Hybrid Integration: Oracle vs. IBM

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Hybrid Integration: Oracle vs. IBM

Customer Perspectives on Simplifying Traditional and Cloud Integration

July 2015

http://www.daoresearch.com

© 2015 Dao Research. All rights reserved.

http://www.daoresearch.com/

Contents

Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................................................... 1

Introduction .................................................................................................................................................................. 2

Customer Perspectives on Services Integration Complexity.................................................................................... 3

Company Research Profiles..................................................................................................................................... 3

A Framework for Evaluating Service Integration ...................................................................................................4

Overview of Research Findings................................................................................................................................... 5

Services Integration Platform Comparison ............................................................................................................ 5

Cloud Integration Platforms Comparison ..............................................................................................................11

Conclusions and Other Considerations .................................................................................................................... 15

© 2015 Dao Research. All rights reserved. 1

Executive Summary

A

“Oracle ICS is a ‘game changer.’ Customers with a large on-premise foot print

are transitioning into a more cloud-based model.

Something like ICS allows them to do this in phases and

do it at their own pace. It would be much harder in an IBM environment to move

integrations from on-premises to cloud because they are

different architectures and technologies.”

Architect for Middleware Systems Integrator


Introduction

Figure 1. Hybrid Integration Platform

W

“The ability to deploy the same set of integration

capabilities, either in the cloud or in a private cloud, is

fundamental to enable flexibility.”

Middleware Specialist with Leading Analyst Firm


Customer Perspectives on Services Integration Complexity

Company Research Profiles

Table 1. Companies/Industries Included in Primary Research

Companies Represented

Fortune 50 Global Systems Integrator

Large Canadian Bank

Brazilian Integration Services Provider

Fortune 50 Global Manufacturer

Middleware Systems Integrator

LATAM/Mexico Systems Integrator

Global Broadband Communications Equipment Supplier

IT/DevOps Solutions Provider

Fortune 50 Global Aviation Company

T

© 2015 Dao Research. All rights reserved. 5 4

A Framework for Evaluating Service Integration

Table 2. Service Integration Solution Evaluation Framework

Service Integration Platform Comparison

A comparison of the service integration offerings from a suite and product perspective, including cloud integration and hybrid integration scenarios.

Platform Setup, Configuration Connectivity & Management Activities

A summary of the set-up and configuration activities for the various components of the services integration environment, including configuring and monitoring back-end adapters and setting up a common management console and governance model for managing the environment. The ideal, as in any complex IT system, is a “single pane of glass” management.

Business Implications Hybrid Integration Scenario

The solution offerings to support cloud and hybrid cloud integration and the impact on complexity, cost of ownership, and agility.

© 2015 Dao Research. All rights reserved. 5 5

Overview of Research Findings

Services Integration Platform Comparison

Figure 2. Service Integration Platform Elements

T


Figure 3. IBM Service Integration Platform Portfolio

“The IBM product line is quite confusing from a

marketing point of view. In some cases the product line is overlapping and in

others not just overlapping but purely

duplicated.”

Service Integration Architect at Large

Canadian Bank


Table 3. Basic Setup and Configuration

Oracle IBM

Activity Effort Skill Level

(1–5, 5 highest)

Effort Skill Level

(1–5, 5 highest)

Comments

Basic Product Installation

4 hours

1 1 day (IB)

0.5 day (DPXI152)

2–3 Basic installation of both Oracle SOA Suite and IBM Integration Bus. IBM requires Integration Bus and DataPower for security, whereas Oracle has a “great application-level security model with Oracle Web Services Manager (OWSM)—highly decoupled and works similarly across all product sets. OWSM is configurable at both Design time and Runtime. Prepackaged OWSM policies make the process simple.”

Product Configuration

4 hours

2 9 hours 3 For Oracle, product configuration is much easier to perform. Create a domain image that can be used to replicate environments quickly and easily. For IBM, configuration is required of two separate products. Even with certified MQ admin, it took some time to configure and get permissions correctly configured.

Configuring Adapters

1 hour 2–3 1 day 4 Oracle SOA Suite has easy-to-configure adapters for all major applications. Oracle adapters appear more robust than IBM’s, using less programming/scripting to configure, especially for advanced operations. There is no wizard with Integration Bus adapters in Eclipse IDE.

Configuring B2B Servers

2 hours

3 2 days 4 IBM requires a separate product from the core integration platform, most notably DataPower B2B Appliance XB62 (or Sterling B2B Integration).


Figure 4. Oracle Service Integration Platform Portfolio


“Oracle has made a significant investment in improving all aspects of the architecture stack from development to

runtime to the management layers of the

architecture. Now all aspects of development—

A2A, B2B, and Service Bus—have improved and

integrated to drive significant improvement

in developer productivity.”

Director at IT/DevOps Solutions Provider

“A full deployment of Oracle SOA Suite out of the box (especially 12c)

provides a greater ability to realize service

integration patterns and architectures. For IBM to

realize a comparable stack requires more products.”

Principal Architect at Global Systems Integrator

TBD

Study participants cited that nearly 90% less effort is involved in configuring

adapters with Oracle versus with IBM.


Table 4. Platform Impact on Manageability

Oracle IBM


(1–5, 5 highest)

Effort Skill Level

(1–5, 5 highest)

Comments

Setting Up Common Management Console

0 1 n/a n/a Oracle Enterprise Manager installed with SOA Suite. IBM products have individual consoles that are relatively easy to set up, but no customers interviewed had a common management console, which would require Tivoli or another enterprise management system.

Setting Up Caching

5 min (OSB)

2 1 day 5 For Oracle, Coherence is inherent to a clustered environment for improved performance. OSB provides caching OOTB configurable via sbconsole. For IBM, it requires a separate product such as WebSphere eXtreme Scale or DataPower XC10 appliance.

ESB: Changing Endpoints in Real Time

5 min 1 5 min 2 For Oracle, it is done through Enterprise Manager. “Endpoint changes is one of the great features.” For IBM, no more than 5 steps to change endpoint using DataPower X152. No config files like Oracle to change endpoint URI/URL at deployment time; it must change endpoint before deploy.

Managing & Adjusting ESB Performance (Throttling Service Virtualization)

5 min 2 2 hours 3–4 For Oracle, knowledge of WLS makes activity much easier to perform; can create a domain image that can be used to replicate environments quickly and easily. For IBM, it involves configuration of two separate products. Even with certified MQ admin, it took some time to configure and get permissions correctly configured.

Monitoring ESB Performance & Response Times

<5 min 2 10 min 3 For Oracle, it can be monitored on the dashboard and with Enterprise Manager BTM. Great statistics on composites. For IBM, it is relatively easy to configure and view. But there are wo different consoles; hence no end-to-end statistics.

Developing a Common Auditing Framework

5 min (EM/BPEL)

1 n/a n/a For Oracle, it is easy to change logging levels in EM for BPEL. BPEL is EM driven and simple to use. For IBM, both DataPower XI52 and Integration Bus provide auditing, but they are not a "common" framework.


Cloud Integration Platforms Comparison

“It would be much harder in an IBM environment to move integrations from

on-premises to the cloud because they are different

architectures and technologies.”



Table 5. The Value of Hybrid Integration

Oracle ICS Typical On-Premise Integration Solution


(1–5, 5 highest)

Effort Skill Level

(1–5, 5 highest)

Comments

Installation & Configuration

0 n/a 40–60 hours

3–4 Enterprise on-premises integration deployment with multiple environments and multinode clusters for high availability. With ICS, all setup and tuning are available out-of-the-box.

Connectivity: Adapter Configuration

30 min–1 hour

2 1 hour–1 day

3 Adapter configuration requires fewer technical skills in ICS as opposed to the on-premises integration solution.

Design/ Development: Building Integrations

2–20 hours

2 16–32 hours

3 With ICS, the transformations are done and things hooked up with fewer iterations because a business analyst can view the development transformation scheme by looking at the objects. The development process and UI are very intuitive.

Updates/ Upgrades

0 n/a 24 hours

4 For on-premises integration, it is not only the patching tasks but also the rollout for the different environments.

“From a cycle time perspective, it depends on how big and how complex

some of these integrations are, but I

would say Oracle ICS is going to definitely reduce our development time at

least 30% to 40%.”



Table 6. Hybrid Integration Comparison

Activity Oracle

(On-Premises + ICS)

IBM

(On-Premises + Cast Iron)

Business Implication

Acquisition of Cloud Service

Online sign-up for ICS; published pricing.

“Contact IBM” to determine which product is needed and acquire product; pricing not transparent.

Addition of the cloud for Oracle is simple. IBM adds to evaluation complexity with unclear pricing.

Connectivity: Adapter Configuration

Preloaded with Oracle SaaS application connectors subscribed to.

Adapters available with iPaaS are exactly the same as those that run on the on-premises middleware platform.

Comes with prepackaged adapters, but adapters are specific to the cloud vs. on-premises platform.

Oracle’s portfolio of native enterprise and SaaS adapters are easily leveraged for cloud integration, reducing effort and time associated with connectivity.

Integration Design/ Development

Provides a GUI-based, visual integration design and development environment.

Oracle Recommends feature provides guidance for business-oriented users.

Can invoke existing SOA Suite or Service Bus services that run on-premises to initiate a Business Process or invoke an existing service in the enterprise.

Provides a GUI-based, visual integration design and development environment.

May have reuse of some integration definitions (WSDL schema, etc.) but need to redevelop integrations based on different technology platform.

No out-of-the-box integration to on-premises Integration Bus.

Both Oracle and IBM provide GUI-based integration development, but IBM’s cloud integration is a different platform requiring unique skill sets—at least 1 week to 1 month, including training and ramp-up of existing on-premises skilled resources in the IBM cloud environment or new team/resources for cloud deployment.

For hybrid cloud integration, the customer bears the cost of integration of the on-premises and cloud platforms.

Governance & Manageability

Common service governance and management tooling.

Same runtime middleware environment as on-premises and other Oracle cloud services.

Disjointed management.

No common service governance (e.g., security, auditing, logging).

Not the same runtime middleware platform as on-premises.

More time and effort for IBM using multiple tools for different platforms.

Performance difference between on-premises and cloud.



Conclusions and Other Considerations

A

“We are also a partner of IBM and have deployed Cast Iron. Oracle ICS is

much more flexible and much more robust. With IBM, we know that Cast

Iron is a product line with an entirely different technology stack as

compared to their on-premise integration

platform and application servers. We also consider it more of a black box; it is hard to tell what's going

on underneath.”

Project Lead for LATAM/Mexico Systems

Integrator

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Hybrid Integration: Oracle vs. IBM