Application Integration
A Case study in Application Integration
Stijn Van den Enden
Business Integration Company
PB 494
2000 Antwerpen 1, Belgium stijn@bico.be Erik Van Hoeymissen
Gregory Neven*
Pierre Verbaeten
DistriNet Research Group
Dept. Computer Science, KU Leuven
Celestijnenlaan 200A
3001 Leuven, Belgium
{erikv, gregory, pv}@cs.kuleuven.ac.be
Abstract
In this position paper, we present an architecture that we used in a case study on Enterprise
Application Integration (EAI). The architecture encapsulates all business logic in a workflow, and uses intelligent adapters to provide for the “glue” that links the external applications to the workflow. These adapters are able to transform XML message formats into other data formats or into objects. They are intelligent by which we mean that the y are able to take different actions based on the content of the message. To communicate with the applications, the adapters can make use of the services offered by a message broker.
1 Introduction
The case study elaborated in this paper is situated in the context of an enterprise integration project after the merger of two large companies. The overall goal of the project is to enable the sharing of data and business processes among any connected app lications and data sources in the
“new” enterprise, without having to make sweeping changes to the existing applications or data structures. Moreover, the integration allows the development of new services that are supported by the existing portfolio of backoffice applications with a minimal effort.
2 Problem Statement
The overall problem is presented in figure 1, where we consider the development of a new application that makes use of existing legacy applications of both organizations. We want to provide a n architecture that makes it possible to implement the business logic of such an application as a workflow that delegates specific subtasks to the backoffice applications and allows interaction with the users
Stijn Van den Enden
Business Integration Company
PB 494
2000 Antwerpen 1, Belgium stijn@bico.be Erik Van Hoeymissen
Gregory Neven*
Pierre Verbaeten
DistriNet Research Group
Dept. Computer Science, KU Leuven
Celestijnenlaan 200A
3001 Leuven, Belgium
{erikv, gregory, pv}@cs.kuleuven.ac.be
Abstract
In this position paper, we present an architecture that we used in a case study on Enterprise
Application Integration (EAI). The architecture encapsulates all business logic in a workflow, and uses intelligent adapters to provide for the “glue” that links the external applications to the workflow. These adapters are able to transform XML message formats into other data formats or into objects. They are intelligent by which we mean that the y are able to take different actions based on the content of the message. To communicate with the applications, the adapters can make use of the services offered by a message broker.
1 Introduction
The case study elaborated in this paper is situated in the context of an enterprise integration project after the merger of two large companies. The overall goal of the project is to enable the sharing of data and business processes among any connected app lications and data sources in the
“new” enterprise, without having to make sweeping changes to the existing applications or data structures. Moreover, the integration allows the development of new services that are supported by the existing portfolio of backoffice applications with a minimal effort.
2 Problem Statement
The overall problem is presented in figure 1, where we consider the development of a new application that makes use of existing legacy applications of both organizations. We want to provide a n architecture that makes it possible to implement the business logic of such an application as a workflow that delegates specific subtasks to the backoffice applications and allows interaction with the users
References: [1] [2] [3] [4] http://www.sun.com/forte/4gl/ http://www.unisys.com/marketplace/linc/ http://www.sun.com/forte/fusion/ http://www.ibm.com/software/ts/mqseries/