Open Source Solutions

The second session in the first user breakout is by Craig Sutter, Technology Director of VetSource.

VetSource deals with many challenges from the multitude of partners' and manufacturers' integration points to regulatory requirements. Existing platforms don't scale, and are often in older, proprietary Java frameworks.

The objective that led to VetSource choosing open source solutions is flexibility without vendor lock-in. One reason to use Mule is the ability to use POJO based services.

[I broke away real quick to return a call to a friend from back East. He'll be in SF on the 24th, so don't bother me that day.]

Other reasons to use Mule:

• Ease of use, very fast to prototype as proven in their pilots
• Standards based but without requirements to use any particular standard
• Support is available as needed

The entire platform is OSS: Xen VM, CentOS 5, MySQL 5, Wicket, Cayenne, Spring and an open source veterinary application. This approach, and the use of Mule allows them to reuse and repurpose older web applications and legacy services. Other services are basic POJOs exposed through a RESTful API. Craig mentioned that he would like to see some changes in the way REST is implemented in Mule, and then mumbled that he'll be talking to the Mule guys later today about that. The difference between this and what might happen would a customer do the same at a BigProprietaryVendor World conference, is that the Mule guys will listen. I also wouldn't be surprised if they implement those changes over the next several weeks, or provide a way for Craig's folk to do so in a maintainable fashion.

One example of the complexity involved is that they may pass an order for a drug that has special shipping and handling requirements directly to the the manufacturer or specialized distributor via EDI using a Mule connector.