Flow Architectures

Preface

This is a book about the future of software integration and its effect on the evolution of economic processes. It is a book meant to bring technologists and decision makers on a journey to a future vision of fundamental change in the way we and our institutions work together. It is also, therefore, a book about opportunity.

On the surface, it may seem like this is a book about technology. I will certainly survey technologies available today or in the near future that contribute to the way activity is communicated between organizations. However, the most important concept you should take from reading this book is the effect of new technologies on the evolution of institutional cooperation and collaboration.

The fluid, real-time communication of system state is much like the flow of water in a river, or the flow of traffic in a highway system; it is a flow of activity. The path this flow follows is defined by the available activity types, and the needs and desires of the entities that wish to consume them. The easier it is for data to find the right path to the right entities, the easier it is for the system to adapt and discover desired behaviors.

Integration is key to the way our digital economy will evolve, as data is what drives economic activity. Today, integration across organizational boundaries is expensive and slow. We rely a lot on human action, bulk data processing, and historical data to make our markets run and our institutions operate. So, the question becomes, ...