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The ESB addresses the disadvantages of existing solutions by creating a standard infrastructure for integration. Point-to-point solutions, where each of n components requires n-1 interfaces for full communication, are replaced by a bus solution where each component requires a single interface to the bus for global communication. An ESB provides distributed messaging, routing, business process orchestration, reliability and security. The ESB It also provides pluggable services . Because and because of the standard nature of the bus these pluggable services can be provided by third parties and still interoperate reliably with the bus.

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There are many vendors that provide ESB solutions, but there is not a consensus on the exact requirements of an ESB. To provide adherence to a standard, LogicBlaze has implemented the ServiceMix ESB based on the JBI (JSR 208) specification in order to create a standard ESB. So what is the JBI specification?

JBI is an architecture for integration systems specifying plug-in components that interoperate by exchanging messages rather than interacting directly. This decoupling increases flexibility because each component need only know how to interact with the JBI bus and not with n number of other components. JBI components provide services or , consume services, or sometimes both. There are two types of components: Service Engines (SE) and Binding Components (BC). The SEs provides business logic and transformation services. The BCs provide connectivity for applications that are external to the JBI. The separation of business and processing logic from communications logic makes the implementation of components much easier.

The mediated message exchange between components is provided by the Normalized Message Router (NMR). The NMR routes normalized messages between service providers and consumers. A normalized message consists of two parts: the message content (payload) and the message metadata. The message metadata contains information such as security information, that can affect the processing of the message as it routes through the JBI. Messages flowing into the JBI, via binding components, are translated into a normalized (neutral) format, then routed to their destination. Prior to final delivery the normalized message is translated into the appropriate format for the recipient. A message can be routed through several JBI components depending on what processing is needed.

The JBI provides an environment for plug-in components and provides a message based service to allow the plug-in components to interact. The JBI environment also supplies a set of services for self management of the JBI environment, including services for component installation and life cycle management of components.

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