Page 130 - DCAP603_DATAWARE_HOUSING_AND_DATAMINING

Data Warehousing and Data Mining

notes 6.14 eai architecture

EAI architecture reduces the number of interfaces and provides a standard methodology for
application integration. Layering the different transport technologies does this. The black box
EAI solution employs an array of middleware comprising message broker, transaction processing
integration, Database Remote Procedure Calls, Screen scrapers, Java applets, Active X Controls,
etc.
The EAI architecture also provides services such as application development tools, repository
management, routing, publish/subscribe services, data flow, data transformation, security
services, recoverability and workload balancing.

Hub and spoke architecture is the most common. All applications connect to a central hub, which
connects to many application spokes. The hub provides centralized services while connectors or
adapters provide the services for each spoke or integration point. Adapters provide integration
with the centralized hub for a specific resource like relational database or a java application,
enabling information or invocation of a process against a specific resource.

EAI assists by causing existing and new applications to exchange data via messages governed
by the rules of the business process. The business process is to be modeled and rules defined for
the applications to follow. A message Broker routes the messages according to these rules. The
data in the messages is transformed into the format required by the target application along the
way. As the EAI software is independent of the individual applications it connects, the business
processes can change and grow without requiring changes to the application.

6.14.1 Layers of eai

The EAI solutions can be categorized as a three-layer solution on the basis of the level of
integration and functionality. The three specific layers to EAI solution are:

1. Communications
2. Routing and brokering
3. Business Intelligence

Communications

The communications layer comprises of tools that assist in accessing data sources, inter-process
communications, network transports and representations of messages that pass between
applications. It includes the facilities for distributing processing over a network and includes the
following technologies: TCP/IP, publish and subscribe, database server protocols and middleware,
multicast IP, asynchronous messaging, remote procedure calls, etc. The communications layer
essentially views the world as a set of data sources.

Routing and Brokering

In this layer some amount of decision-making and processing capabilities can be found. The
primary job of this layer is to aggregate, broker, transform, filter, and format data so it can be
understood by the other systems that are connected by the EAI solution.
Business Intelligence

The Business Intelligence layer plays a critical role in achieving the virtual application. This layer
provides an environment that responds to messages from the routing and brokering layer. It
then uses a set of declarative rules to make intelligent business decisions based on company

124 LoveLy professionaL university