Dell Boomi

Commentaires: Boomi is a point-and-click tool that has many features across a broad functional spectrum (e.g. Enterprise Service Bus, Web Service Gateway, Managed File Transfer, Messaging). You use a drag-and-drop interface to create processes, with no coding required (though you CAN use Groovy or JavaScript when needed). What can you do with it? You can: create and consume web services; perform database CRUD operations; get/send files over FTP/SFTP; read/write JMS queues; read/write to file systems (Linux, Windows, Mainframe, etc.); send/get email; read/parse/create EDI; etc. Nearly everything you do in an IT shop to integrate systems and applications you can do via Boomi. Boomi isn't ideal for everything. E.g. complicated ETL, voluminous file transfers, complicated processing, etc. But for the everyday IT tasks, Boomi is the perfect middleware tool. Simple tasks can be done in minutes with Boomi: read from a database to create a report and email it; call web services; web-service enable an existing process; create an enterprise web service that orchestrates a process; poll directories looking for files; poll JMS queues looking for messages; copy data between two applications; convert data from one format to another; in short - anything involving integrations between systems or applications can be done in Boomi. At my company we're starting to use Boomi for all middleware activities - it's fast and easy to create processes that perform a variety of tasks. Boomi does the heavy lifting, we just configure shapes, connect them together in a process flow, and then push it to production. Sometimes we have to use code (Groovy or JavaScript) to do complicated things that the tool doesn't natively do (e.g. date manipulation/calculation, call out to a Java Library to create a Java Web Token), but otherwise it seems to do everything we want to do. Nearly anything you can do in Java, .NET, python, perl, etc. you can do in Boomi with little or no coding. Boilerplate development (like creating data services, extracting data to files, running scheduled tasks, etc.) can all be done in minutes or hours in Boomi rather than days or weeks in traditional programming languages. Boomi doesn't replace all of your tools - but it replaces 80% of what you do with those tools and it takes 20% of the time to do it. I'm convinced that it's the future of traditional IS development.

Avantages: Ease of use, simplicity of the programming paradigm, and the vast capabilities of the product.

Inconvénients: It doesn't implement everything in a given spec (e.g. I can't access the full request/response for a web service call; I can't use all features of standard functionality like SMB; etc.) The tool needs to mature a bit more so that it can be leveraged more in a variety of enterprises.

Commentaires: We've used Dell Boomi to support Re-pricing and Order management integration over the past several years. Our processes submit approx. 1-2 million API calls a day to our ERP and marketplace channel management platforms. The most important thing I can say about Boomi is the peace of mind it brings...Once you get a process built and tested...it's just works! I worry about all of our other platforms going down or cringe when new updates are released. I've never had that worry with Boomi. They perform monthly releases, and I've never had a release break one of our processes. Given the range of tools available to construct integration processes, there is almost always a way to accomplish a process. Typically the challenge becomes picking the best way to solve the problem with the various options available. One thing that has drastically improved over the past year or two is the information/knowledge base and participation of the Boomi user community. Several years ago if you had questions on how to do something, it would take a while to figure things out. The new Community platform is thriving with lots of very useful information to help beginners get started building processes. The only negative I've ever had and continue to have is cost. Depending on the number of connections (distinct endpoints) you require for your integration needs, things can get expensive quickly. This is one area in which I wish Boomi would get creative. Even if you are using basic local DISK connections or simple HTTP endpoint connections (as opposed to branded connectors such as SF.com, or Netsuite), every endpoint will cost you an additional $300/month. Some pricing-flexibility on bundling certain types of connectors would be a great improvement. For this reason I deducted some stars in the "Value For Money" rating. However, I'll end by re-iterating my opening comments. That cost delivers a huge benefit...Boomi is a robust, stable platform, and you will achieve piece of mind for your integrations that run within it.

Avantages: Development environment.

Inconvénients: Cost

Commentaires: Overall experience is good but I still see a lots of improvement points for the development environment. Also memory and multi threading options appears a bit tricky with Dell Boomi. Checkpointing of the processing would add lots of value to the product in terms of recovering the the half way processed transactions.

Avantages: Common development environment along with version control and revision history.
Development environment on cloud can enable a developer to become productive from day one.
Single place deployment and complete code life cycle management.
Common Dashboard to monitor the integer landscape components.
Automated housekeeping of logs and temporary files.

Inconvénients: Memory management is a bit tricky, no option to allocate memory to specific integration processes.
Multi threading not very efficient and controllable.
Configuration Parameter management through process extentions is a bit complex and confusing.
Dependency on internet for development activity. In case of any network issue developer cannot continue with the development.

Commentaires: We have been using Boomi and doing great. I like the way we can break down data into small units of work. It simplifies how to handle multi-conditional pathing and the unit of work level. Currently, I am working at SFCG, using various tools to build integrations into Oracle CX products. When we started kicking the tires on Boomi and in the training and development since that time, I've tried a series of processes out that have given me trouble in other tools. Below is a brief recap of my experience and growing admiration for the way in which this tool has made my job easier. My first goal with using Boomi was to connect to an instance of CRM On-Demand (a task that can on other platforms be a time-consuming endeavor). What I found was a useful wizard, pictured below, with a series of pop-up steps to follow.
In other tools, I have spent more time in trying to define the schemas, than actually completing the maps that use them. Boomi reduced that time from my process. This is one small example of many demonstrating how my teammates and I feel as if we were working in black and white and are now working in color with Boomi AtomSphere. Tasks I've taken for granted are complex, time-consuming and meticulous are simplified, streamlined and transformed with powerful features like Boomi Suggest - a handy feature that leverages the collective intelligence of the Boomi community to suggest which fields should be mapped in a Data Map. You don't need to take my word for it, another member of our team, Li Mo started building out an integration to Oracle Sales Cloud, using the SOAP API Connector. He was able to do a complete integration to insert a record into the Account entity, and it took about an hour and a half. Note: it had been about 1 month since we both actually took the training courses. I believe we choose an additional tool that plays to the inner strengths of working in the cloud, and I can not wait until I start full blown to continue development on new integration projects using Dell Boomi AtomSphere.

Avantages: Ease of use

Inconvénients: Not sure

Commentaires: We have complex requirements to integrate with a various cloud and on premise applications, related to the semiconductor manufacturing business of our company. Also, b2b integration with 30+ suppliers is needed.
Though I was skeptical initially that Boomi can cover our needs, after joining their first Boomi World in 2017 and talking to Boomi specialists and with their customers, I was convinced we are on the right track.
Now, few years later I can say Boomi was a good choice.

Avantages: By definition, Boomi is built for systems integration. What this means is that you get a long list of out of the box integration connectors (90+). We have used Boomi to seamlessly integrate our NetSuite ERP with:
- cloud applications: Namely, OpenAIR, Box
- on premise applications: Secure FTP, custom API for Oracle Agile PLM and custom apps
It has covered most of our integration needs with a relatively small to medium effort.

Inconvénients: Also by definition, Boomi is built with the idea that not only technical people can do these integrations. This is one reason that higher management of a company can be "pursued" to purchase it. However, in reality non-technical people can only achieve very simple integrations with the drag&drop features of the platform. More technical knowledge is needed because most of the times the requirements are more complex and require custom scripting/mapping between data formats.