Apache Camel vs. SAP Integration Suite vs. TIBCO Integration (including BusinessWorks and Flogo)

Message brokering across different systems, with transactionality and the ability to have fine tuned control over what happens using Java (or other languages), instead of a heavy, proprietary languages. One situation that it doesn't fit very well (as far as I have experienced) is when your workflow requires significant data mapping. While possible when using Java tooling, some other visual data mapping tools in other integration frameworks are easier to work with.

Incentivized

In our case to have a such a poweful middleware in the cloud, give us a lot of benefits such as maintenance and support. In the integration part to be able to connect SAP and Non SAP applications makes SAP Integration Suite a good investment when our master data in this case is in S4HANA. Less appropriate is that sometimes the updates in production tenant failed and they have to downgrade or repair the issues. Affecting the usage of the tool. I guess SAP team have to be more aware of performing the changes and tested well on development environments and then when they know for sure that is the correct way to go with the update put it in production.

Incentivized

In BusinessWorks it is quite easy to develop applications and monitor where as it is not similar with Scribe. The data which successfully processed in Scribe is quite difficult to view. I think the Scribe console tool should have better view for the data it has processed.At times we founds some of our sales orders are missing which are unable to update/insert in the DB, after investigation found the issue is in Scribe tool. A case has been raised 02129657 for the same and as per the guidelines from the Scribe support engineer we did changes in the shutdown interval to zero. ''update SCRIBEINTERNAL.SCRIBE.KSYNC
set keyvalue= 0 where KEYNAME = 'SETTINGS.SHUTDOWNINTERVAL''. Later this change we started getting alert emails like ''Fatal error 325 occurred: Message processor shutting down
- defined maximum memory usage (900MB) exceeded. Please contact Scribe support
at support@scribesoft.com if this
problem persists''. We found this issue is a critical one as the occurrences of it is decreased but still it is persist.

Incentivized

• Camel has an easy learning curve. It is fairly well documented and there are about 5-6 books on Camel.
• There is a large user group and blogs devoted to all things Camel and the developers of Camel provide quick answers and have also been very quick to patch Camel, when bugs are reported.
• Camel integrates well with well known frameworks like Spring, and other middleware products like Apache Karaf and Servicemix.
• There are over 150 components for the Camel framework that help integrate with diverse software platforms.
• Camel is also good for creating microservices.

Incentivized

• Enhanced API management features that allow now the integration with a multitude of data feeds and rating agencies
• Immediate evaluation of potential issues and configurable thresholds and automatic notifications.
• The application will monitor all aspects of compliance and update them automatically for several jurisdictions at time

• The UI is easy to navigate and map flows are intuitive and easy to build upon after some basic training. However, a user should have some basic knowledge of writing nested statements.
• Very responsive customer support.
• The debug feature is a great tool for troubleshooting. You can easily identify where the issue is in your flow. At each debug step, it returns the expected value, and when there isn't the expected value, you know when to modify your flow.

Incentivized

• didn't work well when our developers tried to transform heavy data sets
• Apache Camel's whole logic is based on java so team needs to have a great skill set in java
• if there are a handful of workflows then Apache Camel's full potential can't be realized

Incentivized

• Provide more pre-built integrations to use within SuccessFactors or other modules instead of everything having to be custom built
• Support is unable to provide advice on custom builds so you often have to engage a 3rd party partner
• Works best when you have the functional and technical teams working together. Otherwise, the system is too technical for a functional user to create integration and a technical user not always understand the functional perspective

Incentivized

• Missing functionality: We like to run all the files available in the FTP when clicking the run button. Right now, we have to click the run button several times (or have multiple solutions) in order to run files from our FTP site one at a time.
• Generating column fields every time a file changes from the source in the FTP is very tedious. Working in integrations makes me have to go back and forth a lot of the time, and doing this is incredibly annoying.
• The security is horrendous. We installed an on-premise agent on the customer side, but we don't want them even touching the ETL tool at all. The only knowledge we are fine with knowing and being able to see is that they installed the agent, not the solutions themselves.
• Our company's connector would have to point to the dataset name rather than dataset ID. It was very frustrating because we change the dataset name a lot, and then we'd have to repoint it.
• It's very difficult to monitor the different integrations that go on because there isn't a consolidated dashboard.

Incentivized

It is in place, our system integrators are familiar with it, and it fits into the ecosystem. A better user interface, flow build and debugging experience would see it grow, many technical staff do not enjoy using it for this reason, however it is quite capable and powerful behind this one shortcoming.

Incentivized

We are deeply entrenched in using Tibco Scribe capabilities, and we are only expanding our usage. It would be one thing if we used it only for a one-time data load, but we have several Scribe maps running constantly, keeping business-critical data up to date. And the ease of use for the occasional, mass data update or upload is simply icing on the cake. I'm a big Microsoft fan, so there is potential down the road to convert our Scribe data integrations to Microsoft Flow (or Power Automate as it is now called). But for now, the functionality just isn't there with Flow (Power Automate), plus the work involved to change all our current integrations would be a large undertaking. So for now and the foreseeable future, Scribe will remain our data integration tool of choice.

Incentivized

The user interface is messy and not intuitive. It has a steep learning curve, and flows developed around are easy to make a mess with layout and can be difficult to follow. The debugging is also quite difficult, it takes some time to figure out how to follow the flow and examine data. Error handling is also difficult and not intuitive, it is better to let some errors leak and monitor through ALM.

Incentivized

As mentioned in the previous sections, setup and maintenance is extremely easy. We don't have many issues for which we need support and there is no need for deep technical skills to use Tibco Cloud Integration platform. The solution provides everything we need for our specific use case, being the replication of our Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM data to our on premise database for reporting.

Incentivized

We have not had any issues with TIBCO not being available when needed. I have only had to contact support less than 5 times in about 5 year time frame due to syncing issues or a problem with the agent. Support is very quick to respond as well as very helpful.

Incentivized

TIBCO Cloud Integration (including BusinessWorks and Scribe)'s performance of the user interface are not to be complained about. The user interface is swift and is a pleasant user experience. The replication jobs take some time to finish but that is because the number of records to be updated/created on a daily basis is quite big. I did split up the jobs between highrunners (entities with a lot of changes) I update on a daily basis and quite stable entities that I update weekly. That solved my issue of a way to long replication.

Incentivized

The support for SAP Integration Suite is satisfactory. We leverage SAP support through our manage services partner. So far, we have not had many major issues. One concern, to make our rating a ten, would be turnaround time on high priority incidents. SAP Integration Suite drives our key business functions forward. Without a reasonable service level agreement on turnaround, we sometimes find us running into issues running pay, etc.

Incentivized

For creating new process, you have lots of palettes to do every develop you need. For created process it is easy to understand even if you have ever seen before it. You can analyze your process in all their detail. User Experience is positive for beginner and expertise people. Just debug mode is still raw, but better in TIBCO BusinessWorks 6.x than TIBCO BusinessWorks 5.x .

Incentivized

Before using TIBCO Businessworks, I participated an official training with a specialized instructor. In this training, I learned what I needed to know to build some applications or web services and how to manage its. It was been very important to me. I understood many technical stuff to familiarize with this powerful platform. I can advice TIBCO Educational Services.

Incentivized

really good resources

Incentivized

Work with an SAP implementation partner, if possible.

Incentivized

If we don't design the process correctly, it can do lot of damage (like deleting files or data etc.,) and might assume product issue rather than a design flaw. So it is always recommended to do thorough unit testing , QA and a design review even for a small process to avoid major problems.

Incentivized

If you are looking for a Java-based open source low cost equivalent to webMethods or Azure Logic Apps, Apache Camel is an excellent choice as it is mature and widely deployed, and included in many vendored Java application servers too such as Redhat JBoss EAP. Apache Camel is lacking on the GUI tooling side compared to commercial products such as webMethods or Azure Logic Apps.

Incentivized

SAP Integration Suite was already part of our SAP stack, part of Business Technology Platform, with out-of-the-box integration with S/4 HANA transactional and ERP system that we are using as our main back-end. Thus, we are achieving significant Total Cost Optimization benefits or running both solutions on the same platform, hosted on Azure cloud.

Incentivized

Used TIBCO for migration of our data for our learning management system.TIBCO, succesful Content ,data migration(courses, classes, registrations, transcripts etc.) ,User migration(Internal users and Partner migration)and Report migrationIntegrations with different applications Workday,Single Sign-On,CertTracker,Okta,Partner contact sync and Questionmark is succesful.LOD: Learn on demand is a third party vendor application where all Virtual classes are delivered by the vendor application. Learning management system sends the class and registration events to learn on demand via real time web service call through TIBCO

Incentivized

We could easily add multiple agents and new systems. This had no impact on the performance. We had some issues because flows cannot be splitted and called by each other. So you have lots of flows which are the same. It would be great if this was improved. Also transferring values via variables between flows seems to be impossible. You can only use global lists with dictionaries.

Incentivized

• Very fast time to market in that so many components are available to use immediately.
• Error handling mechanisms and patterns of practice are robust and easy to use which in turn has made our application more robust from the start, so fewer bugs.
• However, testing and debugging routes is more challenging than working is standard Java so that takes more time (less time than writing the components from scratch).
• Most people don't know Camel coming in and many junior developers find it overwhelming and are not enthusiastic to learn it. So finding people that want to develop/maintain it is a challenge.

Incentivized

• In the long run will enable us to undeploy our on premise solution
• As long as integration suite doesn't support all capabilities PO has complete migration is hard
• Will probably be cheaper than our on premise solution when we are completely migrated

Incentivized

• Startup time - the quick time in which we can provision integrations means we can deliver requirements quickly, which is what our departments need
• The online training means we can easily get users up and running without the need for the internal cost of training
• Development time - The development that was needed to create connectors for our custom application was large

Incentivized