Cape Clear fills out ESB line

Cape Clear Software next week will ship version 5 of the company's namesake product, an update which fills out the company's integration software with support for more communications and management protocols.

The company, founded in 1999, is one of a growing number of companies that sell a so-called enterprise service bus (ESB), server software that uses Web services protocols and XML (extensible markup language) to transport data between applications. A handful of specialized companies like Cape Clear and Sonic Software already sell ESBs, and larger companies IBM and BEA Systems have voiced plans to introduce their own.

Cape Clear 5 introduces XML document routing using the Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) specification and now works with management protocols SNMP and JMX, which allows companies to manage a Cape Clear server from existing monitoring tools. Cape Clear 5 starts at $20,000 per server.