Collaborations, business objects, and connectivity

Note:
In this document, "application" refers to an enterprise software product that is being integrated; it does not refer to a component of the IBM WebSphere InterChange Server product.

The IBM WebSphere InterChange Server system uses a central infrastructure (InterChange Server) and modular components in a hub-and-spoke design, as follows:

Sample implementation solutions

A typical InterChange Server solution includes one or more collaborations and a set of business objects that represent business information relevant to an enterprise. The collaborations and business objects are used with connectors, with the Server Access Interface, or with both.

A connector can interact with one or more collaborations, thereby performing various business processes. And each collaboration can interact with any number of connectors, thereby involving any number of applications.

For example, to automatically update an enterprise resource planning (ERP) application when customer information changes in a customer interaction management (CIM) application, the InterChange Server solution might consist of the CustomerSync collaboration, connectors for the CIM application and the ERP application, and definitions of business objects that represent customer information. Figure 1 illustrates that solution.

Figure 1. CIM-to-ERP Customer Data solution


The solution in Figure 1-1 could be implemented either locally on a network, or across the Internet.

In Figure 2, at a site that has not implemented either the IBM WebSphere InterChange Server system or a connector, a customer representative might wish to use a web browser to obtain the status of a purchase order over the Internet from an ERP application (SAP in the example) that resides at a site using the WebSphere InterChange Server system. To enable this, the InterChange Server solution uses the Server Access Interface, together with a collaboration (fictional in this example) for purchase-order business logic, an SAP connector, and definitions of business objects that represent purchase-order status information.

Figure 2. Execution of a call through the Server Access Interface


Multiple server deployment

A single application can interact with multiple InterChange Servers, in a hubs-and-spokes environment. Multiple InterChange Servers can be deployed to work together. Connector agents can be configured to partition and route events from an application to different servers. This makes it possible to balance an application's processing load across multiple InterChange Servers. In addition, InterChange Servers can be configured to interact with each other through connectors and the Server Access Interface.

Connectivity over the Internet

Connectors can enable the exchange of data across the Internet in different ways. These approaches include:

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