MuleSource Releases Another RESTful Open Source Registry Repository

Blogger: Anne Thomas Manes

Following closely on the heels of WSO2, MuleSource (the commercial entity behind Mule, the popular open source ESB) has released another RESTful open source registry/repository. This new product, called Galaxy, is a bit more feature complete and mature that the WSO2 repository.

Like the WSO2 repository, Galaxy treats each piece of information captured in the repository as an identified resource--i.e., a resource with a URI--which can be accessed and manipulated using the traditional HTTP verbs. The repository also supports remote access and notifications using the Atom Syndication Format (Atom) and the Atom Publishing Protocol (AtomPub).

Also like the WSO2 repository, Galaxy does not conform to the prevailing registry standard, UDDI, and therefore presents a bit of a challenge to organizations looking to use a registry to enable information exchange among heterogeneous SOA infrastructure components. Galaxy provides deep runtime integration with Mule and with the Apache CXF service platform, but connecting it with other ESBs and platforms (e.g., WebSphere, AquaLogic, Microsoft WCF) and with other management and mediation systems (e.g., XML gateways and SOA management systems) is left as an exercise for the implementor. REST makes that exercise relatively straight forward, but work is required.

At this point, three vendors provide fully RESTful repositories: MuleSource, WSO2, and HP Systinet. The IBM WSRR product also supports RESTful access to some of the entities in its repository. HP and IBM both support automatic synchronization between their repositories and a UDDI registry. The folks at MuleSource tell me that a similar synchronization feature is potentially on their roadmap, depending on customer demand.

Unfortunately, all four RESTful repositories use proprietary data models. It would be very helpful if these vendors got together to try and bang out some standards.