Application integration

A portal provides access to content, data, and services that are located throughout the enterprise. These services not only include predefined connectors and portlets, but also tools for creating additional connectors and portlets.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems are excellent candidates for portlets because efficient, personalized access to these functions provides measurable return on the portal investment. IBM provides connectors to enterprise applications, using the Java Connector Architecture (JCA). In addition, Application Portlet Builders are provided for building portlets that interact with other enterprise applications.

This topic is divided into the following subtopics:

 

Standard Java connectors

JCA is a standard architecture for integrating Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) applications with enterprise information systems that are not relational databases. Each of these systems provides native APIs for identifying a function to call, specifying its input data, and processing its output data. The goal of the JCA is to provide an independent API for coding these functions.

JCA also defines a standard Service Provider Interface (SPI) for integrating the transaction, security, and connection management facilities of an application server with those of a transactional resource manager. Thus, JCA is a standards-based approach to managing connections, transactions, and secure access to enterprise application systems. IBM JCA connectors provide access to systems such as SAP, PeopleSoft, J.D. Edwards, Oracle, CICS, IMS, and Host-on-Demand. Leveraging its CrossWorlds acquisition, IBM plans to develop and integrate JCA connectors to many other systems.

WebSphere Studio Site Developer provides a complete development and unit test environment for applications that use JCA connectors, Web services, and microflows. WebSphere Studio Site Developer tools include support for Web Service Definition Language (WSDL), developer versions of the connectors, the Web Services Invocation Framework (WSIF), and the microflow engine.

 

Application Portlet Builders

The Application Portlet Builder enables users to create portlets that can access and manipulate data in an enterprise application without requiring programming knowledge of the system. By selecting business objects that are available from the enterprise application, users can specify which data fields should be displayed in the portlet. When the portlet is created, the portlet can be made available to portal users.

Two builders are included with this edition of WebSphere Portal, Domino Builder and SQL Builder. For more information, go to the IBM Workplace Solutions Catalog.

 

See also