1. Info-Tech Research Group1 Implement an Enterprise Service Bus Get your services on the bus to reduce integration congestion in the enterprise. Info-Tech's products and services combine actionable insight and relevant advice with ready-to-use tools and templates that cover the full spectrum of IT concerns.© 1997 - 2014 Info-Tech Research Group

2. Info-Tech Research Group2 An enterprise service bus (ESB) brokers communication between enterprise applications and services to promote easy accessibility, reduced failure rates, and ensure superior continuity of service. Introduction Solution Architects, IT Managers, Enterprise Architects, and/or CIOs tasked with implementing an ESB. Organizations of any size who need to integrate applications and services. Recognize the value of implementing an ESB. Identify key areas to consider before embarking on an ESB implementation. Determine what your organization’s ESB needs are. Define and maintain your ESB architecture. Identify your organization’s ESB requirements and create a Request for Proposal. Create an implementation plan to guide the ESB project. Establish and document procedures to maintain, manage, and govern the ESB. This Research Is Designed For:This Research Will Help You:

3. Info-Tech Research Group3 The growing demand for efficient processes is driving the need for better integration among services and applications. Business processes cross applications and services as well as leverage data assets to deliver functionality to users and integrate partners. Process Orchestration Applications Data Infrastructure ESB APIs Partner Gateway Partners Users Web Servers ESB – a software architecture model used for designing and implementing the interaction and communication between mutually interacting software applications. APIs – a programmatic interface into an application’s functions, data, or process. Process Orchestration – management of multi-interaction processes across business applications and people. Application – running instance of a business software program operated by a user or a running server program that responds to requests. Partner gateway services and web servers act as a pipeline, transferring information from the business to clients and business partners. Data – an application data repository. Infrastructure – the underlying foundation of the system, which includes basic support services and hardware. Architectural Components Organizations that adopt a Service Oriented Architecture, without implementing an ESB, end up with SOS: Service Oriented Spaghetti! Use an ESB to map, manage and control service interactions regardless of underlying implementation or API protocol. Info-Tech Insight

4. Info-Tech Research Group4 An ESB provides organizations with a secure, controlled, auditable, and managed environment for application integration. An enterprise service bus (ESB) is essential to any organization that needs to integrate applications and services An ESB is a middleware solution that acts as an intermediary between service requesters and service providers, facilitating multiple integration methods across heterogeneous IT environments. At its core, an ESB facilitates system integration and reduces the number and complexity of application interfaces. With an ESB, there does not need to be a single interface across communication systems. The ESB can transform and augment messages between service requester/provider An ESB enables loose coupling and breaks up integration logic into manageable pieces. There is no universal definition of an enterprise service bus. Your definition of an ESB could be different from another organization’s. It will be derived from the solution that is designed to meet your integration and mediation requirements within your enterprise architecture constraints.

5. Info-Tech Research Group5 Getting systems to interact with one another using point-to-point integration can be time consuming and difficult. The implementation of an ESB provides organizations with a more manageable environment. Use an ESB to establish manageable, scalable, and reusable application and service integration IT Benefits Less complexity. Managing a number of application integrations with an ESB is easier and less time consuming than it would be with point-to-point integrations. Increased scalability. An organization using point-to-point integrations will see the number of connections grow exponentially for every application that is added, whereas an ESB will minimize these connections by providing a centralized location for administering and managing connections. Reuse. As an ESB matures, organizations will be able to reuse existing services. Increased communication. An ESB can route and transform disparate data forms and transport protocols from a diverse range of applications (e.g. custom built, acquired through a third party, legacy). Business Benefits Users can access services quickly and easily. Services can be shared across the organization. Business processes are easier to change without significantly impacting IT. Cost savings. The reuse that comes with an ESB will help the organization realize cost savings. Data can be shared across services and applications, reducing need for double entry. The business can make better decisions with higher quality data, because the ESB can enforce transaction control across distributed services, improving data integrity. Business partner services can be securely integrated into corporate business processes, providing extended enterprise capabilities.

6. Info-Tech Research Group6 Application integration is not a one-time problem. Organizations will continue to add, delete, or update applications. As organizations facing a growing number of applications, scalable integration becomes increasingly important ESB is viewed as the next generation of enterprise application integration (EAI). The concept of EAI came about as organizations started to see that there was value associated with sharing data between systems and across the organization. However, sharing data was easier said than done since there was little consistency between the languages, hardware, and platforms of each application. EAI was developed to facilitate the sharing of data by helping systems interoperate. There has been an increase in the number of complex integration methods (e.g. those that involve customer adapters and complex data structures). Traditional EAI didn’t have the functionality to handle this complexity, but ESB has the functionality needed. With an increasing number of cloud applications, ESBs are going to need to be able to integrate both cloud applications and on-premise solutions. As the Cloud-as-a-Service landscape continues to expand, ESBs may shift from on-premise to the Cloud. With the introduction of simpler RESTful APIs, there is a belief that the need for ESBs may decrease. However, as long as there are applications and services that speak different languages, communicate over different protocols, and can be virtualized logically and physically, there will always be a need for ESBs. ESBs can help in both the transformation of complex requests into simpler REST API methods and transformation of complex responses into formats acceptable by other applications and services. There may be a need for ESB service registry and mediations to handle routing RESTful requests and responses, rather than individual services, to address a shift toward making the location of services logical rather than physical. How it got here Where it’s going

7. Info-Tech Research Group7 The inability of a custom coded point integration solution to scale was used as an opportunity to demonstrate to the business the need for an ESB. Case Study: Custom coding and point solutions end in failure; result in an ESB requirement Industry: Segment: Source: Government Municipal Client interview Provincial government required the municipality to integrate with one of their application services. The application had several API constraints, making it difficult to understand and use. The municipality attempted to build something directly against the API, but found it difficult and tightly coupled to other components in the environment. Situation A custom coded, “quick and dirty” solution was created to make the interface work. It ended up being a very cumbersome system to manage and maintain. Knowledge transfer and training of other resources on the operation and maintenance detail was also difficult. The solution wasn’t extendible or scalable beyond the constraints within which it was originally built. Solution The failure of the quick and dirty solution to scale and meet the needs of the larger organization made it clear that an ESB was required. A project was established to justify the need for an ESB and begin their path towards ESB implementation. Results

8. Info-Tech Research Group8 Commercial ESB software can be costly, but it represents a fraction of the implementation cost. Be sure an ESB is required and that you’re ready for one. Action: Determine if you are ready for an ESB using Info-Tech Research Group’s ESB Readiness Assessment To determine if your organization: Needs an ESB implementation Is ready to implement an ESB. Readiness Assessment Purpose The ESB Readiness Assessment should be filled out by an ESB project scoping team comprised of: An enterprise architect An IT support employee Two business users Participants Complete the ESB Readiness Questionnaire with the participants listed above. Indicate level of agreement on questions about: People. Process. Technology. Data. Steps Over time, ESBs became the answer for everything, and the technology has been used inappropriately. They have been used everywhere to solve odd problems and have become liabilities for many organizations. - David Linthicum, SVP Cloud Technology Partners and author of several books on EAI, SOA, and Cloud Computing

9. Info-Tech Research Group9 Project Approval Solution Design Product Selection ImplementationMaintenance Key Deliverables Processes & Steps Get approval for the ESB project. Document key information about the ESB project in a Project Charter. Define project goals. Establish metrics to measure project success. Sell the value of the ESB to the organization. Avoid SOS! Follow this roadmap to implement and govern an ESB Determine the organization’s ESB requirements. Identify people, process, technology, and data requirements. Establish what integrations will be part of the ESB. Understand the importance of patterns. Make architectural decisions. Select an ESB product that suits the needs of the organization. Understand the differences between commercial and open source, and on-premise versus cloud. Create an RFP, and evaluate proposals. Create an ESB implementation plan. Document the ESB work breakdown structure. Configure the ESB. Create a testing plan. Establish a disaster recovery plan. Create an implementation plan to organize the ESB project. Prepare to maintain the ESB. Create and deploy a maintenance plan. Plan to upgrade the ESB. Maintain IT governance. Implement a change request procedure. Project Charter ESB Project Appropriateness Assessment Communication Plan System Context Service Catalog Integration Mapping Architecture Guidelines and Principles Architecture Decisions Interface Contract Solution Design Work Breakdown Structure Testing Plan Disaster Recovery Checklist Implementation Plan Template Center of Excellence Charter Change Request Template Request for Proposal RFP Evaluation Tool

10. Info-Tech Research Group10 How to use this blueprint We recommend that you supplement the Best-Practice Blueprint with a Guided Implementation. For most Info-Tech members, these Guided Implementations are included in your membership plan.* Our expert analysts will provide telephone assistance to you and your team at key project milestones to review your materials, answer your questions, and explain our methodology. Info-Tech Research Group’s expert analysts will come onsite to help you work through our project methodology in a 2-5 day project accelerator workshop. We take you through every phase of the project and ensure that you have a road map in place to complete your project successfully. In some cases, we can even complete the project while we are onsite. Do-It-Yourself Implementation Use this Best-Practice Blueprint to help you complete your project. The slides in this Blueprint will walk you step-by-step through every phase of your project with supporting tools and templates ready for you to use. Project Accelerator Workshop You can also use this Best- Practice Blueprint to facilitate your own project accelerator workshop within your organization using the workshop slides and facilitation instructions provided in the Appendix. Book your workshop now by emailing: WorkshopBooking@InfoTech.com WorkshopBooking@InfoTech.com * Gold and Silver level subscribers only Best-Practice Blueprint OnsiteWorkshops Or calling: 1-888-670-8889 Ext. 3001 There are multiple ways you can use this Info-Tech Best-Practice Blueprint in your organization. Choose the option that best fits your needs: Free Guided Implementation

11. Info-Tech Research Group11 Book a free guided implementation today! Info-Tech is just a phone call away and can assist you with your project. Our expert Analysts can guide you to successful project completion. For most members, this service is available at no additional cost.* Here’s how it works: 1. Enroll in a Guided Implementation for your project Send an email to GuidedImplementations@InfoTech.com Or call 1-888-670-8889 and ask for the Guided Implementation Coordinator.GuidedImplementations@InfoTech.com 2. Book your analyst meetings Once you are enrolled in a Guided Implementation, our analysts will reach out to book a series of milestone-related telephone meetings with you and your team. 3. Get advice from a subject matter expert At each Guided Implementation point, our Consulting Analyst will review your completed deliverables with you, answer any of your questions, and work with you to plan out your next phase. * Gold and Silver level subscribers only This symbol signifies when you’ve reached a Guided Implementation point in your project.

12. Info-Tech Research Group12 Some of our workshops are available at no charge. We offer newly introduced blueprints as free pilot workshops to our clients during a short testing period. Each workshop is: Offered for free one time only. Available to all clients after testing, for a very reasonable price. For a current list of free pilot workshops, please contact WorkshopBooking@InfoTech.com or see the Upcoming Research page on our website. WorkshopBooking@InfoTech.com Book a workshop today! An Info-Tech project accelerator workshop will help you to engage your stakeholders, gather important data, make key decisions, and generate a customized project road map. Here’s how it works: 1. Enroll in a 2-5 day workshop for your project Send an email to WorkshopBooking@InfoTech.com or call 1-888-670-8889 Ext. 3001. Your account manager will contact you and quote you the cost of the workshop.WorkshopBooking@InfoTech.com 2. Book your workshop A Workshop Coordinator will contact you to book a workshop planning call with one of our Facilitators and arrange dates for your workshop. We can hold the workshop in Info-Tech’s world-class facility in Toronto or at your location. 3. Plan your workshop A Workshop Facilitator will contact you to go over the workshop outline and choose the contents that are appropriate to your situation. 4. Participate in your workshop Our experienced Workshop Facilitators will take your project team through your tailored slides and exercises and will summarize all the workshop outputs into a final report. Also Available: Info-Tech’s Free Pilot Workshops

13. Info-Tech Research Group13 Guided Implementation points in the ESB project Book a Guided Implementation Today: Info-Tech is just a phone call away and can assist you with your project. Our expert Analysts can guide you to successful project completion. Here are the suggested Guided Implementation points in the Enterprise Service Bus project: To enroll, send an email to GuidedImplementations@InfoTech.com or call 1-888-670-8889 and ask for the Guided Implementation Coordinator.GuidedImplementations@InfoTech.com Section 1: Structure the ESB Project Get off to a productive start: Set a clear ESB project scope, find the right program to piggyback the ESB with, define project goals, and identify metrics for measuring the success of your ESB implementation. Section 2: Design the ESB Solution Identify the organization’s people, process, technology, and data needs, determine what integrations will be part of the ESB, set architectural principles and guidelines, and make architectural decisions. Section 3: Select the ESB Product Receive guidance around determining what solution best suits the organization, creating an RFP, and evaluating vendor proposals. Section 4: Implement the ESB Project Validate your organization’s work breakdown structure, testing plan, and overall implementation plan. Section 5: Maintain and Manage the ESB Learn best practices around managing and upgrading the ESB. Discuss the importance of implementing change request procedures. This symbol signifies when you’ve reached a Guided Implementation point in your project.

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