Developing integration solutions

IBM® App Connect Enterprise provides a flexible environment in which you can develop integration solutions to transform, enrich, route, and process your business messages and data. You can integrate client applications that use different protocols and message formats.

About this task

In IBM App Connect Enterprise, you develop an integration solution by using an application or an integration service.

An application is a container for all the resources that are required to create an integration solution.
An integration service is a specialized application with a defined interface that acts as a container for a web services solution.

You can use patterns to create integration solutions. Patterns provide reusable solutions that encapsulate a tested approach to solving a common architecture, design, or deployment task in a particular context.

An integration solution is the container for the resources that you develop to process your business messages and data. IBM App Connect Enterprise manages three sets of resources to integrate your applications, messages, and data:

Message flows
Message flow nodes
Message models

A message flow is a sequence of processing steps that run in an integration node when an input message is received. An integration node is a set of execution processes that host one or more message flows to route, transform, and enrich in-flight messages.

You can configure message flows to use one or both of the supported communication models, point-to-point and publish/subscribe.

You can share the project for your integration solution with others by exporting and importing the project as a compressed file known as a project interchange file. For example, you can export a project interchange file from the IBM App Connect Enterprise Toolkit and others can import the file into their IBM App Connect Enterprise Toolkit to share the development of an integration solution or to otherwise use that solution as the starting point for a new integration solution.

You can also copy project directories from your workspace directory to another location; for example, to backup the project directory or to use in another workspace directory.

Procedure

Read the following sections to learn more about developing integration solutions. You can also use the Tutorials Gallery in the IBM App Connect Enterprise Toolkit to explore some pre-built integration solutions.

Learn about the development resources that you require to build your integration solution. For more information, see Resource management overview.
Learn how to develop a message flow. A message flow is a sequence of processing steps that run in an integration node when an input message is received. For more information, see Developing message flows.
- Learn how to connect your business process applications and data to your message flows. You can use a number of different protocols to communicate with the integration node. You can also interact from your message flows with other products and services. For more information, see Connecting client applications.
- Learn how to design your message flows to handle messages and data in different ways. You can choose from a range of message flow nodes that support:
- Learn how to create a message flow by running Java™ code that uses the IBM Integration API. For more information, see Managing resources by using the IBM Integration API.
Learn about different ways of creating your integration solutions.
If you have a project interchange file for an existing integration solution, you can import the project for that solution into your IBM App Connect Enterprise Toolkit. In your IBM App Connect Enterprise Toolkit:
1. Click File > Import... > IBM Integration / Project Interchange
2. In the Import wizard, select the zip file (project interchange file) and the project location root (workspace directory)
3. Click Finish.
Learn how to develop unit tests for your message flows and message flow nodes. For more information, see Developing integration tests.
Learn how to define your own message models. For more information, see Constructing message models.

What to do next

When you create a project, it is recommended to avoid using spaces in the project name. Although using spaces in the name is valid, you might encounter problems. For example: A scenario where an XML schema file located in project X references an XML schema file project Y, either through import or include statements. If the referenced schema in the project contain spaces in project name, the name does not resolve, and you receive errors.