Cast Iron Systems' iA3000

No matter what technology you might be considering as part of your Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) implementation, there's sure to be a hefty number of mundane data integration tasks required within your enterprise. Applications need to share data, receive and send data, and move data from one system to another. Whether you're a midsized organization in need of a full data integration solution or you're a large enterprise working on a department-level integration project, Cast Iron Systems' Application iA3000 3.3 can reduce the complexity, time, and costs associated with the job.

Unlike traditional Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) software such as those from Tibco Software, BEA Systems, IBM, and webMethods, which require extra configuration to integrate an RDBMS and additional licenses to communicate with enterprise applications such as SAP, Cast Iron's iA3000 is a fully self-contained appliance with true out-of-the-box integration capabilities. There's no need to copy JAR files or configure ODBC DSNs with the iA3000; simply point it at an RDBMS, give it the proper credentials, and the appliance is able to immediately communicate and integrate the resource into an orchestration. This is the evolution of integration, if not revolution. However, the appliance can't yet match the breadth of support offered by traditional integration product suites for technologies such as open-source databases.

The iA3000 is a 1U form factor integration appliance sporting four tri-state (10/100/1000Mbps auto-sensing) Ethernet ports--one for management, one for data connections, and two for supporting high-availability configurations. The iA3000 runs atop a stripped-down Linux OS, with Cast Iron software controlling every aspect of the device for a nearly complete hands-off management environment.