Kernel/Component Architecture

A fundamental quality of the IBM® Security Verify Directory Integrator is its kernel/component design.

The term kernel here refers to the rapid integration development (RID) framework that allows you to quickly assemble your integration solutions and provides automated execution logic to drive them. Features that you would otherwise need to hand-code (and are therefore often neglected) like log/trace modules, connection recovery, change detection, error handling and an external management API are immediately available to even the simplest data flow.

In addition to this generic kernel functionality, IBM® Security Verify Directory Integrator provides a set of data source-specific components: helper objects that abstract away the technical details of interacting with your data sources. The two types of components that you will use the most are Connectors and Parsers.

Connectors provide connectivity to a wide variety of data sources, as well as inherent handling of structured data regardless of its underlying organization. Some Connectors also serve as event-handlers, for example binding to IP ports and waiting for incoming connections, or 'listening' for changes to occur in directories, databases or files.

Parsers on the other hand are used to deal with unstructured data – that is, bytestreams, like those found in files, POP3/SMTP email, MQ messages and data streaming across IP ports.

IBM® Security Verify Directory Integrator provides an extendable library of Connectors and Parsers, each designed to work with a specific system, service, API, transport or format. The interchangeable nature of IBM® Security Verify Directory Integrator components allows you to build a solution based on test data – for example, text files – and then simply swap out the Connectors used in order to point your solution at live sources for verification and deployment.

Furthermore, IBM® Security Verify Directory Integrator components are straightforward to use, as well as easy to build and extend. You can augment your library to deal with custom data sources and services by downloading new components from a community website, writing your own components in Java™, or by interactively building and testing them using script directly in the CE.