Adapters in the WebSphere business integration system

The IBM WebSphere business integration system consists of the following components, which allow heterogeneous business applications to exchange data:

In the IBM WebSphere business integration system, the integration broker communicates to these applications through adapters. The following adapter components actually provide this communication:

Figure 1 shows how these components transfer information from an application to an integration broker.

Figure 1. Adapter components that provide information transfer

Note:
An adapter also includes configuration and development components. For more information, see Tools for adapter development.

Figure 2 shows the WebSphere business integration system and the role that connectors play within this system.

Figure 2. WebSphere business integration system

Business objects

As Table 2 shows, a business object is a two-part entity, consisting of a repository definition and a runtime object.

Table 2. Parts of a Business Object
Repository entity Runtime object
Business object definition Business object instance (often called a "business object")

Business object definition

A business object definition represents a group of attributes that can be treated as a collective unit. For example, a business object definition can represent an application entity and the operations that can be performed on the entity, such as create, retrieve, update, or delete. A business object definition can also represent other programmatic entities, such as the data contents of a business transaction form submitted from a Web browser. A business object definition contains attributes for each piece of data in the collective unit.

Note:
For more information on the structure of a business object definition, see Processing business objects..

When you "develop a business object," you create a business object definition. You can create business objects definitions with the Business Object Designer tool, which provides an easy-to-use, graphical user interface (GUI) that allows you to define attributes of the business object. It supports saving the business object definition in the repository or in an external XML file.

Within Business Object Designer, you can create the business object definition in either of two ways:

Note:
For information on how to use Business Object Designer to create business object definitions in either of these ways, see the Business Object Development Guide.

Business object instance

While the business object definition represents the collection of data, a business object instance (often just called a "business object") is the runtime entity that contains the actual data. For example, to represent a customer entity in your application, you can create a Customer business object definition that defines the information in the customer entity that needs to be sent to other applications. At runtime, the Customer business object, which is an instance of this business object definition, contains the information for a particular customer.

Connectors

The role of a connector is to send information about an application event to an integration broker or to receive information about a request from the integration broker.

WebSphere InterChange Server

When InterChange Server is the integration broker, a connector is a set of software modules and data maps that connect WebSphere Business Integration collaborations to an enterprise application or an external application. A collaboration represents a business process that can involve several applications. The connector acts as an intermediary for one or more collaborations, using an enterprise application's API, or some other program logic, to support a business process.

The information that the connector sends or receives is in the form of a business object. Therefore, each connector supports one or more business object definitions. These business object definitions have been designed to correspond to application data models or to other types of external entities. The business object closely reflects the data entity that it represents. Its structure and content match that of the entity.

WebSphere InterChange Server

When InterChange Server is the integration broker, the business integration system uses two kinds of business objects. The business object that a connector processes is called an application-specific business object. The business object that a collaboration processes is called a generic business object. For more information, see Mapping services..

Other integrator brokers

When a WebSphere message broker (WebSphere MQ Integrator, WebSphere MQ Integrator Broker, or WebSphere Business Intregration Message Broker) or WebSphere Application Server is the integration broker, the business integration system uses a single kind of business object, the business object that a connector processes. Although this business object is an application-specific business object, the "application-specific" qualifier is often omitted because this is the only kind of business object used.

The connector uses information in its supported business object definitions to perform its major roles, as Table 3 shows.

Table 3. Operations on business objects for the different roles of a connector
Connector role Operation on business object
Event notification When an event that affects an application entity occurs (such as when a user of the application creates, updates, or deletes application data), a connector:
  • Creates a business object, based on the information in its business object definition
  • Fills this business object with data from an application entity
  • Sends this business object as an event to an integration broker
Request processing When the integration broker requests a change to the connector's application or when the broker needs information from the connector's application, the connector:
  • Receives a business object from an integration broker
  • Uses information in the business object and its business object definition to create the appropriate application command that performs an operation
  • Sends any appropriate response information back to the integration broker

Note:
Every connector must implement request processing. Implementation of event notification is optional (though does require some minor coding).

Copyright IBM Corp. 1997, 2004