Patterns: Serial and Parallel Processes for Process Choreography and Workflow

Chapter 3. Application Integration pattern 67

򐂰 Is the enterprise data topology centralized or decentralized?

– Centralized: This integration effort will bring about centralized access to

all or a subset of the enterprise data model.

– Decentralized: Applications will retain their isolated repositories, but now

will have cohesion based on data integration.

򐂰 What is the database affinity type?

– Homogeneous: All repositories are of the same type.

– Multi-vender Relational: All repositories are relational with ODBC/JDBC

support for interoperability but are from different vendors.

– Heterogeneous Structured: Repositories are not all relational, but all

have a structured layout.

– Structured/Non-Structured: This addresses the need to integrate

non-structured (for example, free-form text) with structured data sources.

Refer to the IBM Patterns for e-business Web site for further details:

http://www.ibm.com/developerWorks/patterns

3.6 Previous Application Integration patterns

Table 3-3 on page 68 provides an overview of the relationship between the

previous Process-focused Application Integration patterns and the revised

Process-focused Application Integration patterns presented in this chapter:

򐂰 Direct Connection is retained for application coordinated requests.

򐂰 Transactional is now a quality of service. Transactionality may apply to all of

these patterns, so it is applied as a quality of service rather than being a

separate pattern.

򐂰 Aggregator/Broker are combined into Broker for broker-coordinated requests.

򐂰 Managed Process is split into Serial Process and Parallel Process for

process-managed coordinated requests.

򐂰 The read-only versus read/write classification used with old patterns is not

used with the new patterns, since:

– For Transactional and Managed Process, read-only is not applicable.

– For Direct Connection, the same pattern applies in both cases.

– For Aggregator/Broker, the observed patterns are identical.

68 Patterns: Serial and Parallel Processes

Table 3-3 Relationship to old Process-focused Application Integration patterns

Old Pattern New Pattern

Information

Request (R/O)

Processing

Request (R/W)

Application

Coordinated

Direct Connection Direct Connection Same

Transactional

Coordinated

Not applicable Transactional Now a Quality of

Service

Broker

Coordinated

Aggregator Broker Broker

Process

Managed

Coordinated

Not applicable Managed Process Split into:

򐂰 Serial Process

򐂰 Parallel Process