- A
- adapter
- A set of software modules that communicate with an integration
broker and with applications or technologies to perform tasks such
as executing application logic and exchanging data. An IBM
WebSphere Business Integration Adapter always consists of the
adapter framework and a connector specific to an application or
technology. An adapter might also contain a sample business object
specific to the application or technology, an Object Discovery
Agent (ODA) designed to generate business object definitions
specific to the application or technology, or both.
- adapter development kit (ADK)
- A development environment for creating custom adapters.
- adapter framework
- The software that IBM provides to install, configure, and run
an adapter.
- application connector
- A connector that is designed to interact with a specific
application. Application-specific connectors are intermediaries
between an integration broker and applications. These connectors
convert application-specific data into business objects that can be
manipulated by components of the integration broker, and convert
business objects from the components into data that can be received
by the specific application.
- application-specific component
- The component of a
connector that contains code tailored to a particular application
or technology. This component initializes a business object handler
to respond to requests, and, if needed, implements an
event-notification mechanism to detect and respond to events that
an application or external programmatic entity initiates. The code
for this component is written in C++ or Java, depending on the
language of the API provided by the application or technology.
- B
- business integration system
- A system, consisting of an integration broker and a set of
integration adapters, which allows heterogeneous business
applications to exchange data through the coordinated transfer of
information in the form of business objects.
- business object
- A set of attributes that represent a business entity (such as
an Employee), an action on the data (such as a create or update
operation), and instructions for processing the data. Components of
the business integration system use business objects to exchange
information and trigger actions.
- C
- character conversion
- Encoding applied to a character so that it retains its meaning
when it is transferred from a location that uses one character code
set to a location that uses a different code set. See also
character encoding.
- character encoding
- The mapping from a character (a letter of the alphabet) to a
numeric value in a character code set. For example, the ASCII
character code set encodes the letter "A" as 65, while the EBCIDIC
character set encodes this letter as 43. The character code set
contains encodings for all characters in one or more language
alphabets.
- connector
- A set of software
modules (the connector framework and a connector's
application-specific component) that uses business objects to send
information about an event to an integration broker or to receive
information about a request from the integration broker. See also
application connector and technology connector.
- connector framework
- The component of a connector that manages interactions between
a connector's application-specific component and the integration
broker. This component provides all required management services,
and retrieves the metadata that the connector requires from the
repository. The connector framework, whose code is common to all
connectors, is written in Java and includes a C++ extension to
allow the development of application-specific components written in
C++.
- I
- integration broker
- A program that integrates data among heterogeneous
applications. An integration broker typically provides a variety of
services that include: the ability to route data, a repository of
rules that govern the integration process, connectivity to a
variety of applications, and administrative capabilities that
facilitate integration.
- L
- local repository
- A collection of metadata that describes components of the
business integration system such as business objects whose data is
transferred across applications. It also contains the configuration
information associated with the connector framework and a
connector's application-specific component. It is also referred to
as the connector's local repository.
- locale
- The part of a user's environment that brings together
information about how to handle data that is specific to the end
user's particular country, language, or territory. The locale is
typically specified when configuring the operating system or
internationalized software products.
- O
- Object Discovery Agent (ODA)
- A tool designed to "discover" business object requirements
specific to a data source and to generate business object
definitions from those requirements. Business Object Designer
presents a forms-based interface to available ODAs, and helps
manage the discovery and definition generation processes.
- Object Discovery Agent development kit (ODK)
- An API for creating Object Discovery Agents (ODAs).
- T
- technology connector
- A connector that is designed for interactions that conform to a
specific technology. The WebSphere Business Integration Adapter for
XML, for example, can be an intermediary through which an
integration broker sends data to a web server (or other
programmatic entity) using the XML format, even if that web server
resides on a network that is not running a WebSphere business
integration system.
