Appleseed will help bring enterprise integration to micro-enterprises so that companies can integrate online software to serve their needs.
Why did I chose this resource?
Enterprise Integration is the method of how companies connect different information systems together to better serve their processes. For example in our company, we are trying to connect Delta projects with Quickbooks.com. Or Connecting Nutshell with Delta Projects. In an ideal world if the company is 100% integrated it means that people enter information in once for any process and it travels through the system / systems without having people log into a different software. I chose this book because we’ve not been following conventions in integration and before starting our “Appleseed Base” product design, I wanted to know what the rest of the world is using.
What did you learn from it?
This book is slightly different from what I imagined. I thought it was going to cover “Services Oriented Architecture” which is a related subject area in Enterprise Architecture. This book is about “Designing, Building, and Deploying Messaging Solutions.” Although this book is a little old (says Web services aren’t end all solution), it is still relevant.
Key Knowledge
- No one software solves everything
- Specialized software solves some things well, but not everything else
- Six major types of integration
- Information Portal
- Data Replication
- Shared business functions
- Service-oriented architectures
- Distributed business processes
- Business-to-business integration
- Loosely coupled interactions means future configurability without breakages.
- Messages and channels can help create loosely coupled infrastructures
- There are over 65 (as of print) Patterns that can help
How are you using what you learned?
This made me rethink about Appleseed Base as more than a “shadow database” of integrations ( ala Data Replication ) and about Appleseed Portal as more than an “information portal.” One of the core value propositions for Appleseed from the very beginning has been to solve the integration problem for small companies. I am going to have to seek out a little more back ground information from this area of knowledge so that we don’t reinvent the wheel.
Key Changes
- Implement an “Enterprise Integration” and “Enterprise Application Integration” skill growth in the company.
- Learn about messaging tools like MassTransit, MSMQ, etc. for some of the bigger challenges until we can make our own for large clients while iterating on Appleseed Base
- Use more of Safari Online – Treasure trove of knowledge at our finger tips.
How can we as a company or individuals in the company use this?
We can begin by using the knowledge in this book by looking at the “Sales” and “Service” processes as part of a much larger “Client Service” process for Anant and think about the information flow as an integration problem. How can a “lead” coming into Nutshell go through to become a project in Delta, and be setup as a client in Quickbooks?
Key Actions
- Continue learning about enterprise integration and enterprise application integration
- Expose ourselves to more architecture frameworks / patterns
- Start spending more time in Systems Design & Architecture for more complex projects
Source
- Amazon : Enterprise Integration Patterns: Designing, Building, and Deploying Messaging Solutions
- Safari Online : Enterprise Integration Patterns: Designing, Building, and Deploying Messaging Solutions
- Author : Gregor Hohpe; Bobby Woolf
- Other Safari Books (Related) : Enterprise Integration Solutions, Enterprise Application Integration, Enterprise Integration: The Essential Guide to Integration Solutions
