Enterprise Integration Patterns: Designing, Building, and Deploying Messaging Solutions

Chapter 8. Message Transformation

Introduction

As described in the Message Translator (85), applications that need to be integrated by a messaging system rarely agree on a common data format. For example, an accounting system will have a different notion of a Customer object than will a customer relationship management system. On top of that, one system may persist data in a relational model, while another application uses flat files or XML documents. Integrating existing applications often means that we do not have the liberty of modifying the applications to work more easily with other systems. Rather, the integration solution has to accommodate and resolve the differences between the varying systems. The Message Translator (85) pattern offers ...