NETTING IT OUT

The approval and industry support for the Java Business Integration (JBI) specification is an important milestone in enterprise integration. JBI is a vendor specification describing the design of next generation integration solutions based on a service-oriented architecture.

While the specification calls for a Java-based integration product, the resulting solutions provide interoperability between Java, .Net, legacy, proprietary, and packaged application services.

Over the next six to 12 months, as integration software vendors deliver JBI-compliant solutions, enterprises will reap the following benefits:

• First, the obvious. Standards bring choice. Enterprises won’t be locked in to a particular vendor or product suite.
• The cost of enterprise integration technology will be more palatable, and manageable. The service-oriented nature of JBI means enterprises can add integration services and adapters in an a la carte fashion.
• The establishment of the standard prompted offerings from open source communities. Enterprises can freely experiment with JBI technology prior to making financial outlays or commitments.
• Integration services can be reused across integration scenarios, and over time, possibly packaged application solutions.

Although the JBI received broad industry support, there are two significant abstainers: BEA Systems and IBM. While it’s unfortunate these companies abstained, we don’t see it endangering the JBI or enterprise adoption. We anticipate BEA Systems will return to the JBI fold in a future release, and IBM will eventually participate, most likely through acquisition.

Being long-time advocates of service orientation for both business and infrastructure solutions, we are optimistic for the JBI. The JBI has strong alignment with our vision for delivering integration scenarios using a networked integration environment.

INTRODUCTION
Integration Standards, Really
On June 27, 2005, from its JavaOne Developer Conference, Sun announced industry support for Java Business Integration (JBI), a specification (JSR-208) from the Java Community Process, which received approval the prior week.

In brief, JBI describes an architecture for software vendors to deliver service-oriented integration solutions. We believe this is a huge step for enterprises, who have longed for standardization, choice, cost containment and flexibility in integration solutions. JBI will be of particular benefit to those enterprises pursuing service-oriented architecture strategies. As we stated in our April Integration Scenarios and the Networked Integration Environment report, JBI sets the tone for the future of integration solutions.