BW Maniac
November 03, 2017
BW Maniac
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with TIBCO BusinessWorks
In TalkTalk we use BusinessWorks for building standalone applications with Oracle Database as data storage. We have many stand alone applications built using Tibco BusinessWorks and we also use Tibco BW for applications integration. 2 different departments use Tibco BusinessWorks, EAI - Enterprise applications Integration and OMP - Order Management and Provisioning. Quick development cycle and easy to debug and fix.
- Good support for various modes of communications, Java JMS, Tibco EMS, HTTP, Restful, SOAP etc. With easy to develop interfaces.
- Acts as a good data transformation layer with excellent interfaces for cross mapping the data with easy to implement new custom x-path functions and complex data mapping between the complex XML structures.
- Easily Scalable
- Needs more support to customize SOAP interfaces. Although the SOAP based interfaces are very easy to implement, they are not Java like. It is hard to add any custom headers, need to define new port to allow the SOAP clients to download and the wsdl etc.
- I am using BW 5.13, Restful support is not available out of the box in this version. Although the parallel version BW 6.x has the support for restful interfaces, BW 5,13 needs a new plugin. Which is annoying and expensive.
- Most databases and SQLs has been supported by TIBCO. But still they cannot support a prepared statements with "in" clauses like "select * from employee where workplace in ( ?, ?, ? ... )". TIBCO needs to implement the in clause more cleverly where the developers can have any number for values in the "in" clause.
- I have to either write a database stored procedure or use SQL direct for this purpose. I have SQL direct as this is tagged as a security vulnerability and we have no track of what sql is been executed ?
- Self-taught
I have been using Tibco Business Works since the year 2004. Before that I have used Tibco Integration Manager. Hence I did not have any problem to learn the tibco BusinessWorks myself.
Recently I had a chance to work with some of the Tibco marketing and Solutions Consultant, and with little bit of introduction from them about the BW 6.x I was able to get jump started easily into Tibco BW 6.
Recently I had a chance to work with some of the Tibco marketing and Solutions Consultant, and with little bit of introduction from them about the BW 6.x I was able to get jump started easily into Tibco BW 6.
- Since the development time is shorter, TIBCO BusinessWorks will yield returns quicker. But that being said, I tried some POC on the 6.x versions, they are completely different and they are not as easy to develop as in the designer based 5.x version.
- Easy to scale up the engines with multiple granular controls to modify and manage every aspect of the deployment. Hence requires less investment in the deployment cycle.
- Although TIBCO BusinessWorks supports scripted deployment. TIBCO environments do not support simultaneous deployment of all the engines at the same time. Hence requires a longer down time of the applications during the major upgrades. Longer downtime means loss of business.
I don't have much experience in using or reviewing other technologies. But I have noticed my colleagues using the technologies like Pega and Java, take longer time to create a very simple operation in Tibco BW.
As systems integration was a primary focus of the BusinessWorks, the tools and functions available for mapping in business works are very extensive.
Although it is also very easy to write a custom function in Java, if there are any special situations needed.
Although it is also very easy to write a custom function in Java, if there are any special situations needed.
Business Works is easy to test using the debug options and in the 5.x version we can test easily using the BW "tester" option. Never had any trouble to unit test or debug the process.
On the other hand I have had multiple requests from other application owners like Pega requesting me and team to build triggers and stubs using tibco BW, so they can test their stuff !!
On the other hand I have had multiple requests from other application owners like Pega requesting me and team to build triggers and stubs using tibco BW, so they can test their stuff !!
I have had chances to evaluate Pega. Although there might be some features in Pega that can be better than Tibco BW, but finally Tibco BW scores the most. As the product is very intuitive and easy to use.