webMethods Architecture

By webMethods_KB

EAI Architecture Concepts • Introduction

EAI IT Landscape

Integration Evolution

• Basic Concepts

Messaging

Message Processing

Message Delivery

Message Sharing

• Higher Concepts

BPM

BAM

Landscape

• Intranets

• Value Chain• Extranets

• Data Sources

• Customers

• Transactions

• Internet

• Networks

• Legacy Systems• Packaged Apps• Bespoke Apps

Evolution Of Integration

• Flat files• Screen Scraping• API based

Evolution Of Integration

• Loosely coupled• Message Oriented• Business Logic Layer

• Intelligent routing• Transformation• Transactions

Evolution Of Integration

• Platform Agnostic• Standards Based• Distributed

Basic Concepts Of ArchitectureMessaging

•MOM (Message Oriented Middleware) shields the inherent complexities like OS, Network topology and protocol, programming language from the applications•Application Communicate with each other using a series of messages.•Applications deposits (publish/request) and retrieve (subscribe/response) the

messages from queues (a special message holding area)

Message Processing

•Synchronous Processing•Asynchronous Processing – enables applications to immediately return to

normal processing after generating request without having to wait for

Basic Concepts Of ArchitectureMessage Delivery

• Volatile – fast–Messages are stored in memory–Messages are lost if the system shuts down

• Guaranteed – slower–Messages are stored in a persistent queue–Messages are guaranteed to reach to its destination regardless of

network reliability, target system’s availability, bandwidth limitations

Basic Concepts Of ArchitectureMessage Sharing - Publish and Subscribe

• Sending documents out for potential subscription (do not need to know who receives them)

• Published documents are routed to the subscribed clients• When a client publishes a document, a “subscription pointer” to the

document will be placed in the inbound queues of all subscribers• Each subscriber uses its pointer to extract a copy of the document from

the queue• There can be multiple subscribers to single published message

Bus Architecture• Components

– Bus – Message/Service Bus (Backbone)– Service Nodes - Enterprise Applications

• CRM• ERP • Mainframe/Unix Applications• B2B Partner Applications

• Bus – Real-time Message Transport• Adapter - Connectivity to Applications

• Characteristics– Minimize point-to-point integration– Complex administration & management– Better scalability and performance.

• Examples: SeeBeyond, webMethods and Tibco

BPM• The Process designer must be an easy-to-use and intuitive tool for process/business

analysts to completely describe a Process.

• Process Simulator enables the process analyst to perform as-if scenarios and to find out the bottle-necks in the process before deploying the process.

• Process Executor is the Engine which manages the behavior ( persistency, integrity and flow ) of the Process at run-time.

• Process Facilitator is the work-portal and it provides the interface for human interaction

• Process Monitor collects data on each process instance and allows the Business Owners to keep an eye on the Business Processes.

• Process Analyzer enables the business process / function owners to create multi-dimensional enterprise dash-board.

BPM

• Facilitator

• Analyzer

• Developer

• Designer

• Simulator

• Executor

• Monitor

• Discover

• Analyze

• Control

• Improve

• Implement

How it works ?

BAM“BAM defines the concept of providing real-time access to critical business

performance indicators to improve the speed and effectiveness of business operations.”

• BAM is largely born-of, and is reshaping, two previously distinct technology markets: – Analytics and decision making of Business intelligence market– Real-time and business process linkage of Enterprise Application

Integration (EAI)• BAM focuses more on what is happening than on what has happened or

might happen• BAM sits in-between the historical and analytical focus of BI and the

forward business planning of Corporate Performance Management

webMethods Product Suite

webMethods Product Suite• This diagram provides logical view of recommended B2B solution

architecture I.e. there is no co-relation to the physical machines.

• Reverse Proxy Server – Use only for routing inbound documents. No need to open internal firewall ports to DMZ.

• Send outbound documents directly to Partner location (or DMZ file server for partners to pick up)

• Reverse Proxy Server – No need for IS clustering as the reverse proxy servers only route the documents to internal IS. Use pseudo-clustering

• Internal DMZ Facing IS Servers – In IS Cluster with shared Repository Server Configuration. Hosts Trading Networks packages and connects to a Trading N/w database.

webMethods Product Suite• Trading n/w database – configuration information

- Partner Profile - TN Document type definitions (representing XML, Flat file, EDI, SWIFT) - Processing Rules [Routing] - Certificates

- runtime information … transaction analysis logs used for document tracking.

• Integration Server for Enterprise Application – Acts as adapter run-time for integration with enterprise applications.

As best practice, this IS may be on same machine as enterprise application or on a separate server close to the application.

The IS performs - operations on the end-application via adapters

- enables data exchange between the enterprise application and integration messaging backbone (broker)

- provides transformation of data from application format to canonical (and vice-versa).

webMethods Product Suite• Audit Log database and Trading Networks database will be setup on

Oracle/SQL Server database instance.• Audit log – used to track execution of the services such as adapter

services, flow services as well as business processes on the integration servers.

• Messaging Backbone comprises of multiple broker servers in hardware cluster for high availability.

Details @ SAG

• To get more detail on triggers, dispatchers, queues, document stores, storages, document types , etc … refer SAG documents.