WebSphere Adapters Glossary
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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.
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adapter development kit
- A development
environment for creating custom adapters.
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adapter framework
- The software that
IBM provides to install, configure, and run an adapter.
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after-image
- A business object that
contains all of an entity's data after changes have been made to it during
an update operation. An after-image contains the complete business object
rather than only the primary key and those elements that were changed. See
also delta business object.
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application
- A program or set of programs
that performs a task; some examples are payroll, inventory management, and
word processing applications.
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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.
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application-specific component
- The
component of a connector that contains code that is 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.
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BPEL
- See Business
Process Execution Language.
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business graph
- A wrapper that is
added around a simple business object or a hierarchy of business objects to
provide additional capabilities, such as carrying change summary and event
summary information related to the business objects in the business graph.
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business integration system
- An integration
broker and a set of integration adapters that allow heterogeneous business
applications to exchange data through the coordinated transfer of information
in the form of business objects.
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business object
- A set of attributes
that represent a business entity (such as 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.
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Business Process Execution Language (BPEL)
- An XML-based language for the formal specification of business processes
and business interaction protocols. BPEL extends the Web Services interaction
model and enables it to support business transactions.
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character conversion
- The process
of changing data from one character coding representation to another.
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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.
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connection pooling
- A technique used
for establishing a pool of resource connections that applications can share
on an application server.
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connector
- The component of an adapter
that uses business objects to send information about an event to an integration
broker (event notification) or receive information about a request from the
integration broker (request processing). A connector consists of the connector
framework and the connector's application-specific component.
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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 support application-specific
components written in C++.
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delta business object
- A business
object used in an update operation. Such a business object contains only key
values and the values to be changed. See also after-image.
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deployment descriptor
- An XML file
that describes how to deploy a module or application by specifying configuration
and container options. For example, an EJB deployment descriptor passes information
to an EJB container about how to manage and control an enterprise bean.
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Document Object Model (DOM)
- A system
in which a structured document, for example an XML file, is viewed as a tree
of objects that can be programmatically accessed and updated.
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DOM
- See Document
Object Model.
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EAR
- See enterprise
archive.
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EIS
- See enterprise
information system.
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enterprise archive (EAR)
- A specialized
type of JAR file, defined by the J2EE standard, used to deploy J2EE applications
to J2EE application servers. An EAR file contains EJB components, a deployment
descriptor, and Web archive (WAR) files for individual Web applications.
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enterprise information system (EIS)
- The applications that comprise an enterprise's existing system for handling
companywide information. An enterprise information system offers a well-defined
set of services that are exposed as local or remote interfaces or both. (Sun)
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integration broker
- The component
in the WebSphere business integration system 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.
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J2EE
- See Java
2 Platform, Enterprise Edition.
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J2EE Connector architecture (JCA)
- A standard architecture for connecting the J2EE platform to heterogeneous
enterprise information systems (EIS).
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Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE)
- An environment for developing and deploying enterprise applications,
defined by Sun Microsystems Inc. The J2EE platform consists of a set of services,
application programming interfaces (APIs), and protocols that provide the
functionality for developing multitiered, Web-based applications. (Sun)
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Java Message Service (JMS)
- An application
programming interface that provides Java language functions for handling messages.
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JavaServer Pages (JSP)
- A server-side
scripting technology that enables Java code to be dynamically embedded within
Web pages (HTML files) and executed when the page is served, in order to return
dynamic content to a client.
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Java virtual machine (JVM)
- A software
implementation of a central processing unit that runs compiled Java code (applets
and applications).
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JCA
- See J2EE
Connector architecture.
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JMS
- See Java
Message Service.
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JSP
- See JavaServer
Pages.
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JVM
- See Java
virtual machine.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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object discovery agent development kit (ODK)
- An application programming interface (API) for creating object
discovery agents (ODAs).
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ODA
- See object
discovery agent.
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ODK
- See object
discovery agent development kit.
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SDO
- See Service
Data Objects.
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Service Data Objects (SDO)
- An open
standard for enabling applications to handle data from heterogeneous data
sources in a uniform way. SDO incorporates J2EE patterns but simplifies the
J2EE data programming model.
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Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)
- A lightweight, XML-based protocol for exchanging information in a decentralized,
distributed environment. SOAP can be used to query and return information
and invoke services across the Internet.
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SOAP
- See Simple
Object Access Protocol.
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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.
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Web Services Description Language (WSDL)
- An XML-based specification for describing networked services as a set
of endpoints operating on messages containing either document-oriented or
procedure-oriented information.
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WSDL
- See Web
Services Description Language.