Description
An integration broker is a third-party intermediary that facilitates interactions among application systems. By definition, the broker itself provides two primary value-added application-layer functions:
- Transformation - translates message or file contents, including both syntactic "conversion" and some degree of (greater or lesser) semantic "transformation."
- Routing (flow control) - some form of smart addressing, such as content-based routing and/or publish-and-subscribe. Note that intelligent routing is stateless.
To enable these services, a broker has some form of repository that holds metadata descriptions of the input and output message formats (i.e., a message dictionary), and the transformation and routing rules. It will also have some administration and monitoring facilities to manage the broker configuration, and may also offer application-specific or technical adapters, along with some related development tools, gateways and templates for connecting to packaged applications. An integration broker may optionally also support a message warehouse (a mechanism to store and retrieve copies of messages).
Integration broker suites (IBSs) are broker products with added features such as Business Process Management (BPM), adapters, adapter development toolkits, Web services, communication tools, and better metadata and management facilities.
IBSs reduce the time to implement systematic application development projects that have demanding integration requirements. They improve business processes by making a broader and deeper range of integration practical across heterogeneous application systems. More than 75 percent of large enterprises use a broker somewhere, but only 10 percent of integration projects in 2002 used a broker.
Brick Information
Tactical
(0-2 years)
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Strategic
(2-5 years)
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- QDX Integrator
- TIBCO BusinessWorks
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Retirement
(To be eliminated)
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Containment
(No new development)
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Baseline
(Today)
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Emerging
(To track)
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- Caredata Engine
- Hermes
- QDX Integrator
- TIBCO BusinessWorks
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Comments
Time Table
This architecture definition approved on:
May 24, 2006
The next review is scheduled in:
TBD