IBM BPM, V8.0.1, All platforms > Get started with IBM BPM > Key concepts > Business objects
Special business objects
Service message objects and business graphs are two specialized types of business objects used for specific application purposes.
Service message object
A service message object (SMO) is a specialized business object that is used by mediation flow components to represent the collection of data associated with a service invocation.A SMO has a fixed top-level structure consisting of headers, context, body, and attachments (if present).
- Headers carry information related to the service invocation over a particular protocol or binding. Examples are SOAP headers and JMS headers.
- Context data carries additional logical information associated with the invocation while it is being processed by the mediation flow component. This information is typically not part of the application data sent or received by clients.
- The body of the SMO carries the payload business data, which represents the core application message or invocation data in the form of a standard business object.
The SMO can also carry attachment data for web service invocations using SOAP with attachments.
Mediation flows perform such tasks as request routing and data transformation, and the SMO provides the combined view of header and payload contents in a single unified structure.
Business graph
A business graph is a special business object used to provide support for data synchronization in integration scenarios.Consider an example in which two enterprise information systems have a representation of a specific order. When the order changes in one system, a message can be sent to the other system to synchronize the order data. Business graphs support the notion of sending just the portion of the order that changed to the other system and annotating it with change-summary information to define the type of change.
In this example, an Order business graph would convey to the other system that one of the line items in the order was deleted and that the projected ship date property of the order was updated.
Business graphs can easily be added to existing business objects in Integration Designer. They are most frequently found in scenarios in which WebSphere adapters are being used and to support the migration of WebSphere InterChange Server applications.