Open-Source ESBs in Action: Example Implementations in Mule and ServiceMix

by Tijs Rademakers, Jos Dirksen

Most modern business systems include independent applications that exchange information with each other-a technique usually called enterprise integration. An architectural approach called the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) offers developers a way to handle the messages between those independent applications without creating a lot of custom code. While commercial ESB solutions can be quite expensive to implement and maintain, a set of high-quality open source ESB tools offer the same functionality at a substantially lower cost.

Open Source ESBs in Action shows you how to implement and use two open source ESB Mule and ServiceMix. The authors introduce you to these freely-available ESB tools and present practical examples of how to use them in real-world scenarios. You will learn how the various features of an ESB such as transformation, routing, security, connectivity and more can be implemented using Mule and ServiceMix. You will also learn how to solve common enterprise integration problems using a structured approach.

Beyond simply learning how Mule and Service Mix work, you'll learn the core techniques of ESB implementation such as Process Choreography, or the implementation of complex business processes through an ESB, and Service Orchestration, or exposing a set of services as a single service. The book shows you the fundamentals of ESB-based event processing and Quality of Service concerns like security, reliable delivery, and transaction management.

Working in integration projects is exciting, with new technologies and paradigms arriving every day. Open Source technologies like Mule and ServiceMix both offer lower-cost solutions and a higher degree of innovation than commercial ESB implementations. Open Source ESBs in Action will help you master ESB-driven integration techniques quickly and will provide you with knowledge you need to work effectively with Mule and ServiceMix.

Purchase of the print book comes with an offer of a free PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook from Manning. Also available is all code from the book.

Genres: Programming

528 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2008

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

Open Source ESB's is written in a somewhat clear style. The authors know their stuff and demonstrate their knowledge in clear prose. Having said that, I'm still not convinced that ESB is a solution to the integration problem. Judging from the work the two authors put into this book to cover two implementations, ESB looks like a solution in search of a problem. The effort required to integrate two or more applications using ESB appears to this programmer to be much larger, more complicated and much more brittle than a simple pared down solution (like using JMS directly, instead of traipsing through four or five different technologies to achieve the same results).



If you're job requires that you know ESB then this is an appropriate book to read. It will get you started with Service Mix and Mule. But if your looking for an integration solution that's simple and easy to use, ESB isn't that solution. In my opinion, you'd be better off hard coding the applications to talk to one another than use ESB (I wouldn't recommend that either but if you were faced with those two choices, hard coding is a simpler and less brittle solution to maintain than the overhead of ESB).

[Clifford · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best (only?) decent book on ESBs and how to use them that I've seen with clear examples in both Mule and Servicemix. Worth it if only for the longer "example integration app" in the last few chapters that shows you how one might incorporate a variety of the different ESB components in a single, full-scale distributed system and what considerations need to be made in such a scenario.

[Laurent]

Was a very interesting read at the time... even stole some design ideas for something I was working on at the time.

[Christophe Addinquy · Rating 2 out of 5]

ma note de lecture en français ici