Service Enablement

Service Enablement is one of the common categories of patterns for connectivity solutions.

The Service Enablement pattern encapsulates functionality that does not have a service interface, and presents this functionality through a service-oriented interface. This pattern represents the transition from traditional enterprise application integration into service-oriented architectures, allowing existing assets to be reused in the new style without requiring radical change. This pattern is used to implement an Enterprise Service Bus that delivers access to services that are derived from functionality that is implemented by using diverse technologies across the enterprise and to present a single, consistent view of these services to the service consumers.

This pattern also uses WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus to provide access to services that some applications cannot access directly.

The following diagram illustrates an example of a Service Enablement scenario:

The diagram shows an Enterprise Service Bus that is running four sets of Mediations. Two sets of Mediations are connected to a Service Consumer and an Application. Another set of Mediations, together with a set of Integration Logic, is connected to a Service Consumer, an Application, a Service, and IT Components. The final set of Mediations is connected to an Application and a Service Provider. The Enterprise Service Bus has access to Routing Data that is stored in a repository.