Representing one entity

The simplest business object design is a flat business object that represents one entity. All the attributes of a flat business object are simple (that is, each attribute represents one value, such as a String or Integer or Date). For more information, see "Flat business objects".

In the case of an application-specific business object, a flat business object can represent one entity in an application or in a technology standard. For example, assume an application has a database table that describes a record. Assume further that this table has five columns named ObjectID, UserName, TimeStamp, Detail, and Status (see Figure 8). The ObjectID is the primary key for each row, and its value is generated by the application. This table has no relationships to other tables.

Figure 8. Flat business object representing one entity


As Figure 8 shows, the Record business object you design to represent the table might have five attributes, one for each column, with the key attribute corresponding to the ObjectID column.

Use of flat business objects can simplify corresponding connector design in the following ways:

This type of business object is straightforward in its design and in the connector logic required to process it. Typically, however, application entities are more complex and include information that is stored in other objects.

Copyright IBM Corp. 2003, 2004