Single point of failure..

....Grrr..... I have been hearing this one since I did EJB and CORBA... and then BizTalk...and I still hear it with Neuron..

The fact is for whatever reason the notion of an intermediary raises some folks hackles....Usually it's ops folks but occasionally you get the point to point developer or super framework guy who only trusts their code..

I'm not sure why it's such a hard concept to accept an intermediary for some folks...Ask an ops guy if instead of using routers, hubs and switches and such he'd rather use N-homed computers with crossover cables from every computer to another and he'll look at you like you're nutty...Ask a DBA if his clustered server is a single point of failure and he gets a little snippy..Or how bout that ERP?

To heck with it.. Let's scrap DNS and all of us just maintain the host file for every computer we would ever want to connect to..

I wish dealing with these objections was as easy as describing that Neuron can be deployed like a web server or in farm mode..But that doesn't really work for people with these objections any more than saying BizTalk can use BizTalk Groups or that Java enterprise solutions have supported application clustering forever...

I don't think the problem is ease of use...We pride ourselves on being an easy to use product and ease of use is one of the Neuron team's primary goals. I *know* we're easy to use compared to other middleware platforms having at one time or another had to use most of our competitors as a consultant and a traditional technology FTE.

I know the problem is partially the varying inclination all of us in technology have of inherently resisting yet another variable being introduced into our already complex lives. No way I'm solving that one and I don't know if it is solvable.

Beyond that basic instinct though, there is definitely an extra edge in some folks when it comes to ESBs...Maybe it's because of the swiss army chainsaw nature of middleware.. Maybe it's the sheer complexity of distributed systems and integration..Maybe it's because in order maximize the use and possibilites of an intermediary you are forced as a developer to deal with the reality that the wire doesn't care about your object model..

I'm not sure but I would love to know if any of our users have stories around how they convinced their teams and coworkers that Neuron was the right way to go... It sounds trite but I think education is the only way that this issue is going to be improved and some of my best educators have been our customers.