If you have data stored in multiple systems, then enterprise integration patterns are relevant to you. It’s possible that, without realizing it, you are already making use of these patterns within data and application integration workflows.
Here we will explore why enterprise integration patterns are necessary to your organization, demonstrate some common use cases, and briefly touch on how you can begin applying these patterns to your business processes.
Before we dive in, let’s take a moment to define the two main concepts I’ll be introducing:
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- 企业应用程序集成（EAI）：连接的过程disparate systems to allow for “communication” and data sharing between them.
- Enterprise Integration Pattern (EIP):a series of steps that为企业集成解决方案提供框架。EIP与特定的实现无关，而是提供系统之间“通信”的方法。
The concept of an EIP was made popular by Gregor Hohpe and Bobby Woolf in their book ‘Enterprise Integration Patterns’。他们共同创建了一个目录，其中解释了65种模式，这些模式属于他们所谓的消息传递integration style. They define this type of integration as using “messaging to transfer packets of data frequently, immediately, reliably, and asynchronously, using customizable formats.”
根据FME专家的企业集成模式的重要性
Many organizations inadvertently create data silos as a result of different departments needing to make use of best fit-for-purpose applications for their work.Data silosexist when data is stored in a way that makes it inaccessible or unusable to others within an organization.
Business impacts that can derive from data silos include:
- 关键决策者无法访问全部图片
- 团队共同努力并共享他们的数据或信息的能力有限
- More time spent on performing repetitive administrative tasks, with an increased likelihood of human error
- As a result, data may be poorly maintained, leading to inaccuracies
有效利用EIP可以弥合数据差距并减轻负面业务影响。Data integrationand应用程序集成对于用户最大化其数据集的价值是必需的。
尽管可以使用一些替代解决方案，例如开发复杂的数据转换脚本或强迫多个部门进入同一应用程序，但这些解决方案具有自己的缺点。特别是，这些替代方案通常要求专门的开发人员维护定制的解决方案，进行修复和更新要求的昂贵。
5普通企业集成模式用例
我在下面评论的用例都使用EIPS解决最初由Hohpe和Woolf定义。Depending on the integration challenge, different pattern logic is applicable. All patterns published in their book are在他们的网站上详细描述。
The example use cases listed below are all processes or challenges that can be solved using EIPs inFME。构建工作流程后亚搏在线FME桌面, you can use Automations inFME Server有效地构建自己的企业集成模式。
1. Data Migration
Data migration is the process of moving data from one or more systems to another. Migration may be necessary if your organization manages a data warehouse (a large data repository to store data from multiple systems). One-off data migration tasks may come up when an organization chooses to undergo a complete system change. In this case, it is important to restore historical data records to the new system.
亚搏在线安全软件has recent experience with a data migration task as we opted tochange the platform hosting the FME Community。To provide our users with the best customer experience possible, it was integral to preserve all the online knowledge resources without losing data and having as minimal downtime as possible.
如果您要执行企业集成的数据迁移任务，则可以使用多种模式和组合。您选择使用EIP迁移数据的方式取决于所需的数据转换。
2.数据同步
数据同步是跨系统之间数据的双向交换，这有助于在多个应用程序中保持一致的数据集。数据同步任务是解决孤立系统的必要条件，尤其是在公司合并或收购的情况下。数据孤岛实际上是不可避免的，因为团队可以并且应该使用最适当的应用程序为其日常任务设计。但是，如前所述，这带来了许多挑战。
Application integration often uses APIs使系统能够互相通信programmatically. To maintain data accuracy, when one system is updated the other system will be updated immediately to reflect this change, ensuring the entire organization has access to the most up-to-date information in the system they interact with (no matter where the update was made).
To perform data synchronization, the message channel pattern and message bridge pattern are ideal. The消息通道模式proposes using a dedicated channel in which systems can communicate. The消息桥模式looks to replicate messages from one system to another.
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| Message Channel Pattern | Message Bridge Pattern |
As each system is designed for a specific target audience, how the data is stored may differ. A key element in any data synchronization workflow is to transform data into the format used by the specific system receiving the data.
3. Data Analytics
Data analytics areessential for decision makingbecause they provide quick insight into business processes and company performance. Using data analytics and business intelligence tools, information can be presented in an easily understandable manner, using visual components like charts and diagrams, enabling key stakeholders to identify trends and potential problems.
4.从外部来源接收数据
许多组织从供应商，合作伙伴，客户或公众等外部来源收集数据。例如，许多城市依靠当地人口report potential road or street hazards, such as a pothole. Once reported, they can use automated processes to validate this data and parse it over web services into the appropriate system(s) to investigate, implement, and invoice the solution.
The forms created for data submission are usually designed to only allow specific inputs but can be compiled of multiple different sections that can be processed individually. A combination of the基于内容的路由器和分离器模式可以用来设计一个遵循一系列配置的规则以在处理之前亚搏在线将每个元素划分的工作流程。
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| Content-Based Router Pattern | Splitter Pattern |
TheCoquitlam市has been able to improve information sharing and accessibility with stakeholders by integrating various business applications and web services using Automations inFME Server。They receive data from both the public and third-party vendors to ensure that all city services are carried out in a timely manner.
5. Consolidated Customer Overview
At every organization, a customer will interact with many departments, such as sales, customer support, training, or marketing, depending on their present needs. Therefore, each department will have different data based on their interactions with each customer. The ability to summarize all data into a single view not only provides each team a complete history of the customer, allowing them to make more informed decisions, but it will likely provide a better overall customer experience as there is increased collaboration between the teams.
Two patterns that can aid in these workflows are the normalizer pattern and content enricher pattern. Thenormalizer pattern,which behaves similarly to the aggregator pattern, brings together information from different systems stored in different formats to be presented in a single standard way. The内容浓缩器模式允许您通过从其他相关来源检索数据来增强消息内容。
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| 归一化器模式 | Content Enricher Pattern |
Be Your Own Solutions Architect
One-to-one solutions requiring specialist skills can now be considered a thing of the past. Technology and像FME这样的集成软件正在不断升级to empower the everyday data user to embrace self-service integration techniques. These users have come to be known byGartneras ‘ad hoc’ or ‘citizen’ integrators.
要应用这些消息风格的EIP，Hohpe和Woolf触摸规范数据模型, a workflow that is designed independently of any single application. Working in this way greatly reduces an organization’s maintenance costs because integrators can work with the existing model to complete integration projects in a more timely fashion. Integrators can implement patterns most easily by introducing message-oriented middleware. The FME Platform includes capabilities like自动化这使得独立开发的软件组件能够在不同平台上运行使用API发送和接收消息。
我会给您这个问题来思考：
Is there any data you regularly need access to, but currently, it is stuck in a place that makes it difficult to access, and the task to gain access is manual and painfully time-consuming?
Perhaps it’s time you became an integrator!
如果您想了解有关如何的更多信息FMEcan be used as the middleware component to implement enterprise application integration workflows check out the ‘企业集成开始’ webinar or our ‘企业集成开始Patterns’教程系列，即将推出更多文章。
Holly Coxon
Holly is an FME Server Technology Support Team Lead at Safe Software. Among other things, she provides technical support, creates content for the Community, presents webinars and contributes to product development through functional testing and sharing customer feedback. Holly spends her weekends exploring the great backyard of British Columbia.
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