Welcome to the IBM ESB and Connectivity Patterns Wiki.

A pattern is a reusable asset that can help to speed the process of implementing connectivity and integration solutions. Here you will find described a set of patterns that encapsulate some of the more common solutions in the application connectivity space. Many of these patterns build on and refine the more general architectural pattern known as the enterprise service bus (ESB).

Both high-level (patterns for e-business) and low-level (mediation primitives) patterns have been well documented (see Resources for further information). Here we will focus initially on bridging this gap and filling in the middle space. We call these connectivity solution patterns - they encapsulate the complete connectivity or mediation logic between a set of applications or services. In describing these patterns we will also identify common facets of these solutions, such as the interaction style, security model and other 'aspects' (such as logging and error handling) will also be discussed.

These patterns will be of interest and value to enterprise architects, integration architects and developers who are responsible for implementing integration and connectivity solutions. The pattern specifications are typically described in ways which are independent of any particular choice of integration middleware but where we describe specific implementations of these patterns we will focus on the family of ESB products from IBM WebSphere.

Getting Started

We assume that you are already familiar with the concept of the Enterprise Service Bus as an architectural pattern (if not, check out our Resources section).

We recommend you start by reading about the main categories of connectivity patterns that we have identified.

A summary of some of the material in this wiki can be found in our companion developerWorks article
Enterprise Connectivity Patterns: Implementing integration solutions with IBM's Enterprise Service Bus products.