such as WS-Addressing,
Web Services Security (WSS), Web Services Reliable Messaging (WSRM),
Throttling and caching, configurable via WS-Policy upto message level,
as well as efficient binary attachments (MTOM/XOP).

The 1.2 release contains a set of enhancements based on feedback from
the user community, including:

Support for Hessian binary web service protocol
FIX (Financial Information eXchange) protocol for messaging
WS-Reliable Messaging support with WSO2 Mercury
Support for re-usable database connection pools for DB report/lookup mediators
Support for GZip encoding and HTTP 100 continue
Natural support for dual channel messaging with WS-Addressing
Cluster aware sticky load balancing support
Non-blocking streaming of large messages at high concurreny with constant memory usage
Support for an ELSE clause for the Filter mediator
Ability to specify XPath expressions relative to the envelope or body
Support for separate policies for incoming/outgoing messages
Support for a mandatory sequence before mediation

The combination of XML streaming and asynchronous support for HTTP and HTTPS
using Java NIO ensures that Synapse has very high scalability under load.
Performance tests show that Synapse can scale to support thousands of
concurrent connections with constant memory on standard server hardware.

Apache Synapse ships with over 50 samples
(http://synapse.apache.org/Synapse_Samples.html)
designed to demonstrate common integration patterns "out-of-the-box",
along with supporting sample services, and service clients that
demonstrate these scenarios. Apache Synapse is configured using a

straightforward XML configuration syntax

(http://synapse.apache.org/Synapse_Configuration_Language.html).

Apache Synapse is openly developed by a community that welcomes all
forms of input, ranging from suggestions and bug reports to patches and
code contributions. Your comments and feedback on the project and release
are welcomed.

The Apache Synapse code and binaries are available from the website
at http://synapse.apache.org

Thanks
The Apache Synapse Team

Mock Web services with Apache Synapse to develop and test Web services

2008-05-02T06:34:00.000-07:00

Apache Synapse is not just for large scale enterprise integration work. The simplicity of the configuration, out-of-the-box feature set, extensible architecture, and the minimal footprint makes it a versatile and powerful tool that you can use for a variety of tasks.

This IBM developerWorks tutorial will explain how you can use Apache Synapse to create mock Web services. Apache Synapse is a multi use tool that every developer should have in his or her tool set whether be it for solving enterprise systems integration problems or personal tasks.

Linux Magazine article on Apache Synapse

2008-05-01T10:04:00.000-07:00

The April edition of Linux Magazine has an article about Apache Synapse. You need to sign up to read it. Its been out in print for a while, but now its up on the web. Check it out!

Apache Synapse / WSO2 ESB Community Site (beta)

2008-03-10T08:06:00.000-07:00

It is with great pleasure that we announce the launch of the Apache Synapse and the WSO2 ESB user community site - http://esbsite.org!

We hope that this will help us build a vibrant community around our users and developers, and help our community to share their experiences, extensions, articles, case studies, screen casts, patches and many more artifacts and resources related to these open source ESB's.

You can sign up as a member, and begin to upload your custom extensions, or article and code snippets etc, and rate content uploaded by fellow users. In the future, the Synpase developer community would also publish some of the extensions over the community site, which will allow users to update their installations with new functionality. The community site will also feature patches for released versions of the ESB's as well as link to articles and screen casts and FAQ's of interest.

Mediators

EJB Callout Mediator
URLRewrite Mediator
Java Rule (JSR-94) Mediator

Smooks Transform Mediator
IM Mediator

Article and Screencast summaries

Apache Synapse / WSO2 ESB Performance against Mule and Service Mix [Article]
Apache Synapse / WSO2 ESB Performance against the leading commercial ESB [Article]
HMO Case Study using the WSO2 ESB [Case study]
Exposing EJB and WS Repositories using Service Aggregation, Utilizing WSO2's Open Source ESB [Case study]
Stepping into Apache Synapse [Article]
Bridging from HTTP and WS-Security to JMS with the WSO2 ESB [Screencast]
Simple Proxy Services with the WSO2 ESB [Screencast]

Sample XSLTs

Identity transformation with a namespace change

Sample XPaths

Selecting over both SOAP 1.1 and 1.2

Sample Configurations

Using Clone and Aggregate mediators and using XSLT's for selecting the highest quote

FAQ for Apache Synapse and WSO2 ESB

Patches for Apache Synapse and WSO2 ESB

Enjoy!
the WSO2 ESB development team

Interesting Blog about Synapse

2008-02-13T03:27:00.000-08:00

Alex Fletcher has posted this interesting blog entry about Synapse.

Apache Synapse now a TLP

2008-02-11T06:16:00.000-08:00

Last week it was announced that we became a Top Level Project at Apache. The actual decision was made by the board back in December but we wanted to wait until the new website was in place.

So now we are http://synapse.apache.org. We also released 1.1.1 with a bunch of fixes and new features.

Paul

Apache Synapse 1.1.1 released

2008-01-29T08:16:00.000-08:00

The Apache Synapse team is pleased to announce the
release of version 1.1.1 of the Open Source Enterprise
Service Bus (ESB). Apache Synapse is an lightweight and
easy-to-use Open Source Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
available under the Apache Software License v2.0. Apache
Synapse allows administrators to simply and easily
configure message routing, intermediation,
transformation and logging. The runtime has been
designed to be completely asynchronous, non-blocking and
streaming. This is the first release since Apache
Synapse became a Top Level Project (TLP) of the Apache
Software Foundation.

The Apache Synapse project and the 1.1.1 release can be
found here:

http://synapse.apache.org

Apache Synapse offers connectivity and integration with
a range of legacy systems, XML-based services and SOAP
Web Services. It supports non-blocking HTTP and HTTPS
using the Apache HTTPCore (http://hc.apache.org)
components, as well as supporting JMS (v1.0 and higher)
and a range of file systems and FTP sources including
SFTP, FTP, File, ZIP/JAR/TAR/GZ via the Apache VFS
project
(http://commons.apache.org/vfs/filesystems.html).
Synapse supports transformation and routing between
protocols without any coding via configurable virtual
services.

The 1.1.1 release contains a set of enhancements based
on feedback from the user community, including:

* Clustered deployment support

- Clustered support for the Cache and Throttle
capabilities

- The ability to pin services or tasks to specific
server instances

* Maintenance mode for the HTTP and HTTPS transports:

- this allows the administrator to pause the transport,
so that new work is not accepted but existing requests
are correctly processed.

* JMX monitoring support

* New Callout mediator enables simple message flows to
implement the callout integration pattern

* Performance and stability improvements to the JMS and
VFS transports

* Better support for pure XML and REST patterns

* Support for creating POJO-based mediators using
annotations

The combination of XML streaming and asynchronous
support for HTTP and HTTPS using Java NIO ensures that
Synapse has very high scalability under load.
Performance tests show that Synapse can scale to support
thousands of concurrent connections on standard server
hardware.

Apache Synapse ships with over 50 samples
(http://synapse.apache.org/Synapse_Samples.html)
designed to demonstrate common integration patterns
"out-of-the-box", along with supporting sample services,
and service clients that demonstrate these scenarios.
Apache Synapse is configured using a straightforward XML
configuration syntax
(http://synapse.apache.org/Synapse_Configuration_Language.html).

Apache Synapse is openly developed by a community that
welcomes all forms of input, ranging from suggestions
and bug reports to patches and code contributions. Your
comments and feedback on the project and release are
welcomed. The Apache Synapse code and binaries are
available from the website at

http://synapse.apache.org

Thanks

The Apache Synapse Team

Apache Synapse tutorial

2007-11-25T00:46:00.000-08:00

Here are the slides I presented at ApacheCon USA 2007.

Enjoy!

Paul

Domain Specific Modelling

2007-11-13T13:25:00.000-08:00

I've just read this article on Domain Specific Modelling (DSM) in Spring and IoC containers. This is of course exactly what we do in Synapse - we support mediation developers creating their own Domain Specific XML configuration for the mediator. The only thing was I always had trouble describing this feature. Now I have a name for it!

Paul

Apache Synapse 1.1 released

2007-11-12T16:11:00.001-08:00

The Apache Synapse team is pleased to announce the project is releasing 1.1 of the Open Source Enterprise Service Bus (ESB).

Apache Synapse is a fast, easy-to-use and Apache Licensed Open Source ESB.

Apache Synapse offers a wide range of connectivity, including HTTP/S, JMS, (S)FTP, SOAP,
WS-ReliableMessaging and WS-Security. The project has been designed to allow administrators to
support advanced functionality such as load-balancing, throttling, and failover without writing code.

The new Apache Synapse 1.1 release includes many enhancements based on feedback from users, including:
* Apache VFS based file transport - supports File System, FTP, SFTP, JAR, ZIP, TAR, GZIP, Mime
* Scheduled Task support makes it simple to run repetitive tasks
* XQuery mediator - simplifies XML transformation with the XQuery standard
* POJO Command mediator - allows the creation of message-independent mediation logic
* DB Report and DB Lookup mediators - support message augmentation and database logging
* Cache and Throttle mediators/enhancements - improve performance and manage load on existing services
* Split/Clone/Aggregate mediators - support batch processing of large messages
* Improved logging and tracing support

With asynchronous support for HTTP and HTTPS, Apache Synapse has very high scalability under load,
supporting thousands of concurrent connections even with limited threads. Combined with streaming XML support,
Apache Synapse has class-leading performance results.

The Apache Synapse code and binaries are available from the website at
http://ws.apache.org/synapse

Thanks
The Apache Synapse Team

Synapse ESB training in Atlanta and Hong Kong

2007-10-30T10:26:00.000-07:00

I will be running a half day training session in Atlanta on the Apache Synapse ESB on Tues 13th November 10:00-13:00 as part of ApacheCon.
You don't need to book to the whole ApacheCon conference, you book just the half-day training if you like, or you can attend the whole of ApacheCon.

The training will cover:
* installing Synapse
* Understanding Synapse's model
* Using Synapse to add smarts to your service network
* What's new in Synapse 1.1
* Plenty of real world samples - databases, JMS, File Systems, CSV files
* Extending Synapse using Java and dynamic languages

I'll also be running the same session two weeks later in HK.

Please let me know if you are interested - or just book!

Using Groovy to do a simple Synapse DSL

2007-10-15T10:37:00.000-07:00

I've been playing with Groovy and Synapse. If you want to know more - come along to my talk at the Grails Exchange on Friday.

One of the things I've done is to use the StreamingMarkupBuilder to turn the Synapse configuration into a nice {curly bracket} language from its nasty <angle bracket>!

Here is an example:

definitions {
task(class:"MessageInjector", name:"messageInjector1") {
trigger(interval:"5000")
property(name:"message") {
blah { mydata() }
}
property(name:"to",value:"urn:paul")
}
"in" {
log(level:"full")
send()
}
out {
send()
}
}

A simple Groovy script converts this into a synapse.xml. A next step will be to directly build the Synapse mediator tree from this syntax instead. But in the meantime this is a nice hack, and not bad for 16 lines of code!

Paul

Making it easy to schedule work in Synapse

2007-08-07T09:29:00.000-07:00

I've just checked in code into the trunk that makes it easy to schedule jobs in Synapse. This is my second attempt at integrating Quartz.

Quartz is a popular open-source scheduling package, and it makes it simple to schedule work.
Quartz has all sorts of options including persistent storage of schedules, etc. But for my first steps, I've just used the two most popular approaches in Quartz: a simple trigger (repeat the job n times every m milliseconds), and a cron-like scheduler (run the job every 12:00:00 on the last day of the month).

Quartz defines its own XML syntax for scheduling work, and it also defines an interface org.quartz.Job which you need to implement. My first attempt used those, but I felt we could make it even easier to schedule jobs using Quartz.

The latest code defines a simple interface you can implement:
public Interface org.apache.synapse.startup.Job {
public void execute();
}

Most jobs will also want to implement ManagedLifecycle, which gives them the ability to "inject" messages into Synapse through the environment.

I've included a simple sample Job that allows you to send a given message to a given address at the scheduled times. Its called MessageInjector and you can see the code here.

The config is pretty simple too. It lives in the <startup> element.
Here is an example using the MessageInjector:

<job class="MessageInjector">
<simpletrigger forever="true" interval="5000"/>
<property name="message">
<test xmlns="urn:paul"/>
</property>
<property name="to" value="urn:test"/>
</job>

The properties are injected into the object before execute() is called. You can use any String or OMElement property - just the same as the class mediator. In this case it will inject a new message (with body &lttest xmlns="urn:paul"/>) addressed to urn:test every 5 seconds forever.

Please let us know what you think - either on this blog or at synapse-user@ws.apache.org.

Paul

Apache Synapse 1.0 released!!!

2007-06-08T14:07:00.001-07:00

The Apache Synapse team is pleased to announce the first full release of Apache Synapse with the 1.0 release.

Apache Synapse is a simple and highly effective Web Services intermediary and SOA framework. It can be
added to your existing network very simply either as a services gateway or as an HTTP proxy. Once Apache
Synapse is mediating your service requests it can perform many functions including routing, load-balancing,
transformation and protocol switching. Apache Synapse can be used to build an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) or
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA).

Apache Synapse has been designed to support very fast XML routing with a streaming XML design based upon
Apache Axiom. in addition, the use of a completely asynchronous architecture and non-blocking IO based on Java NIO
ensures that Synapse has very low overhead and can scale to support thousands of concurrent clients without dropping
messages.

The main features of Synapse include:
* Support for XML/HTTP, JMS, SOAP 1.1/1.2, WS-Addressing, MTOM binary attachments
* Simple protocol switching between XML/HTTP (POX) and SOAP, JMS and HTTP
* Built in support for XPath and Regex based routing, XSLT-based transformations
* High-performance non-blocking HTTP and HTTPS support (based on Apache HttpCore)
- millisecond-level routing
- supports thousands of concurrent connections
* Load-balancing, failover and throttling support
* Support for advanced Web Services standards
* WS-ReliableMessaging
* WS-Security
* WS-Policy
* JMS support including text, binary, XML and SOAP/JMS
* Logging and header-manipulation
* Extensible via scripting languages including JavaScript, Groovy and Ruby
- full support for native XML via E4X and REXML
- Apache BSF support enables many scripting languages
* Custom Java classes or Spring Framework assemblies allow Synapse to be extended
* Extensibility model allows the core XML configuration language to be enhanced by plugin JARs
* Support for timeouts, fault handling and recovery
* A large number of default samples including content-based routing, XSLT, WS-Security and other topics
* Built in test/sample server based on Apache Axis2 for prototyping and testing
* Ability to load scripts, metadata, configuration and resources from a remote registry
* Optional dynamic update to routing tables and other configuration
* Support for JDK 1.4 and 1.5

The major changes since the 0.91 release are:
* Upgraded to use Apache Axis2 1.2
* Addition of the non-blocking HTTP and HTTPS transport
* Improved samples and documentation
* Enhanced support for WSDL endpoints and load-balancing, throttling and failover

The Apache Synapse code and binaries are available from the website at http://ws.apache.org/synapse

Apache Synapse Tute @ ApacheCon EU

2007-05-01T09:24:00.000-07:00

I just gave the Apache Synapse tutorial at ApacheCon Europe. Thanks to the attendees for the feedback! It went very well and was very positive.

Here are the slides (PDF). [Updated to work!]

Also - I blogged about some early Synapse performance figures here.

The new http/s transport to be available with Synapse 1.0..

2007-04-27T08:14:00.000-07:00

The Synapse team has been getting ready for the 1.0 release in the past couple of weeks, and one of the core features being introduced is a non-blocking http/s transport over the Apache HttpCore library and its NIO extensions.

I would be conducting official performance benchmarks on this transport in the coming weeks as soon as I get access to one more test machine to be used as the load generator that has already been ordered. I have altered the benchmark code that came with the HttpCore 'contrib', to add multithreaded support, so that it behaves almost as equal to or better than ApacheBench (ab) in some cases! Yes, this piece of Java code is able to properly handle keepalive requests when http 1.1 chunking is being used, and thus is able to perform better than ab for scenarios where it is useful.

The Synapse https transport supports two way authentication and hostname verification, and is based on the same NIO code base. However, it requires a J2SE 1.5 runtime as the SSLEngine class used to manage SSL sessions is not available with previous JDKs.

So be ready to learn more about Synapse in the coming weeks as we release our 1.0 distribution shortly!

Apache Synapse project graduates from Apache Incubator and releases 0.91

2007-01-08T02:46:00.000-08:00

The Apache Synapse project is pleased to announce that it has graduated from the Apache Incubator and become a full member of the Apache Web Services project.
This is a recognition of the hard work of the team in creating a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) mediation broker project that meets the Apache Software Foundations guidelines for community, processes and approach. To celebrate, the Synapse team has released 0.91 of the project. You can download it from here: http://ws.apache.org/synapse

Apache Synapse is a lightweight, high-performance broker for routing and mediating XML messages. It is designed to be the basis of a highly manageable XML-oriented Enterprise Service Bus. It has support for logging, routing, and transforming all kinds of XML messages including XML/HTTP, SOAP, JMS, and others. It supports a number of open standards including XSLT, XPath, WS-ReliableMessaging, WS-Security, WS-Policy and WS-Addressing.

The highlights of the release include:
* Content-based routing using XPath 1.0
* Configurable Message logging based on Apache Commons Logging
* Support for XML and SOAP over JMS, tested with Apache ActiveMQ
* Initiation and termination of WS-Reliable Messaging 1.0
* Authentication and Authorization using WS-Security 1.1
* Support for remote configuration via HTTP-based registries
* Extensible using Java and scripting languages, including support for JavaScript, E4X, JRuby, and other scripting languages

Apache Synapse 0.91 is available for download from the Apache Synapse website at http://ws.apache.org/synapse

The Synapse Team

Apache Synapse 0.90 Released

2006-12-20T00:35:00.000-08:00

Apache Synapse team is happy to announce the 0.90 release of Apache Synapse and the updated web site

You can download this release from:

http://incubator.apache.org/synapse/download/0.90/download.cgi

[Note] Please note that the release artifacts may not be mirrored to all mirror sites yet, hence select a mirror that works for you (e.g. http://ftp.wayne.edu/apache)

This release includes many samples that illustrate the features of Synapse, and an Apache Axis2 server bundled in, that hosts sample back-end services to help demonstrate the Synapse sample configurations.

The main features of this release includes:
- Proxy services (Service mediation) and Message mediation support with an enhanced set of mediators
- Support for Endpoint definitions
- Integration with a built-in Registry
- Support the dynamic refresh of resources and mediation rules loaded from the Registry
- Support for HTTP and JMS transports
- Support for WS-Reliable Messaging and WS-Security through WS-Policies
- Script mediator supporting all BSF scripting languages
- Error handling and recovery support for mediation
- Samples and enhanced documentation
- Maven 2 based build process

Thank you for using Apache Synapse.

The Apache Synapse team
http://incubator.apache.org/synapse

Apache Synapse

2006-11-23T05:35:00.000-08:00

Apache Synapse

The Synapse team has been preparing for the first RC of its 0.90 release in the past few days. Some of the features of Synapse has now been documented with simple examples, and the binary distribution of Synapse now comes with a built in Axis2 server instance to host some of the service endpoints used to run the samples.

Be sure to read through the samples at found here.. and make sure to check back again as we update the documentation with more samples

The first pseudo RC1 can be found at http://people.apache.org/~pzf/synapse/0.90-RC1/

A Case Study for Synapse

2006-10-26T08:48:00.000-07:00

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

2006-10-23T16:33:00.000-07:00

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.