The connector component of an adapter mediates interactions between an EIS and the integration server over the network. It can be specific to an application, such as SAP R/3, version 4; or specific to a data format or protocol, such as XML over HTTP. All connectors share certain common behaviors, differing only in the manner in which they interact with applications and with business objects.
Each connector consists of two parts:
The subcomponents of a connector are shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Subcomponents of a connector
The WebSphere Business Integration adapters are built upon a common adapter framework, which provides many features that are consistent across the adapters. They include:
Each connector can be deployed in a distributed environment, separate from the integration server. The adapter framework communicates with the integration server over a messaging transport. The adapter can even be deployed remotely from the integration server across the Internet and through firewalls using WebSphere MQ over SSL or WebSphere MQ Internet Pass-Through.
The connector behaves as a client to the EIS to which it interfaces, and as such it can reside on any machine on the network from which it can connect to the EIS.
This distributed deployment capability provides maximum flexibility to the user. For example, you may deploy all the components of the integration infrastructure on one set of servers, or you may maximize performance by locating the adapter close to the target EIS server, and using WebSphere MQ across a wide area network (WAN) to communicate with the integration server.