Network Director RM is readied as an alternative to ESB products Attempting to fine-tune its software for use in business-critical applications, Blue Titan Software on Monday is unveiling Network Director RM (Reliable Messaging), a tool for policy distribution and messaging in SOAs (service-oriented architectures).Key to the product is support of the WS-ReliableMessaging specification.Classified by the company as an enhanced version of its “Enterprise SOA Fabric” software, the product augments the company’s Network Director technology by providing messaging backbone services. Network Director RM serves as a software router that loads onto a Java application server, enabling enforcement of distributed policies as opposed to having to modify each service separately, according to Blue Titan. The product is compliant with Web services standards. “Network Director is an SOA infrastructure based around a distributed networking approach,” said Chris Schin, director of product marketing at Blue Titan. “In other words, we provide a set of distributed [software] routers that intermediate all messages going between services in an SOA.”Through support of WS-ReliableMessaging, Network Director RM is able to ensure that messages are delivered only once and in proper order. “It enables the SOA to extend to the most business-critical applications,” such as financial transactions, Schin said. WS-ReliableMessaging is a specification proposed by IBM, Microsoft, BEA Systems, and Tibco Software.Also featured in Network Director is “durable queuing,” in which messages are made more secure by being stored on a hard drive as opposed to being left in memory. “You never lose a message. It guarantees delivery of the message,” Schin said. Network Director RM is based on HTTP, making it lightweight and able to traverse firewalls, the company said. Blue Titan views Network Director RM as an alternative to ESB products based on heavyweight, proprietary implementations.An analyst concurred with Blue Titan’s view of the product.“Alternative SOA infrastructures like ESBs rely upon specific messaging bus technologies to provide the integration infrastructure for SOA, hence the B in ESB,” said Jason Bloomberg, senior analyst at ZapThink, in an e-mail response to questions. “However, Blue Titan runs on top of whatever existing network infrastructure the enterprise has, allowing them to scale their solution more flexibly than some bus-based solutions. “Add to that the fact that they support WS-ReliableMessaging, and they are the first to market with a reliable messaging solution for SOA that does not require a particular message queue or other MOM [Message-Oriented Middleware] infrastructure,” Bloomberg said.Network Director RM, which carries the version number of 3.1, will be generally available by February with first customer shipments to occur by the end of 2004. The product has a base configuration price of $400,000.Network Director, meanwhile, will continue as a product, with Network Director RM serving as an enhanced version differentiated through its reliable messaging functionality, according to Blue Titan. Software Development