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BizTalk vs Sterling Commerce

Sterling commerce is considered by some to be the Rolls Royce of B2B Integration platforms. BizTalk is the cheaper option but a strong contender in terms of essential features and value for money. Here is a comparison we did against high level capabilities between the two products.

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Note that the data in the report below is not complete. Please contact us to get a full version of the report via the contact link above.

Customer Weightage

Sterling Commerce

Microsoft BizTalk

Standards Support
EDI 10 2 2
Rosettanet (Multiple versions) 0 6 6
SWIFT 9 9
ebXML
EDIFACT
X12
EDI x
EDI y
?????
File
HTTP(S)
FTP
FTPS
SFTP
SOAP/WS
????
RNIF
SMTP/POP

Web Services
SOA Compliance
XSLT
XPATH
XML
Flat Files
(S)MIME
BPML
XFORMS

Process Designer
BPML Compliance
Extensibility
Comprehensiveness
Support for human interaction
BPEL Compliance
State Based workflows
Configurability per partner (code lists)

Data Transformation
Performance 10 8 8 6
Ease of development 0 5 0 8
Data manipulation functions 5 2 1 10
Data representation diversity 10 8 8 2
Standards Support 5 8 4 7
Support for Lookups 10 2 2 6
XLST Support 0 0 0 10
Speed of development 10 5 5 8

Trading Partner Management
Code lists
Metadata
Party definition
Transport association with party
Document exchange for each transport
Interaction profile
Contract

Business Rules and Policy Management
<Restricted>

Adapter
SQL
<Restricted>

Business Activity Monitoring and Business Intelligence
<Restricted>

Administration
Step wise visibility
State visibility
Performance dashboards
Correlation visibility

Messaging Layer
Publish subscribe
ESB

Other
– Sourcecode K2.net product which is based updon windows presentation foundation and enables defining and executing human workflows through web applications and it uses biztalk for System workflows
Biztalk has extendable architechture so it can be extended at point where users want more richer functionality. Following are some of the products which have extended existing feature of biztalk
– Ascentn AgilePoint, built on the .NET Framework and other Windows technologies, is focused entirely on human workflow., Ascentn’s Visio-based tool for defining processes, called Envision, can include a BizTalk orchestration directly within an AgilePoint
Biztalk can communicate with any application, with little or no change at all to source application
Through biztalk business process work flows can be exposed as web service which can consume by any SOAP complient client.

Performance
SQL Server 2005 Transaction Processing Performance Council(TPC-C) benchmark 1 5 5 5
Long running transactions 0
0
0

Scalability
Scale Up (processor limits, memory limits…) 0.5 5 2.5 5
Scale Out (how many machines, terabytes… ) 0.5 5 2.5 5
Partioning 0
0
0

Availability /Reliability
Fault tolerance 0.8 4 3.2 4
Recovery from errors 0.9 3 2.7 3
How quickly does the system recover from errors? 0.9 3 2.7 3
0

Ease of development
Availability of rapid development tools 1 5 5 5
% of code that needs to be authored??? 1 5 5 5
Consistency of IDE design 0
0
0

Deployability
Multiple servers, remote users… 1 5 5 5
0
0

Maintainability
How easy are patches to install, how frequently are they available 0.7 4 2.8 4
Quality of documentation 0.5 4 2 4
Size of the developer community 0.5 4 2 4
Verbosity of the developer community 0.6 3 1.8 3
0

Security
Authentication 1 4 4 4
Authorization 1 4 4 4
Confidentiality 1 4 4 4
Identity Management (integration with existing.. ) 1 4 4 4
Auditing 1 4 4 4
Non repudiation 0
<thread analysis> 0
SSO 0

Accessibility
Localization 0
Support for the disabled 0
0
0

Extensibility/Customization
Availability of SDKs 0.5 3 1.5 3
Quality of documentation of SDKs 0.5 3 1.5 3
Range of SDKs available 0
Coupling of subcomponents 0

Infrastructure
Hardware usage 0
Network usage 0
Datacenter considerations?? 0
0
0

External Factors
Product Maturity 1 5 5 5
Vendor Strategy 1 5 5 5
Vendor’s ability to execute strategy 1 5 5 5
Market penetration/Existing customers 0.8 4 3.2 4
0
0

Support
Email support response times 0
Phone 0
Urgent Onsite support 0
0
0

Compliance to standards / Interop
Interoperbility with other applications 1 5 5 5
Compliance to technical standards (XML, SOAP) 0.7 5 3.5 5
Compliance to architectural standards (SOA.. ) 0.5 5 2.5 5
Interoperability/Dependence on other applications (e.g. MS Office, SQL server.. ) 0.9 5 4.5 5
0

Key Financial Metrics
ROI
Payback Period
ROA

Strategy
Product Strategy
Corporate Strategy

Total Cost of Ownership
License cost of ALL subcomponents 1 5 5 5
Cost of upgrades 0
Training costs (IT and end user) 0
Staff and administrative costs 0
Hosting costs/Environmental costs (air con, power backups, rent.. ) 0
Migration costs (costs to incorporate older systems) 0
Cost of non availability (productivity losses, security breaches, opportunity costs ) 0
De-installation and disposal 0
Pricing model (cost for new standard edition)

Market Presence
Installed Base
Revenue
Revenue Growth
Systems Integrators
Services
Employees
Technology partners

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