Patterns: Extended Enterprise SOA and Web Services

14 Patterns: Extended Enterprise SOA and Web Services

2.2 How to use the Patterns for e-business

As described in the previous section, the Patterns for e-business have a layered

structure where each layer builds detail on the last. At the highest layer are

Business patterns. These describe the entities involved in the e-business

solution.

Composite patterns appear in the hierarchy shown in Figure 2-1 on page 13

above the Business patterns. However, Composite patterns are made up of a

number of individual Business patterns and at least one Integration pattern. This

section discusses how to use the layered structure of Patterns for e-business

assets.

2.2.1 Selecting a Business, Integration, Composite pattern,

or a Custom design

When faced with the challenge of designing a solution for a business problem,

the first step is to get a high-level view of the goals that you are trying to achieve.

You need to describe a proposed business scenario and match each element to

an appropriate IBM Pattern for e-business. You might find, for example, that the

total solution requires multiple Business and Integration patterns or that it fits into

a Composite pattern or Custom design.

For example, suppose an insurance company wants to reduce the amount of

time and money spent on call centers that handle customer inquiries. By allowing

customers to view their policy information and request changes online, the

company can cut back significantly on the resources that are spent handling this

type of request by phone. The objective allows policy holders to view policy

information that is stored in existing databases.

The Self-Service business pattern fits this scenario perfectly. You can use it in

situations where users need direct access to business applications and data. The

following sections discuss the available Business patterns.

Chapter 2. Introduction to the Patterns for e-business 15

Business patterns

A Business pattern describes the relationship between the users, the business

organizations or applications, and the data to be accessed.

There are four primary Business patterns, that are explained in Table 2-1.

Table 2-1 The four primary Business patterns

It would be very convenient if all problems fit nicely into these four slots, but

reality says that things can often be more complicated. The patterns assume that

most problems, when broken down into their basic components, will fit more than

one of these patterns. When a problem requires multiple Business patterns, you

can use Integration patterns.

Business Patterns Description Examples

Self-Service

(user-to-business)

Applications where users

interact with a business via

the Internet or intranet.

Simple Web applications

Information Aggregation

(user-to-data)

Applications where users

can extract useful

information from large

volumes of data, text,

images, and so forth.

Business intelligence,

knowledge management,

and Web crawlers

Collaboration

(user-to-user)

Applications where the

Internet or intranet

supports collaborative

work between users.

Community, chat,

videoconferencing, e-mail,

and so forth

Extended Enterprise

(business-to-business)

Applications that link two or

more business processes

across separate

enterprises.

EDI, supply chain

management, and so forth

16 Patterns: Extended Enterprise SOA and Web Services

Integration patterns

Integration patterns allow you to tie together multiple Business patterns to solve

a business problem. Table 2-2 describes the Integration patterns.

Table 2-2 Integration patterns

The Access Integration pattern maps to User Integration. The Application

Integration pattern is divided into two essentially different approaches:

򐂰 Process Integration, which is the integration of the functional flow of

processing between the applications.

򐂰 Data Integration, which is the integration of the information that is used by

applications.

You can combine the Business and Integration patterns to implement

installation-specific business solutions called a Custom design.

Custom design

Figure 2-2 illustrates the use of a Custom design to address a business problem.

Figure 2-2 Patterns representing a Custom design

Integration Patterns Description Examples

Access Integration Integration of a number of

services through a

common entry point

Portals

Application Integration Integration of multiple

applications and data

sources without the user

directly invoking them

Message brokers,

workflow managers,

data propagators, and data

federation engines

Access Integration

Self-Service

Collaboration

Information Aggregation

Extended Enterprise

Application Integration