Integration Patterns

 

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May 2004

Summary

This document provides a brief overview of the Preview Release of Integration Patterns, which embraces existing work in the patterns community, contributes new patterns, and shows how to use the Microsoft platform to implement them. This release includes 10 patterns and an example scenario that illustrates the use of the patterns in the context of a representative project.

Contents

Introduction

Who Should Read This Guide

What Is in This Guide

Community

Feedback and Support

Introduction

Integration Patterns introduces patterns in the context of the Global Bank integration scenario. This patterns catalog is organized to help you locate the right combination of patterns to apply when solving your integration problem. In addition, the guide introduces a visual model that describes a language of patterns and their relationships.

Who Should Read This Guide

This guide is for readers in one or more of the following categories:

  • Chief technology officers, architects, designers, and developers who are new to integration patterns
  • Chief technology officers, architects, and designers who are already experienced in using integration patterns to integrate enterprise solutions
  • Chief information officers and IT management responsible for integrating multiple systems

What Is in This Guide

Note   This preview release is an early look at Integration Patterns to obtain your feedback on the content. This release includes only the first four chapters and the 10 patterns that the chapters discuss. Chapter 5 through Chapter 9 and the remaining patterns will be released within one to two months. The following list includes an overview of the remaining chapters and patterns to give you an idea of what is coming.

Chapter 1: Integration and Patterns

This chapter introduces the Global Bank scenario that is used throughout this guide and briefly discusses how patterns can help development teams find workable answers to integration challenges.

Chapter 2: Using Patterns to Design the Integration Baseline Architecture

This chapter uses the language of patterns to explore the decisions and tradeoffs that the Global Bank architecture team made while designing and implementing their bill payment system.

Chapter 3: Integrating Layer

This chapter describes the different strategies for designing an integration layer and the tradeoffs involved in choosing an alternative. An integration layer can automate complex business processes or provide unified access to information that is scattered across many systems.

This chapter includes the following patterns:

Chapter 4: System Connections

This chapter builds on Chapter 3 by describing how to connect with individual systems. Each system allows certain types of access and restricts others. This chapter presents a series of related patterns that will help you analyze the alternative methods and the tradeoffs to consider when you choose your system connections.

This chapter includes the following patterns:

Chapter 5: Integration Topologies

This chapter builds on previous chapters by describing overall integration topologies. This chapter presents a series of related patterns that will help you analyze the alternative methods and the tradeoffs to consider when you choose between integration topology alternatives.

This chapter includes the following patterns:

  • Message Broker
  • Implementing Message Broker with BizTalk Server 2004
  • Message Bus
  • Publish-Subscribe

Chapter 6: Additional Integration Patterns

This chapter presents two important patterns: Pipes and Filters and Gateway. Many integration architectures are based on a pipe and filter approach and on gateways. Gateways are useful design elements that encapsulate access to enterprise resources such as mainframes. This chapter explains both patterns and then traces them to implementations that use the Microsoft platform.

This chapter includes the following patterns:

  • Pipes and Filters
  • Implementing Pipes and Filters with BizTalk Server 2004
  • Gateway
  • Implementing Gateway with Host Integration Server 2004

Chapter 7: A Language of Integration Patterns

This chapter presents a visual model of the integration patterns and shows their relationships. Additionally, this chapter walks through the Global Bank team's use of the model as they designed their system.

Chapter 8: Architects Notebook

This chapter provides the models used to build Global Bank. The chapter includes business models, services identification, and pattern-based design and implementation models .This chapter shows how the team at Global Bank modeled the enterprise and designed an integrated portfolio of applications and services that met the requirements of the business.

Chapter 9: Integration Examples

This chapter includes integration examples that demonstrate how integration patterns are used in the health care, manufacturing, and chemical industries.

Bibliography

Community

The patterns in this guide are part of a new Patterns community on GotDotNet. GotDotNet is a Microsoft .NET Framework Community Web site that uses workspaces in an online collaborative development environment where .NET Framework developers can create, host, and manage projects throughout the project life cycle. You can also use this Patterns community to post questions, provide feedback, or connect with other users for sharing ideas.

Access to the Patterns community is available from the following Web site:

http://gotdotnet.com/team/architecture/patterns

Feedback and Support

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? For feedback on this guide, please send e-mail to pnppatfb@microsoft.com.

The patterns documented here are designed to jump-start the architecture and design of systems integration. Patterns are simple mechanisms that are meant to be applied to the problem at hand and are usually combined with other patterns. They are not meant to be plugged into an application. Example code is provided "as is" and is not intended for production use. It is only intended to illustrate the pattern, and therefore does not include extra code such as exception handling, logging, security, and validation. Although this deliverable has undergone testing and review by industry luminaries it is not supported like a traditional Microsoft product.

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