Due to the complex and varying nature of business needs, ESB is an evolutional progression that unifies message oriented, event driven and service oriented approaches for integrating applications and service. Implementing an ESB facilitates greater reuse of IT assets by separating application logics and integration tasks, so you can reduce the number, size, and complexity of integration interfaces. In doing so, you can add or change services with minimal interruption to existing IT environment; reduce cost and risk involved as business changes and new opportunities arise.

However simple or comprehensive your ESB infrastructure needs, IBM has the integration middleware that can meet them.

IBM delivers the most connected SOA for your business by linking together all types of data, applications, protocols and platforms, from sensors, handheld devices and applications to mainframe.IBM has put the ESB at the heart of its middleware strategy and offers three ESB products:

• WebSphere Enterprise Service: built on WebSphere Application Server for an integrated SOA platform.
• WebSphere Message Broker: built for universal connectivity and transformation in heterogeneous IT environments.
• WebSphere DataPower Integration Appliance XI50: purpose-built hardware ESB for simplified deployment and hardened security.

Whichever implementation of an ESB is deployed to connect your business, either individually or in combination provides your business with a flexible connectivity infrastructure to power your SOA.