B2B Integration : A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce

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Figure 9.3. — Multi-hub architecture
integration brokers. The connectivity of the brokers is transparent to the
underlying applications. Through their respective connection with an
integration broker, they are integrated with all the other applications
linked to different brokers in the system.
This architecture is very useful as a scalability solution, where
multiple instances of the same integration broker can be deployed on
different physical machines. More such instances can be added if the
number of applications to be integrated increases or the current solution
is slow due to overload.
9.3. Components of Integration Brokers
The essential components of any integration broker include Messaging
Manager and Message Warehouses, Application Adapters, Data
Transformation Component, Workflow Manager, Metadata Repository
and Administration Tool (see Figure 9.4). All of them work together in
providing a robust, flexible and dynamic integration solution that supports
the exchange and transformation of data from multiple applications over
multiple networks.
Several components such as the data transformation component and
the workflow manager do not fall into the category of application or
middleware. They can be placed in either applications or middleware.