{"id":184,"date":"2020-06-18T14:49:15","date_gmt":"2020-06-18T18:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/?p=184"},"modified":"2020-06-18T14:50:57","modified_gmt":"2020-06-18T18:50:57","slug":"new-client-profile-solace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/2020\/06\/18\/new-client-profile-solace\/","title":{"rendered":"New Client Profile: Solace"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/solace.com\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-185 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/files\/2020\/06\/Solace-logo-green-300x83.png\" alt=\"The text &quot;solace.&quot;\" width=\"300\" height=\"83\" srcset=\"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/files\/2020\/06\/Solace-logo-green-300x83.png 300w, https:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/files\/2020\/06\/Solace-logo-green-1024x284.png 1024w, https:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/files\/2020\/06\/Solace-logo-green-768x213.png 768w, https:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/files\/2020\/06\/Solace-logo-green-1536x427.png 1536w, https:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/files\/2020\/06\/Solace-logo-green-480x133.png 480w, https:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/files\/2020\/06\/Solace-logo-green-1200x333.png 1200w, https:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/files\/2020\/06\/Solace-logo-green.png 1800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">About <\/span><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/solace.com\/\">Solace<\/a> was founded in 2001 (as Solace Systems) by Craig Betts as a specialized provider of low-latency messaging hardware for capital markets, competing with software only solutions from the likes of IBM. Solace has since expanded its client base across multiple industries providing event streaming and management in its PubSub+ product line. The name PubSub+ comes from publish\/subscribe (or pub\/sub), one of the canonical message oriented middleware patterns.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, the Solace <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/solace.com\/company\/team\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">team<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is currently led by CEO Denis King (who <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/solace.com\/press-center\/ceo-transition\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">recently<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> stepped up from the COO role to replace former CEO Les Rechan), CTO Shawn McAllister, CMO Mychelle Mollot, and CFO Ken Wigglesworth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Solace elevator pitch: \u201cWe provide a complete platform for event streaming and management. From distributed event streaming across an event mesh, to tools that help developers and architects discover, manage and govern events across the enterprise.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Size\u00a0<\/span><\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">280+ employees in offices located around the world including London, Hong Kong, Mumbai, New Delhi, New York, Paris, Santa Clara, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, and Zurich.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">24 patents<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The company is privately held and has raised multiple rounds of funding over the years;\u00a0 <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bridgegrowthpartners.com\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bridge Growth Partners LLC<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> acquired <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bridgegrowthpartners.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/BGP_PressRelease_4_6_16.pdf\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">a majority interest in Solace<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in April 2016.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">350+ customers<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Global sales distribution:<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">North America: 40%\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Europe: 30%\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Asia-Pacific: 30%<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Products<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><strong>PubSub+ Event Broker<\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">comes in 3 deployment models:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>PubSub+ Event Broker: Software<\/b>&#8212;<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">can be deployed on a variety of virtual or containerized infrastructure, PaaS layers (Red Hat OpenShift, VMware Tanzu, etc.), or in any of the three major public cloud providers; a free standard edition is available (with max message rate limits) as well as an enterprise edition (priced per core).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>PubSub+ Event Broker: Appliance<\/b>&#8211;a<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0hardware appliance with two configurations available.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>PubSub+ Event Broker: Cloud<\/b>&#8212;<b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">SaaS offering available on all three major cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP) and Huawei; 3 paid plans are available, as well as a free plan in some regions.<\/span><\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Each event broker works to translate messages published by the entities (a service, application, etc.) producing the event so that the corresponding subscribing entities can consume them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Customers can link multiple instances of any combination of the hardware, software, and cloud forms of PubSub+Event Broker together to form what Solace calls an \u201cevent mesh.\u201d Think of an event mesh as a distributed layer that receives messages generated by a slew of different sources and source types across a customer\u2019s on-prem and\/or cloud infrastructure, and then dynamically routes them to where they need to go.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">PubSub+ Event Broker offerings support multiple messaging protocols including AMQP, MQTT, REST, and Websocket as well as Solace\u2019s own SMF protocol. Multiple APIs and programming languages are also supported.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>PubSub+ Event Portal<\/b>&#8212;<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With general availability <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/solace.com\/blog\/event-management-toolset-available\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">announced this past April<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, PubSub+ Event Portal is a new type of offering in event tooling. Billed as \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/solace.com\/blog\/api-portal-for-events\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">an API portal for events<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,\u201d it offers users event design, lifecycle management, cataloging, discovery and governance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">PubSub+ Event Portal can be used with Solace\u2019s own PubSub+ Event Brokers, but can also be used with third-party brokers such as Apache Kafka.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>PubSub+ Platform<\/b>&#8212;<span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Solace also advertises a PubSub+ Platform that assembles the Event Broker and Event Portal offerings outlined above with additional pieces such as a cloud-based management console.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-186\" src=\"http:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/files\/2020\/06\/PubSubPlatform.png\" alt=\"Diagram of PubSub+ Platform\" width=\"800\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/files\/2020\/06\/PubSubPlatform.png 800w, https:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/files\/2020\/06\/PubSubPlatform-300x270.png 300w, https:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/files\/2020\/06\/PubSubPlatform-768x691.png 768w, https:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/files\/2020\/06\/PubSubPlatform-480x432.png 480w, https:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/files\/2020\/06\/PubSubPlatform-697x627.png 697w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\" \/><\/p>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Go to Market<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Solace\u2019s existing client base stretches across various industries including financial services, gaming, retail, and telecom. Typical buyers are application architects and middleware teams.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Solace has partnerships with the likes of Dell Boomi, SAP, ASAPIO and F5.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over the last year, Solace has overhauled their <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.solace.dev\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">developer resources<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and created a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/solace.community\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">community site<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, indicating an increased bid for developer mindshare. This also comes across in the developer-friendly design and messaging around its PubSub+ Event Portal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The free Standard Edition of the software version of PubSub+ Event Broker as well as the availability of a free plan on all three major public clouds makes Solace\u2019s core offerings more accessible to developers.<\/span><\/p>\n<h1><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Competitive Landscape<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As both event-driven architectures and the need to handle high-volume event streams become increasingly more common, demand is increasing for improved tools and management, and competition is fierce.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">All three major public cloud providers have offerings that compete with Solace\u2019s PubSub+ Event Broker: Azure Event Grid, Google Cloud Pub\/Sub, AWS Simple Notification Service (SNS) and Simple Queue Service (SQS). Other competitors include IBM MQ and open source option RabbitMQ. And then there is Apache Kafka on the streaming side.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kafka is an open source distributed log platform for streaming, with high throughput and low latency, which has become an industry standard (to learn more, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/jgovernor\/2017\/11\/10\/what-even-is-streaming-data-and-kafka-what-is-a-message-bus-everything-you-ever-wanted-to-know-about-modern-event-driven-architectures-but-were-afraid-to-ask\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">check out this post<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">). With companies like Confluent and TIBCO offering various managed and supported options for Kafka, as well as cloud providers like AWS throwing the likes of its Amazon Managed Kafka Service (MKS) in the mix, there is a lot of Kafka to go around. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/solace.com\/kafka\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Solace argues<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that it is complementary to Kafka, seeing its strengths more in transactions. Indeed, Solace appears to be embracing Kafka as indicated by its early-on support for Kafka in its PubSub+ Event Portal.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Disclosure<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: Solace is a RedMonk client, but this is an independent piece of research (not commissioned by Solace) and all opinions are our own. AWS, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Red Hat, and VMware are also RedMonk clients.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>About Solace was founded in 2001 (as Solace Systems) by Craig Betts as a specialized provider of low-latency messaging hardware for capital markets, competing with software only solutions from the likes of IBM. Solace has since expanded its client base across multiple industries providing event streaming and management in its PubSub+ product line. The name<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-client-profile"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redmonk.com\/kfitzpatrick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}