Developing connectors

A connector is a type of user-defined extension that facilitates connection between IBM Integration Bus and an external system, or endpoint. A connector developer can use the connector framework to create a connector and required resources, such as a message flow node. You begin by creating a connector provider, which is the library that provides the connectors for a particular technology or type of endpoint. A connector provider has one connector factory that can create connectors of different types: input, output, and request. You then create a user-defined node to expose the capabilities of the connector to a message flow. IBM Integration Bus associates a user-defined node with a runtime connector by using standard property names and values, which you define on the user-defined node.

For more information, see Connectors overview.

Before you develop a connector, understand the endpoint to which you are connecting, and decide which interaction patterns are appropriate. If a connector does not exist, you can implement a connector factory, then create one or more types of connector.