Intel® SOA Expressway includes the following key features and benefits:
- High Performance Workflow Execution - Efficient workflow engine compiles complex SOA integration workflows into byte code for rapid execution
- SOA Message Acceleration - Native acceleration for all XML-based SOA messages, including XML parsing, transformation (XSLT), Schema Validation (XSD), XPath, XML Security and WS-Security
- Appliance Manageability - Cluster based management includes a real-time dashboard for performance monitoring as well as instant notification of alarms and alerts
- Codeless Design - Eclipse-based Intel® Services Designer provides a visual WS-BPEL environment that eliminates the need to write adaptor code
- Content Conversion - Native content conversion capabilities for the translation of unstructured or semi-structured data to and from XML
- Platform Extensibility - Onboard JVM provides direct support for additional user-developed business logic in the form of Apache Axis2 services as well as custom protocols for legacy integration
- Virtualization - Compatibility with popular VMMs from Xen, Microsoft and VMWare allows for many Intel SOA Expressway instances to run on a single server providing significant cost savings over a hard appliance form factor
- Protocol Brokering - Extensible protocol brokering framework allows mediation between HTTP, FTP, JMS, MLLP and even custom built socket-based protocols
Intel SOA Expressway aims to simplify SOA with a unique form factor, purpose-built acceleration, codeless design and workflow, legacy format support and platform extensibility. These capabilities brought together in a single platform define the hyper-ESB product category.
For little bus integration, the ESB (Enterprise Service Bus) has become the centerpiece of many SOA implementations. However, ESBs aren't enough to form the big-bus or actual SOA backplane. Without a clear big-bus architecture that connects islands of integration, one simply trades application heterogeneity for middleware heterogeneity. Intel SOA Expressway is explicitly designed to form a true domain-wide SOA by combining gateway and integration capabilities in an easy to manage appliance style form factor.

When Enterprises begin to implement the SOA design practice with an ESB, they inevitably start with internal pilot projects to prove out their SOA strategy. However, as more internal applications move from pilot to production they often reach a tipping point where message volumes and throughput requirements can dramatically increase.
These additional performance requirements coupled with cross-domain SOA for partner interactions drive the main requirements for a hyper-ESB. A hyper-ESB creates a SOA fast path between mission critical applications in an existing SOA, especially those services with high volume, high-throughput XML message processing requirements. Fast-path requirements often apply to services that include XML manipulation as part of their core business processing such as transformation, validation, parsing, routing, conversion or security.
Further, the hyper-ESB is also well-suited for cross-domain SOA communication and can provide the on-ramp to existing internal ESB infrastructure or provide critical sections of the ESB itself. In this sense the hyper-ESB is especially designed for high-performance, cross-domain SOA enablement. What makes a hyper-ESB fundamentally different from a general purpose ESB for SOA enablement? The tenets of a hyper-ESB include features that focus on
performance, reliability and
simplicity. In short, the hyper-ESB is a complimentary building block in any SOA that demands mission critical performance and throughput.
Q: We are already looking at Open-source ESB products like Mule and ServiceMix; when would I use Intel® SOA Expressway?A: Intel® SOA Expressway is specially designed for high performance SOA, XML and Web Services integration scenarios that cross integration domains. For example, if you have a critical application that needs to perform significant XML processing such as transformation (XSLT), routing (XPath), schema validation, large XML document processing or XML web services security, Intel SOA Expressway may be a good fit. Further, Intel SOA Expressway also has optimized workflow execution for server processors such as the Intel® Xeon® 5000 Sequence and is designed to scale with Intel's general multi-core processor roadmap.
Q: Is Intel SOA Expressway based on JBI? Is the product extensible?A: Unlike many Java-based vendor and open-source ESB products, Intel SOA Expressway has an efficient fast-path C/C++ architecture with optimized workflow execution and local service invocation that avoids the overhead of JBI. Instead, Intel SOA Expressway supports arbitrary Apache Axis 2 services for platform extensibility with the optional Java Integration Framework
Q: Is Intel SOA Expressway a hardware or software product? How does it support Intel® hardware?A: Intel SOA Expressway is a software runtime designed to behave like a hardware appliance. To this end, it is optimized for OEM Intel multi-core server platforms from major vendors like HP and Dell. The software runtime also includes hooks to take advantage of Intel® I/OAT, on-board cryptographic acceleration, and Intel® multi-core optimizations. If you'd like more details our datasheet is available
hereQ: Does Intel SOA Expressway support the full WS-* stack? What about REST?A: Intel is committed to the highest level of standards support for SOA (both WS-* and REST) and includes rich standards support. For a complete list of supported standards please see our
datasheet.
Q: Can you explain your general architectural model? Do you support WSDL?A: Intel SOA Expressway has a logical model based entirely on WSDL and WS-BPEL. That is, all services (whether local or remote) are represented by a WSDL. From the perspective of the runtime, every call is a service call represented by some WSDL, even input messages. This provides a clean standardized separation between the design-time and run-time.
Q: Where can I download an evaluation copy of Intel® SOA Expressway?A: Evaluation copies are not currently available for download. However, if you would like more information on Intel SOA Expressway or would like to investigate a developer license, you can send an e-mail to
intelsoainfo@intel.com or request to be contacted
here Intel® SOA Expressway currently supports
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (2.6 kernel) and has been validated on the following server platforms:
- Dell PowerEdge* 2950 (2U System, Quad-Core)
- HP ProLiant* DL380 G5 (2U System, Dual-Core or Quad-Core)
- HP ProLiant BL460c (Blade, Dual-Core)