The ESB provides for multiple connection technology alternatives to support multiple messaging topologies and patterns, along with implementations such as SOAP/HTTP, RMI/IIOP, and others. In most cases, loosely coupled connections are required to facilitate managing the interactions between services. However, some transactions, by their nature and critical business functionality, can require tightly coupled connections. Both patterns are supported in the WebSphere ESB architecture. The need to support heterogeneous technologies is reflected in support for multiple protocols in a message flow instance, middleware interoperability, specification of different qualities of service (such as persistence, reliability, transactional management, availability), support for various message distribution, and routing (to include publish-subscribe, queue-based, and broadcast-based). Additionally, the connectivity services and ESB architecture provide support for specialized message/information delivery, such as points-of-sale, SCADA, and other pervasive device solutions. Customers using current solutions with WebSphere MQ can implement the ESB pattern today and be able to support new protocols as they emerge.
Within the ESB, there are three major service dimensions that are provided as part of the connectivity framework:
Event services provide event-driven services to enable the components (as well as the organizational resources) to respond to stimuli; business events, for example.
Transport services provide communication services across wired and wireless networks for synchronous and asynchronous message delivery with varying levels of delivery assurance to provide for both location and protocol-independence.
An SOA approach to integration isn't possible without the fundamental capabilities of connectivity, routing, and transformation. These functions are enabled via the ESB in the WebSphere Integration Reference Architecture and form the base of the solution architecture. The ESB, in many cases, is implemented using traditional and new emerging middleware solutions to provide access to integration components.
Business Logic Services
Business logic services provide the capabilities required for executing the business logic in the form of service endpoints. The implementation of service endpoints is a critical part of comprehensive integration architecture. Services may be provided through any combination of existing applications; through newly implemented components and through external connections to third-party systems:
Partner services enable the integration of service endpoints provided by trading partners over different transports and using document formats. This layer of services provides support for traditional B2B partner integration solutions with outside partners and suppliers. It's the component of the architecture in which the concerns of cross-enterprise interactions are isolated. These services provide the document, protocol, and partner management services required for efficient implementation of business-to-business processes and interactions:
Community services enable the management of the trading community for the trading hub, as well as enabling partner self-management.
Document services enable support for business protocols such as RosettaNet, EDI, and AS1/AS2, as well as associated state management to support conversational processes.
Protocol services provide transport-level services, including authentication, document routing, and edge service functions for automated document interchange.
Business application services provide the J2EE runtime environment for integration components developed as custom application components coded in Java and running in the application server environment. This layer of services provides the framework and runtime operating environment for managing custom application components developed with J2EE, XML, and Web Services programming models. These components provide the new functions required to implement fully modern business processes that meet the requirements of today's business environment. The implementation of these components as services within the WebSphere Integration Reference Architecture enables reuse directly across new solutions. Business application services include functions important to the traditional programmer for building maintainable, flexible, and reuseable business logic components, as well as the runtime integration for higher-levels of autonomic administration and management. The service functions reflected in this layer include:
- Component services, which provide the runtime container management services that automatically handles issues such as object persistence, relationship navigation, and object query and transaction management in a J2EE framework.
- Core services, which provide the runtime services, such as memory management, object instantiation and pooling, performance management and load balancing, event notification, availability, directory, and security as part of the J2EE, XML, messaging, and the Web Services programming model.
- Interface services, which provide the services for bi-directional integration with databases, messaging systems, management frameworks, and enterprise applications.
Application and information access provides the capabilities for interacting with third-party applications (for example, ERP, CRM), mainframe interfaces (for example, CICS, iSeries), custom applications (via technology bridges such as messaging, application programming interfaces, data handlers), as well as heterogeneous data sources (like RDBMS, XML, non-RDBMS data sources; for example, IMS, text files, and content management systems). This functional layer provides for the access interface to existing applications and data with support for transactional services and connection services for databases, messaging systems, and other data sources. Existing host-based applications and enterprise data are accessible from the ESB through a set of access services. These access services provide the bridging capabilities between legacy applications, pre-packaged applications, enterprise data stores (including relational, hierarchical, and non-traditional, unstructured sources, such as XML, text, and content management systems), and the ESB. This layer can integrate mainframe systems through multiple runtime solution patterns such as Web facing, communication-level integration, messaging, and Web Service-enabling. As applications and data implementations evolve to become more flexible participants in business processes enhanced capabilities of their underlying operating environments will continue to increase in utilization. The following services are isolated and enabled in this layer:
- Event detect services provide event notification services based on the event framework that is enabled through the specific application/data source interface. For example, the creation of a new customer in a CRM system would generate an event that the ESB would distribute to the subscriber to this event type.
- On-ramp services enable application integration patterns, including one-way inbound, request-reply, and solicit-reply message patterns to support application and data wrapper functions, including query execution planning and data retrieval to support data integration. For example, if one step in a business process needs to update the order, a message with the order data would be sent through the ESB to the mainframe CICS application, which would then return an acknowledgement.
About Scott Simmons Scott Simmons is the worldwide technical lead architect for B2B integration for Worldwide WebSphere Business Integration and is an IBM Certified Senior IT Architect. Scott joined IBM in March 2002 from Peregrine/Extricity, where he was the director of Solution Technologies for Peregrine's Office of the CTO. In this role, Scott specialized in B2B solutions for the high technical manufacturing sector. Scott has over 20 years of experience in the IT industry.
SOA Web Services Journal News Desk wrote: SOA Web Services - WebSphere Integration Reference Architecture. The emergence of service-oriented frameworks results from the evolution of software development and implementation over the last 20 years. Our industry has evolved from monolithic applications and hard-to-manage client/server solutions and has now discovered that the incremental development of components, enabled via a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), increases the quality of applications, speeds development of new solutions, and addresses the requirements of business stakeholders better.
SOA Web Services Journal News Desk wrote: SOA Web Services - WebSphere Integration Reference Architecture. The emergence of service-oriented frameworks results from the evolution of software development and implementation over the last 20 years. Our industry has evolved from monolithic applications and hard-to-manage client/server solutions and has now discovered that the incremental development of components, enabled via a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), increases the quality of applications, speeds development of new solutions, and addresses the requirements of business stakeholders better.
The reason why ex-IBM executive Mark Papermaster can’t work for Apple is because Apple and IBM compete in microprocessors for iPod and iPhones. That’s what the judge deciding where Papermaster can work – in view of his non-compete – said in his 28-page opinion explaining why IB...
IBM is going to buy Transitive, the British cross-platform virtualization firm that salvaged legacy Macintosh programs and made Apple's move from IBM to Intel chips as graceful as a prima ballerina’s pirouette. Transitive is clever at running applications written for one kind of micr...
Emulex has announced that its LightPulse LP21000 family of Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) Converged Network Adapters (CNAs) have been tested and found to be compatible for use with IBM Systems x3650(7979), x3655(7943) and x3755(7163) series servers. Emulex CNAs enable the consolida...
Mark Papermaster, the ex-VP of blade development at IBM and the guy that IBM stopped from going to Apple to run its iPod and IPhone development on the strength of the non-compete he signed, has sued his former master looking for a declaratory judgment in his favor.
A round-up of the many themes and topics of interest to infrastructure architects, developers and IT managers featuring at SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Expo being held November 19-21, 2008 at The Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California. The conference is expecting a record turnout of senio...
Okay, here's the deal. When you observe the big software guys and see how quickly they adopt emerging technologies, which will change IT the way we know it today, here is what we see. Larry Ellison invested millions in old SaaS / cloud companies, which gave him zippo in return, and he ...
SUBSCRIBE TO THE WORLD'S MOST POWERFUL NEWSLETTERS
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR RSS FEEDS & GET YOUR SYS-CON NEWS LIVE!
Click to Add our RSS Feeds to the Service of Your Choice:
About Newsfeeds / Video Feeds
.gif)
The reason why ex-IBM executive Mark Papermaster can’t work for Apple is because Apple and IBM compete in microprocessors for iPod and iPhones. That’s what the judge deciding where Papermaster can work – in view of his non-compete – said in his 28-page opinion explaining why IB...
IBM is going to buy Transitive, the British cross-platform virtualization firm that salvaged legacy Macintosh programs and made Apple's move from IBM to Intel chips as graceful as a prima ballerina’s pirouette. Transitive is clever at running applications written for one kind of micr...
Mark Papermaster, the ex-VP of blade development at IBM and the guy that IBM stopped from going to Apple to run its iPod and IPhone development on the strength of the non-compete he signed, has sued his former master looking for a declaratory judgment in his favor.
A round-up of the many themes and topics of interest to infrastructure architects, developers and IT managers featuring at SYS-CON's Cloud Computing Expo being held November 19-21, 2008 at The Fairmont Hotel in San Jose, California. The conference is expecting a record turnout of senio...
