FuseSource Open Source Messaging Powers Roadside Assistance for Millions of UK Drivers 
Open source middleware is delivering reliable messaging and routing for the UK’s largest and newest network for roadside assistance. The Automotive Network Services, developed and managed by Apex Networks, is using FuseSource distributions of Apache projects to link 90% of the UK’s 32 million drivers with tow trucks, garages and emergency first responders.
Open source middleware is delivering reliable messaging and routing for the UK’s largest and newest network for roadside assistance. The Automotive Network Services, developed and managed by Apex Networks, is using FuseSource distributions of Apache projects to link 90% of the UK’s 32 million drivers with tow trucks, garages and emergency first responders.
IDN explores Apex Network’s ANS architecture and speaks with FuseSource CTO Rob Davies about the ANS rollout. Davies describes how open source messaging and routing is powering a middleware infrastructure that is both low-cost and mission-critical to support ANS’ mission to tie together remote, mobile and intermittently-connected users.
How Middleware Helped Modernize
the U.K. Roadside Assistance Network
In 2010, Apex Networks created the ANS network to replace the aging radio network and Mobitex platform decommissioned by BT Transcomm. The new ANS network was to provide an easy, reliable and fast way for motorists who were in trouble to connect with help, wherever and whenever they needed it.
Under the new system, a motorist simply calls his automotive club’s call center, which uses the ANS network to send a text-based message about the motorist’s trouble. That message is automatically routed to the nearest remote recovery vehicle. Responders in those vehicles (tow truck, emergency vehicle, police, etc.) access the message using a connected smart terminal, like an iPad or an Andoid device.
If there’s no response within two minutes, the request is then automatically sent to another recovery vehicle.
Rob Davies
CTO, FuseSource
Co-Founder Apache ActiveMQ, Camel and ServiceMix
FuseSource’s Davies said the Apex Networks project is a “perfect example” of what led to the creation of Apache’s open source middleware. “We wanted to create a fast message broker that always works and help developers work quickly,” he said. “At Apex Networks, their two driving needs were for low cost and reliability, just the kinds of problems we’re looking to address.”
To illustrate the point, Davies told IDN that to execute on its vision for an up-to-date roadside asstance network, Apex Networks needed many key features, among them:
Messaging/Routing Functionality. ANS needed to be able to receive, route and track messages about all affected vehicles and keep all parties (auto club, responders, etc.) informed of one another’s status.
Traffic Load, Scalability. Based on projections, ANS’s design needed to handle 100 million messages and respond to some five million to eight million breakdowns, annually.
Strong Roadside Assistance Participation. Apex Networks wanted ANS to provide easy on-ramping to the system to encourage participation among all roadside assistance providers, even down to the size of a family-owned business.
After a review of middleware options, Apex Networks chose to build ANS using Fuse Message Broker, a FuseSource distribution of Apache ActiveMQ open source, SOA-friendly messaging project. It is also using Fuse Mediation Router, the FuseSource distribution of Apache Camel, to provide end-to-end seamless and reliable integration – even across “unreliable” or “intermittent” network connections, according to Apex Networks director Steve Williams.
Williams said FuseSource provided a valuable balance of strong technology, low license fees and on-staff expertise. As an example, aside from Davies duties as FuseSource CTO, he is also a co-founder of Apache’s open source ActiveMQ, Camel and ServiceMix middleware projects.
“If you have been stranded by a breakdown, you know why it’s so important that the ANS network functions flawlessly,” Williams said in a statement. “FuseSource confirmed our belief in using battle-hardened technology proven at stress levels that far exceed our requirements.”
FuseSource Open Source Messaging, Router
Deliver Low-Cost, Highly-Reliable Infrastructure
FuseSource’s Davies provided details about how open source middleware can meet important business and technical pressures.
“It can be prohibitively expensive to have traditional integration solutions from a commercial vendor, especially when you need to support hundreds or thousands of mobile workers or remote locations,” he said. In fact, site licensing costs for using “closed source” commercial ESB and messaging products can run so high that IT architects need to adjust their middleware project designs, Davies added.
Further, FuseSource can keep the complexity of the solutions to a minimum (in design and runtime) by using the open source libraries of enterprise integration patterns (EIP), he added. In Apex Network’s case, EIPs were particularly useful in delivering a speedy and low-cost solution.
“When a user is in a remote or ‘disconnected’ location, the Fuse Message Broker can store the message until communication is re-established. Many of our patterns for reliable delivery are used right out of the [EIP] book,” Davies said.
Fuse Message Broker comes with these features embedded, which eliminate the need for an application programmer to know how to code in this support. “Under the covers, we try to hide as much of the programming as possible, so when you use the app if the network goes away, the app will still function,” he said.
Such simplicity does not compromise robust high-availability connections, Davies added. Using Fuse Mediation Broker ANS can reliably deliver messages and traffic, thanks to its store-and-forward functionality. This ensures and sustains integrations between geographically dispersed locations, Davies said, and even guarantees end-to-end deliver across networks or to users that suffer disruptions or disconnects.
“We’ve designed Fuse at the start to be very good at operating across networks that are inherently unstable, or networks where you might suffer network outrages and so on,” Davies told IDN. “With store-and-forward, we’re able to able to reliably send messages to remote trucks so they could be more efficient and dynamic when responding to conditions, and be able to have that ability even when they are disconnected,” he added.
Standards-based support for JMS, J2EE, JNDI, AJAX, REST, HTTP for seamless connectivity with new and existing assets
Pub-sub and P2P messaging to enable broadcasting and/or unique messaging and support for durable, fault tolerant connections
High performance features including SEDA, compression, prefetch, JMS streams, to support large deployments, large payloads and high throughput
High availability, clustering, failover and disaster recovery for mission-critical apps and to ensure delivery even with network failures or disruptions
Authentication and authorization for custom or third-party solutions, which easily integrates to leverage existing security investments
ANS is being rolled out to the UK’s automotive clubs and insurers.
Automotive clubs using the ANS network include The Automotive Association, AXA Assistance, Britannia Rescue, Call Assist, Equity Red Star, Europ Assistance, FMG Support, Green Flag, Mondial Assistance, RAC, The Rescue Service and more than 700 independent recovery and tow truck operators and subcontractors.
