Information-oriented Application Integration

Information-Oriented Application Integration

Integration of two or more systems by allowing simple exchanges of data between applications e.g: connecting databases, migrates data from source database to target database

Disadvantage

• Designers need to know all integrated systems in detail

• Moving information between systems may require changing both the content and schema on the fly

Advantage

Efficient integration of many different types of applications

Disadvantage

There is little regard for business logic and methods within the source or target systems logic and methods that may be relevant to a particular integration effort

Categories

• Data Replication

• Date Federation

• Interface Processing

Data Replication

• moving data between two or more databases (can come from the same vendor or from many vendors)

• advantages: simplicity and low cost

Data Federation

• integration of multiple databases and database models into a single unified view of the databases

• virtual enterprise databases that are comprised of many real, physical databases

• advantage: can bind many different data types into a unified model that supports its info exchange

Interface Processing

their solutions use well-defined application interfaces to focus on the integration of both packaged and custom applications

Integration Concepts

1. Coupling

2. Cohesion

Coupling

• binds together in a way that they are dependent on each other, sharing the same methods, interfaces, and data.

• needs extensive changes in application

• if one system changes, corresponding changes is required to coupled systems as well

• reusability

Cohesion

• “act or state of sticking together” or “the logical agreement“

• applications and databases are independent of each other and changes to sources/target systems should not affect others

• provides flexibility to integration → allows additional changes, removal of systems without affecting integration system

Information Producers and Consumers: Common Patters

• Database

• Application

• User Interface

• Embedded Device

Database

• natural points of integration, they produce and consume information through interfaces they provide

• provide the best interface into source and target applications exchanging information

• e.g: native Structured Query Language (SQL), Call-Level Interface(CLI) such as Java Database Connectivity (JDBC)

Application Interface

are interfaces that developers expose from packageed or custom applications to grain access to various levels or services of those applications

User Interface

• One of many techniques and technologies that can be used to access, or place, information in an application → screen scraping, middleware

Screen Scraping

Accessing screen information through a programmatic mechanism

Middleware

drives a user interface in order to access information. ex: 3270 user interface

Embedded Device

• temperatures, sensors, call-counting machines, or wireless devices

• you may not be able to queue up information

Steps to Approach Information Integration

1. Identify the data

2. Catalog the Data

3. Building the Enterprise Metadata

1. Identify the data

• The Data Dictionary

  • Integrity Issues

    • Data Latency

      • Data Structure

The Data Dictionary

information can be culled by examining the data dictionaries

Integrity Issues

understand the rules and regulations that were applied to the construction of the database

Data Latency

real time, near time, one time

Data Structure

how information is structured

2. Catalog the Data

• Logical model generation

• Perform the process of gathering metadata and other data throughout the problem domain

3. Building the Enterprise Metadata

• Physical Model Generation

• this model will be used as master guide for integrating the various information stores that exists within the enterprise