Criteria

1. Transformation - Routing - Orchestration

1.1 Transformation and Routing
Does the ESB solution provide an editor to define transformation?

Does the ESB solution provide tool to test the transformations?

Does the ESB solution allow to detect duplicates prior to the transformation?

What are the different data manipulations offered by the tool?

Is it possible to integrate with external programs to perform transformations?

Under which circumptances integrating with external programs becomes necessary?

Which type of programming language can be used to perform the transformations

Does the ESB solution provide a programming language to perform the transformations

If yes, which one?

Does the ESB solution offer a parser?

Does the ESB solution support dynamic routing?

Does the ESB solution support static routing?

1.2 Flow Management

Does the ESB solution provide an easy to use IDE to create, modify and configure message flows?

Does the ESB solution allow to trigger processes?

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If yes, which one?

Does your solution offer an automated way to generate message flow documentation?

Does your solution allow service re-use?

1.3 Orchestration
How is message synchronisation managed using your solution?

Is it possible to agregate the results of a chain of service invocations

Is your ESB solution capable of managing multiple accesses to a service?

Is it possible to define an aciton as a result of n access failure to a service?

Can the ESB monitor the availability of a service?

Does the ESB solution offer a graphical interface for designing services orchestration?

What type of transactions does the ESB solution handle?

Is it possible to have parallel processing?

Is it possible to have bulk processing of messages?

What is the impact of the previous on the performance of the ESB?

2. Connectivity
2.1. Connectors
For each of the connectors, specify if OOTB or third party

XML Conector

EDI Connector

ODBC Connector

OLEDB Connector

JDBC Connector

OLAP Connector

Flat File Connector

COM Connector

Corba Connector

J2EE Connector

if yes, is it HTTP, Java or EJB?

Other connectors?

2.2 DB Connectors
For which Databases do you have connectors?

2.3 Mainframe connectors

For which Mainframe platforms does the solution have available connectors?

2.4 Application connectors

CRM connectors?

ERP Connectors?

GPAO Connectors? Which ones?

e-Commerce Connectors? Which ones?

Business Intelligence Connectors? Which ones?

Other application connectors?

2.5 Custom connector development kit

Does your solution provide a connector development kit?

If yes, on which programming language is it based?

Does your tool allow test of connectors without data transfer?

2.6 Supported functions

Realtional data manipulation

File manipulation

Folder manipulation

Unidirectional/bidirectional exchanges supported?

3. Web Services
3.1 Supported standards
Does the solution support the Web Services technology?
If yes, how

What are the suported Web services standard supported?

3.2 Service implementation/decoupling

Are the services implmented on the ESB decoupled from their interfaces?

Can the same service be exposed in different forms (SOAP, REST, JMS...)

3.3 Service Creation Wizards

Does the ESB offer wizzards to facilitate service creation?
 Vendor Response

ure message flows?