The Apache Software Foundation Announces Apache Synapse as a Top-Level Project

Version 1.1.1 of Popular, High-Performance Open Source Enterprise Service Bus
Now Available

FOREST HILL, Md., Feb. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- The Apache Software Foundation (ASF)
today announced the graduation of Apache Synapse from a sub-project of the
Apache Web Services Project to an independent Top-Level Project (TLP). Joining
the Foundation's 57 other TLPs, Apache Synapse is overseen by its own Project
Management Committee that is responsible for the oversight of all code
released under the Apache Synapse name.

In addition, the new Project announced the release of Apache Synapse v1.1.1, a
high performance, easy-to-use, Open Source Enterprise Service Bus (ESB). With
Apache Synapse v1.1.1, organizations can easily build Service Oriented
Architectures, integrate and manage Web Services, and enable applications to
communicate in an efficient, scalable, and cost-effective manner -- one of the
biggest challenges faced by enterprises today.

"The advancement of Apache Synapse to a Top-Level Project reflects a wider
maturity of the project, growing developer interest, and a different appeal
and approach to the other Open Source ESBs in the marketplace," said Paul
Fremantle, Chair of the Apache Synapse Project Management Committee and Vice
President of Technical Sales at WSO2 Inc. "We have grown beyond just
integrating Web Services -- by offering the flexibility to access different
applications, formats and protocols across the enterprise, we have grown to be
a highly capable Enterprise Service Bus."

Apache Synapse v1.1.1 alleviates the traditionally cumbersome development and
integration process; enterprises can reliably employ Open Source through
Synapse's support for numerous open standards such as HTTP, SOAP, FTP, SMTP,
XML, XSLT, XPath, JMS, Web Services Security (WSS), Web Services Reliable
Messaging (WS-RM), and more. In addition, Synapse supports a number of useful
functions out-of-the-box without programming, and can be extended using
popular programming languages such as Java, JavaScript, Ruby, and Groovy.

A lightweight, Open Source component, Apache Synapse v1.1.1 is easily
integrated into wider solutions. It allows administrators to simply and easily
configure message routing, intermediation, transformation and logging. The
runtime has been designed to be completely asynchronous, non-blocking and
streaming.

"Recent projects based on Synapse have included connecting multiple back-end
systems including record-based files, DB2 mainframe-based systems, and IBM
MQSeries," added Fremantle. "The simple, modular nature of Synapse meant we
solved the integration challenges in hours not weeks."

New Zealand-based integrators Black Coffee Software are using Apache Synapse
to manage and mediate services for a multi-national enterprise.

"Synapse's simplicity of configuration, ease of extensibility, and integration
within an Apache Axis 2 container were the key factors in our choice.
Synapse's speed and stability, non-blocking I/O support, and responsive
development community then sealed the decision," said Craig Wilson, Director
and Chief Technology Officer of Black Coffee Software. "Synapse passed all our
performance benchmark, load and memory leak tests with flying colors. Synapse
has met all our requirements and has proven to be an excellent component in
our SOA deployments."

Released under the Apache Software License v2.0, Apache Synapse v1.1.1 can be
downloaded at synapse.apache.org/

ABOUT THE APACHE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION
Established in 1999, The Apache Software Foundation provides organizational,
legal, and financial support for a broad range of Open Source software
projects, including Apache HTTP Server -- the world's most popular Web server
software for more than a decade. The Foundation provides an established
framework for intellectual property and financial contributions that
simultaneously limits contributors' potential legal exposure. Through a
collaborative and meritocratic development process, Apache projects deliver
enterprise-grade, freely available software products that attract large
communities of users. The pragmatic Apache License makes it easy for all
users, commercial and individual, to deploy Apache products. For more
information, please see www.apache.org/

SOURCE Apache Software Foundation

Sally Khudairi of The Apache Software Foundation, +1-617-921-8656,
press@apache.org; or Paul Fremantle of Apache Synapse Project Management
Committee, pzf@apache.org