B2B Integration : A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce

258 B2B Integration — A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce
Metadata
Repository
ERP System
(SAP, PeopleSoft,
Baan)
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Adapter
Adapter
n
Adapter
Adapter
Integration
Broker
SCM System
(i2, Manugistics)
Adapter
n Adapter
Message
Adapter
tt
Adapter-
Databases
(Oracle, Sybase)
Figure 9.2. — Message bus architecture
CRM System
(Clarify, Siebel)
Adapter
n Adapter
Bus
Adapter
n Adapter
Legacy System
(Mainframe)
Figure 9.2). Every message that flows between applications travels over
the bus to the integration broker, which transforms, translates and
routes the message to the receiving application.
The addition of new applications is also simple in this architecture.
The integration broker suite would provide either a pre-packaged adapter
for the application or APIs to build an adapter for the same. After the
new application is connected to the bus, it can communicate with all
the applications that are connected to the bus.
In this architecture, the integration broker should be viewed as 'just
another service on the bus' and not as a hub.
Since this architecture is distributed in nature, it offers better
scalability and performance. It is more suitable for large size companies,
which have a relatively large number of internal and external applications
to connect with.
The most widely used integration brokers based on this architecture
are from Tibco and SeeBeyond.
9.2.3. Multi-hub architecture
A multi-hub architecture is characterized by the presence of multiple
integration brokers, each one of which has many applications connected
to it (see Figure 9.3). This configuration links together all the different