Differences in features between On Premise Integration Server and webMethods.io Integration Cloud

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1. Introduction

The purpose of this document is to provide details on some of the key differences in features between the on-premise webMethods Integration Server and the webMethods.io Integration Cloud. The document also covers any recommendations from webMethods.io Integration Cloud for each feature.

2. Audience

This document is intended for users who are trying to build assets in webMethods.io integration cloud platform or planning to migrate the assets from the on-prem integration server to the webMethods.io integration cloud.

3. Prerequisites

  • Knowledge of on-prem integration server
  • Basic knowledge of webMethods.io Integration platform

4. Features

Below are the features/areas covered in this document, focusing on the key differences when comparing the cloud with the on-prem integration server. Most of the areas are considered from a developer perspective.

  1. Server Statistics
  2. Scheduling
  3. Logging
  4. Security
  5. Caching
  6. Global Variables
  7. Messaging
  8. Deployment

Let’s deep dive into each of these areas.

1. Server Statistics

a. On-premise integration server

  • Can view system threads
  • Can get information on used/free memory
  • Can kill long-running service threads from the Admin UI

b. webMethods.io Integration Cloud

  • Can get information of Credits Used
  • Understand total number of workflow/flow services
  • Executions in a particular time frame from monitor section
  • Can leverage end-to-end monitoring feature

Recommendation for webMethods.io Integration:

  • Customer can monitor tenant activities using execution results, audit logs, and alert rules present in the monitor tab

2. Scheduling

a. On-premise integration server

  • Provides option for scheduling run once, repeating and complex repeating
  • Supports scheduling at second level (HH:MM:SS)

b. webMethods.io Integration Cloud

  • Provides option for scheduling once, recurring
  • Supports scheduling at the minutes level (HH:MM)
  • Can specify multiple schedule times when configured for daily, weekly, or monthly

3. Logging

a. On-premise integration server

  • Can get logs at different levels like error, messaging, server, security, service, and session
  • Can configure different log levels like INFO, DEBUG, TRACE, ERROR, etc.
  • Can enable debug logs which helps to debug using server log file
  • More control on log files as they will be available physically

b. webMethods.io Integration Cloud

  • Logger action can be used to log the business data
  • Integrate with 3rd-party log monitoring tools

Recommendation for webMethods.io Integration:

  • Use shorter and more meaningful logging approach
  • Log only critical business steps
  • Make use of the log business data feature available at step level and flow service level, to log the desired business data helpful for troubleshooting/analysis
  • Can adopt end-to-end monitoring enabled by default for all AWS-based customers
  • In case of large workflows/flow service, breakdown into subflows so that it will be easier to manage the logging
  • Build logging framework to log messages to external systems like database or file storage

4. Security

a. On-premise integration server

  • Provides multiple security configurations like User Management, ACLs, JWT, certificates, OAuth, OpenID, Kerberos etc.,

b. webMethods.io Integration Cloud

  • Supports data masking, single sign-on, OAuth 2.0, two-way SSL
  • Custom roles can be created with specific permissions for your tenant. These roles determine which projects should be made accessible for users of a particular role.
  • Supports user management

5. Caching

a. On-premise integration server

  • Allows for creation and management of custom cache.
  • Big memory/distributed cache management

b. webMethods.io Integration Cloud

  • Workflow supports

    1. Account store
    2. Flow store
    3. Memory store

  • Flow service supports

    1.Storage function with features to add, get, put, delete etc., available

  • Store created in a flow service is accessible to all the services in the project where the service resides

Recommendation for webMethods.io Integration:

  • Workflow caching

    1. Use the account store if you have the requirement of having common cache/store availability for all the projects present inside the tenant
    2. Use the flow store for the stores at workflow level

  • Flow service cache

    1. Use when you have simple cache requirements.

6. Global variables

a. On-premise integration server

  • Can define and use global variables across the integration server

b. webMethods.io Integration Cloud

  • Supports project parameters accessible for all the workflows present inside the project
  • Reference data can be created and used in flow services.

7. Messaging

a. On-premise integration server

  • Supports JMS and webMethods native messaging

b. webMethods.io Integration Cloud

  • Support inbuilt messaging feature
  • Support for external JMS system is planned in upcoming release.

8. DEPLOYMENT

a. On-premise integration server

  • Allows variable substitution while deployment
  • All the selected packages will be deployed to the target environment
  • One-click deployment

b. webMethods.io Integration Cloud

  • Promoting to new environment involves two steps –

    1. Publish the project from source environment
    2. Manually deploy and configure in the target environment

  • Connectors and triggers have to be manually configured in target environment

  • If workflow contains the flow service step, then we cannot publish that directly to target environment

  • Only workflows without errors will be published to the target environment

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