Message brokering across different systems, with transactionality and the ability to have fine tuned control over what happens using Java (or other languages), instead of a heavy, proprietary languages. One situation that it doesn't fit very well (as far as I have experienced) is when your workflow requires significant data mapping. While possible when using Java tooling, some other visual data mapping tools in other integration frameworks are easier to work with.
It is a simple and easy way to back up a computer to the cloud and integrated with the office 365 environment. And most importantly, the data is physically safe, off-site and protected by redundant copies, encrypted with Enterprise-level security and maintained by expert systems management personnel.
Some of the documentation is a little sparse. In particular, its TCP-based routes use an underlying Netty server, and the interactions between Netty's decoder capabilities and Apache Camel's routing/handler capabilities can be a little muddy at times. In general it is clear which routes and endpoints are the more frequently used and which haven't been given as much attention.
Apache Camel has been the integration framework of choice, but I was not the person to make the decision to use it. Compared to other competing products like Tibco Business Works, etc., it is free and open source and its licensing policy is acceptable to the management of Cox.
Seeburger is also an excellent product but at the time it was a little outside our price range and seemed designed for much larger requirements, whereas we had confidence in CLEO to be able to handle the amount of data conversion we required and in their forward movement and improvement in their product. We were correct and it has proven to be an excellent choice for us.
Very fast time to market in that so many components are available to use immediately.
Error handling mechanisms and patterns of practice are robust and easy to use which in turn has made our application more robust from the start, so fewer bugs.
However, testing and debugging routes is more challenging than working is standard Java so that takes more time (less time than writing the components from scratch).
Most people don't know Camel coming in and many junior developers find it overwhelming and are not enthusiastic to learn it. So finding people that want to develop/maintain it is a challenge.
Our company has been using this when it was still Extol, so we have a lot of projects on Cleo. This is the default method we use to transform file types.
