If you have 5 to 10 minutes, I generally recommend people to read this Integration with Apache Camel by Jonathan Anstey. It’s a well written piece which gives a brief introduction to and overview of some of Camel’s concepts, and it implements a use case with code samples. In it, Jonathan writes:
Apache Camel is an open source Java framework that focuses on making integration easier and more accessible to developers. It does this by providing:
- concrete implementations of all the widely used Enterprise Integration Patterns (EIPs)
- connectivity to a great variety of transports and APIs
- easy to use Domain Specific Languages (DSLs) to wire EIPs and transports together
There is also a free chapter of Camel in Action (Camel in Action, 2nd ed. is here) which introduces Camel in the first chapter. Jonathan is a co-author on that book with me.