Basic principles of an FTM application

Every FTM application, even a complex one, is built based on the simple principles that are shown in the following list.

Well-defined interfaces to external systems.

The interfaces include message transports, protocols, and message formats.

All external formats are mapped to or from an internal format (ISF).

All FTM applications define and implement a set of mappers (inbound and outbound) to handle this mapping process.

Manages the lifecycle, or state, of business objects.

The lifecycle for business, or FTM, objects is managed by allowing the execution of predefined actions when an FTM object changes state. Almost all FTM applications define and implement a set of actions.

Well-defined FTM object lifecycle.

FTM uses UML state diagrams to define the lifecycle of all FTM objects. Every FTM application has a set of UML state diagrams that define a finite state machine (FSM) for all FTM objects. Processing is controlled directly by metadata derived directly from the FSM models.

Event driven.

FTM raises events to notify and record significant milestones that are reached within the business process. All FTM events are defined in the FSM models. FTM events conform to the Common Base Event specification for XML messages and are processed by using persistent IBM® MQ queues. Processing of raised events by FTM can trigger further stages of processing as defined in the FSM models.