Connecting Enterprise Applications To Websphere Enterprise Service Bus

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) promises a great leap forward in the re-use of applications by simplifying application composition. The technology that simplifies application composition is Service Component Architecture (SCA). SCA is an open component architecture for wiring services together to build composite applications.

WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus provides the on-ramp and off-ramp to incorporate many different applications and services into an SOA solution.

In this IBM Redbooks publication we introduce SCA and how it has evolved from earlier application integration architectures. We explain how WebSphere ESB connects applications and components to the service bus by using adapters and other types of SCA imports and exports.

Our main focus is helping you sort through the many choices that need to be made when deciding how to connect applications together to meet the requirements of a business scenario. We propose six different solution patterns, each with alternative implementations to choose from, to take on most integration scenarios. We also provide seven worked examples of some of the alternatives, which are fully described in the text, and are also available as working samples from the ITSO Redbooks Web site.

Table of Contents
Part 1. Background
Chapter 1. Connecting enterprise applications
Chapter 2. Service Component Architecture
Chapter 3. Connecting to the WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus
Chapter 4. Adapters

Part 2. Scenarios and patterns
Chapter 5. Business scenarios
Chapter 6. Connection patterns

Part 3. Working examples
Chapter 7. Historical integration using WebSphere MQ
Chapter 8. Custom CICS integration using WebSphere MQ
Chapter 9. Code-free CICS integration using WebSphere MQ
Chapter 10. Custom application integration using JMS
Chapter 11. Event-driven integration using a JDBC adapter
Chapter 12. Lightweight Web client integration using http
Chapter 13. Lightweight Web service integration using http
Chapter 14. Summary

Appendix A. Additional material
Appendix B. Source listings

About the Authors
Peter Swithinbank is a Project Leader at the ITSO, Hursley Center. He writes IBM Redbooks and teaches IBM classes worldwide on Web services and building business integration solutions. Peter has worked for IBM for 28 years and has been with the ITSO for two years. He has a diploma in software engineering from Oxford University and an M.A. in Geography from the University of Cambridge.

Srinivas Bandaru has 12 years of experience in the software industry and is currently a Process Server and Message Broker Specialist at Sarasu IT Solutions, Ltd, an IBM Business Partner. Sreenivas has a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University, Hyderabad, India, and an M.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of South Carolina.

Graham Crooks is an e-Architect covering the Asia Pacific region and is based in Melbourne, Australia. He has 14 years of experience in the IT field and five years in Web development. He has worked at IBM for seven years. He has written and taught extensively on WebSphere Application Server application development with the Rational toolset.

Andrew Ferrier is a Staff Software Engineer at IBM Hursley Laboratories in the United Kingdom. He has almost five years of experience in middleware and messaging, including WebSphere MQ, WebSphere Message Broker, and WebSphere ESB. He holds a degree in Computing from Imperial College, London. His particular area of expertise is WebSphere ESB. He currently works in the Customer SWAT Team for that product. He writes externally on the SOA tips 'n' tricks blog at: http://soatipsntricks.wordpress.com/.