IBM® App Connect Enterprise enables information packaged as messages to flow between different business applications, ranging from large traditional systems through to unmanned devices such as sensors on pipelines.
IBM App Connect Enterprise processes messages in two ways: message routing and message transformation.
Messages can be routed from sender to recipient based on the content of the message.
The message flows that you design control message routing. A message flow describes the operations to be performed on the incoming message, and the sequence in which they are carried out.
You create message flows in the IBM App Connect Enterprise Toolkit.
The work of routing and transforming messages takes place in one or more integration servers.
You can configure multiple integration servers, each with their own identity, and deploy them either to containers in the cloud or in an on-premises environment. By setting up multiple integration servers, you can isolate message flows that handle sensitive data such as payroll records, security information, or unannounced product information, from other non-sensitive message flows.
The mode in which IBM App Connect Enterprise is running can affect the number of integration servers and message flows that you can deploy. For more information, see Restrictions that apply in each operation mode.
For a technical overview of integration servers, see Integration servers and integration nodes.
Your application developers can create and modify integration solutions, as message flows and resources, by using the IBM App Connect Enterprise Toolkit.
Different perspectives in the IBM App Connect Enterprise Toolkit are used to develop message flows, message model schema files, and other related resources; see IBM App Connect Enterprise Toolkit.
You can connect IBM App Connect Enterprise to your applications by adding the appropriate nodes to your message flow. The nodes you use can be tailored to support the protocols and subsystems that your applications already use. IBM App Connect Enterprise supplies nodes to support different protocols and subsystems, including WebSphere MQ, JMS 1.1 or 2.0, HTTP and HTTPS, web services (SOAP and REST), File, Enterprise Information Systems (including SAP and Siebel), and TCP/IP. You can also create your own nodes to support additional protocols and subsystems if required. For more information about connecting applications, see Nodes for connectivity.
During the development of an integration solution, you can deploy the development resources directly to an integration server by using options in the IBM App Connect Enterprise Toolkit. By using this approach, you can quickly verify changes as you develop your solution.
When you are ready to deploy your solution to a production environment, you can package the resources into a BAR file. Before you deploy your solution to a production environment, you can customize the BAR file to configure the solution for any differences between the development environment and the production environment. Your production environment could be IBM App Connect Enterprise or IBM App Connect on IBM Cloud.
You can deploy your integration solutions in a variety of ways, such as by using the IBM App Connect Enterprise Toolkit, the web user interface, or by using a command. For an introduction to the web user interface, see IBM App Connect Enterprise web user interface.
For more information about deploying applications to your integration servers; see Deploying integration solutions.