A Comparison of Red Hat Enterprise Middleware to Cloud-Native Middleware

Curator's Note: This comparison is written by an evangelist for WSO2

Red Hat Enterprise Middleware delivers an open source platform supporting web applications, integration, Service Oriented Architecture, and data services.  The Red Hat platform is missing many leading edge Cloud, mobile, Big Data, and API management components.

The Red Hat team defines the Red Hat Enterprise Middleware platform as spanning the JBoss Enterprise Application Platform, JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform, JBoss Enterprise Business Rules Management System (BRMS) JBoss Enterprise Portal Platform Red Hat Messaging, JBoss Data Grid, JBoss Enterprise Data Services, and JBoss Developer Studio (see Figure 1).  The components allow development teams to build web application, SOA services, data services, business processes, integration connections, and portals.

Red Hat Enterprise Middleware

Figure 1.  Red Hat Enterprise Middleware

Source: http://www.redhat.com/products/jbossenterprisemiddleware/

WSO2, has more extensive platform breadth and product offerings.   The WSO2 platforms span Application Development, SOA & Integration, Governance, Identity and Entitlement Management, Big Data Analytics, and API Management.  Figure 2 visually depicts the WSO2 Enterprise Middleware product offerings.  The WSO2 composable architecture enables development teams to combine multiple products into a cohesive platform based on project business requirements.  The products share an infrastructure foundation that delivers common monitoring, management, security, logging, code synchronization, clustering, load balancing, and scaling capabilities.

WSO2 Enterprise Middleware Services

Figure 2. WSO2 Stratos Shared Application Platform Services

Source: http://wso2.com/products/

Because the top-level Red Hat Enterprise Middleware and WSO2 Middleware Platforms mix and match different middleware architectural components, a more detailed product review fully illustrates how the two platforms compare.   Table 1 shows how both vendors offer a complete middleware platform.

Table 1.  Red Hat Enterprise Middleware comparison with WSO2 Enterprise Middleware

Significant product offering divergence is seen when identifying products supporting Cloud, mobile, Big Data, and API Management.  Table 2 defines WSO2 products, which do not have a clear Red Hat counterpart.

Table 2. WSO2 Enterprise Middleware products comparison with Red Hat Enterprise Middleware

Let us know your thoughts about whether the Red Hat Enterprise Middleware platform is adapting and evolving to meet your 21st century use cases.