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{multi-excerpt:name=abstract}{em} Petals Platform is a fully-fledged open source middleware solution, capable of meeting all your integration, exchange and architecture needs. It provides you with a lightweight, [distributed open source ESB|petalsesb:], [integration & configuration wizards (IDE)|petalsstudio:], [administration web console|webconsole:], [business monitoring tool|petalsview:] and [SOA governance tool|petalsmaster:].{em}{multi-excerpt}

h1. What is Petals Platform?

Petals Platform is a middleware solution suite of open source software consisting of:
- Petals ESB - the enterprise service bus (core component of the Petals Platform) including many components (Petals components) for messages transport and transformation, mediation protocols and reliability mechanisms, all using common and open standards.
- Petals Studio - integrated development environment (IDE), based on Eclipse with creation wizards, editors, validators and graphical designers for the Petals ESB environment.
- Petals View - business activity monitoring for Petals Platform.
- Petals Master - a governance toolset to improve utility and productivity of your services architecture.

The combined capabilities of these tools make Petals Platform a complete solution for seamless integration and SOA projects.

The Petals Platform is an open source collaboration with the enterprise open source developer community lead by {multi-excerpt:name=petalslink}{toggle-cloak:id=petalslink}Petals Link.
{cloak:id=petalslink|hidden=true}
{em}As the leading European open source Enterprise Service Bus vendor and consultancy for open source SOA integration, Petals Link has market-leading expertise in enterprise application integration and application data sharing. Our goal is to help organisations to design, deploy and manage a modern information system: flexible, agile and interoperable.
Petals Link has already provided its services to more than fifty companies and administrations.
Our core technology, Petals ESB, is used in Telecommunications (Orange), Defense & Security (French Air Force, French General Directorate for Armament), Health (Cegedim Activ, Almerys) and Public administrations (DGME, URSSAF, General Councils of Gironde and Limousin, City of Lyon).{em}
[http://www.petalslink.com]

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h1. Petals Platform Features in a nutshell
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{toggle-cloak:id=distributed|exclusive=true}{important}Distributed{important}
{cloak:id=distributed}{multi-excerpt-include:Petals Platform Features|name=distributed|nopanel=true}

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{toggle-cloak:id=light powerful|exclusive=true}{important}Light & Powerful{important}
{cloak:id=light powerful}{multi-excerpt-include:Petals Platform Features|name=light powerful|nopanel=true}

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{toggle-cloak:id=standard open-source|exclusive=true}{important}Standard & Open Source{important}
{cloak:id=standard open-source}{multi-excerpt-include:Petals Platform Features|name=standard open-source|nopanel=true}

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{toggle-cloak:id=configuration|exclusive=true}{important}Ease of configuration{important}
{cloak:id=configuration}{multi-excerpt-include:Petals Platform Features|name=configuration|nopanel=true}

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{toggle-cloak:id=administration|exclusive=true}{important}Ease of administration{important}
{cloak:id=administration}{multi-excerpt-include:Petals Platform Features|name=administration|nopanel=true}

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{toggle-cloak:id=business monitoring|exclusive=true}{important}Business-oriented monitoring{important}
{cloak:id=business monitoring}{multi-excerpt-include:Petals Platform Features|name=business monitoring|nopanel=true}

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{toggle-cloak:id=business management|exclusive=true}{important}Business-oriented management{important}
{cloak:id=business management}{multi-excerpt-include:Petals Platform Features|name=business management|nopanel=true}

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{float:right}!welcome:Images^petalsplatform_overview.png|width=500px!{float}
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h1. What is Petals Platform used for?

h3. Modern enterprise needs

As a extensible platform revolving around an open source Enterprise Service Bus, Petals Platform can cover traditional needs as well as more ambitious projects. Most companies / organisations have three typical needs nowaday:

- {important}Application integration{important}: connecting heterogeneous applications to share data or features, automate some processes, in overall lessening the human intervention in data processing.
- {important}Mediation platform{important}: exposing data and/or services outside one's infrastructure, to allow employees to work in travelling, providing online services to clients or partners, to gather data from external sources...
- {important}Flexible infrastructure{important}: being able to adapt services, processes or modifying software composition (like, replacing a business-oriented solution for a more performant one) without impacting the running infrastructure.

The two first needs are being covered since years, with the help of EAI (Enterprise Applications Integrations) solutions, ancestors of today's {toggle-cloak:id=ESB history}Enterprise Service Buses.
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As for the need for an agile infrastructure, that's where [Services-Oriented Architectures|glossary:SOA] shine, and that's why SOA market soared up since the last years, while SOA as a concept gained analyst's approval.
{petalslink:author=llacote|type=FIXME Mettre sources}{petalslink}

However, setting up a services-oriented architecture from an existing infrastructure can be very time&money consuming. This is where Petals Platform play its cards. Thanks to its native conception and configuration / administration / business-oriented tools, Petals Platform allows a pragmatic approach for SOA integration.

{petalslink:author=llacote|type=FIXME REPRENDRE LES PARAGRAPHES CI-DESSUS ET IMAGES CI-DESSOUS POUR FAIRE DISCOURS PLUS COHERENT}{petalslink}

!PetalsESB_Typical_Uses.png|border=1!

h1. Let's get it on\!

First step will be to get our latest released products, at our download center : [http://download.petalslink.com]
Then, dive into action, with the help of our user guides, starting with [Petals ESB|http://doc.petalslink.com/x/TwAT].

Register on doc.petalslink.com and [take the most out of documentation with useful features|Wiki User Guide#registering] (favorites, followup, comments...).
For any question, [feel free to visit our forums|http://forums.petalslink.com]\!

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h3. SOA integration, a pragmatic approach

A typical SOA project using Petals Platform could be as such:

h6. +Phase 1: Building a small-range project to integrate Petals ESB in your infrastructure, and learn its use.+

# Draw the "map" of your infrastructure, so you can see where you start from. (Chief Information Officer)
# Define a simple case in which you could use Petals ESB (interconnect two applications, expose a service through a webportal, chain several applications's features as services to create a business process. (SOA Architect / Project Manager)
# Deploy Petals ESB and necessary components with the Petals Webconsole. (Developer)
# Create necessary services, thanks to Petals Studio. (Developer)
# If necessary, orchestrate the services to create a business process. (???)
# If planned, expose the resulting process. (???)
# Set up notifications on desired exchanges (Developer)
# Configure Petals View to monitor and retrieve desired information for further exploitation (Business Analyst)
With this, a specific part of the infrastructure has been made flexible, interoperable, SOA-ready.
# Deploy Petals Master, to set the bases for a good SOA-oriented management: build services index, create companies/users/roles, associate these data to related services.

With this, you have set up a fully functional environment with SOA capabilities, while keeping complexity and resources consumption to a low level, thanks to limited field of implementation.

h6. +Phase 2: Once the container is installed, and you gained design/configuration knowledge, you can expand your SOA integration on a step-by-step basis, depending on needs and resources.+

# Define another use-case, in same or another business department.
# Check the Petals Master's database to find any reusable service.
# Deploy new components if necessary.
# Build services and orchestrate them.
# Set up messages notifications
# Configure related monitoring in Petals View
# Update Petals Master with new users/company/roles and services association.

Repeat this phase to blend new services and business processes in your modern, agile ESB-based infrastructure, without disrupting global reliability or functional range.
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