System configuration concepts

Often, an identical service is required by different organizations. For example, two organizations might both require an identical service that sends output to a printer, except that each might need its output to be sent to a different printer. Similarly, a single organization might use one of several different database tables depending on certain criteria.

One way to provide such flexibility would be to create and run many nearly identical message flows (one for each set of criteria), then use the criteria to determine which flow to use. However, this would mean you would have to deploy, administer, and maintain a huge number of such flows.

To simplify this situation, FTM SWIFT provides a way for you to define all the physical resources that comprise your system (this is called configuration), and to make the resulting configuration data available to any message flows that need it. This is done by adding the configuration data to the processed message itself so that, as the message is passed from node to node within a flow, each node can retrieve from the message the information it needs, and can use this data to control its processing.

For example, instead of having one slightly different message flow for each organization, you can have one message flow that is shared by all organizations. This message flow begins with a node that enriches each message with the configuration data required by the nodes in the flow. Any of the nodes in the flow can use this data to determine how it is to process a message.