Agents and integration servers

Time-triggered transactions and agent servers

A time-triggered transaction is a program that performs a variety of individual functions, automatically and at specific time intervals. It is not triggered by conditions, events, or user input. There are three types of time-triggered transactions:

• Business process transactions - responsible for processing day-to-day transactions.
• Monitors - watch and send alerts for processing delays and exceptions.
• Purges - clear out data that may be discarded after having been processed.

The process that runs the time-triggered transactions is known as an agent server. Agents pick up the appropriate "pending tasks" for the agent and process them one at a time.

An agent server can run multiple time-triggered transactions. Additionally, each time-triggered transaction can run with one or more threads. It is also possible to run multiple instances of the same agent server.

The correct configuration depends on the volume of transactions in your system.

Integration servers

An Integration Server is a process that manages asynchronous services, such as messages to and from external systems.

Integration servers allow Sterling Order Management System Software Application Platform to collaborate with different systems, organizations, and businesses—all through a standard, uniform interface to all systems.

Integration Servers are configured through the means of the Service Definition Framework.

An integration service definition contains one or more sub-services each of which are their own asynchronous service. Each of these sub-services can be run with one or more threads. When an integration server is launched, it processes the messages for the asynchronous component in the service definition. Additionally, multiple instances of an integration server can be run at the same time.