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.
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 |
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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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