Apache Camel is an open source integration platform.
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Fiserv Wealth Management Network
Score 8.0 out of 10
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The Wealth Management Network from Fiserv is an expansive networks of managed account data and connectivity. It brings together asset managers and sponsors to perform all necessary business functions to support the industry. The Network includes messaging services, information exchange, and managed account data services.
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.
They offer almost every single thing a financial institution would need for their core business allows you to save quite a bit of money by bundling everything together. Fiserv has greatly increased the speed in which they roll out new banking product. From a banking software platform, they are the best in the business.
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.
Cost ... it's definitely not the cheapest option out there. the way pricing is itemized and a separate upcharge for each add-on gets annoying. They can probably bundle things a little better and offer a discount on the bundled products
the volume of system updates and changes is nauseating at times and we have to prepare and test accordingly every time there is a scheduled update. that takes up a lot of resources; quarterly updates to products would be much easier.
more responsive support and ideally more stable support engineers ... it seems like turnover is high in their support roles and that impacts customer success and MTTR.
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.
I can't name any other competitors that we considered because I have signed multiple NDAs that prohibit me from doing so. I can say that the decision to go with Fiserv WMN was in large part because we have other Fiserv Products and as a result, we already have a strong established relationship with Fiserv (and First Data for that matter, before they were acquired by Fiserv)
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.
Speed of service is greatly improved across partners. I believe our MTTR for service requests has improved by 30-40%
Standardized platform for our staff which translates to better retention and a lower training effort.
Cost is the negative impact ... it goes without saying that using Fiserv is much more expensive to the manual alternative which is very human resource intensive but low cost. But that's to be expected ...we're just trading time for money.
