Patterns: Broker Interactions for Intra- and Inter-enterprise

6 Broker Interactions for Intra- and Inter-enterprise

1.2 How to use the Patterns for e-business

As described in the last section, the Patterns for e-business have a layered

structure where each layer builds detail on the last. At the highest layer are

Business patterns. These describe the entities involved in the e-business

solution.

Composite patterns appear in the hierarchy shown in Figure 1-1 on page 5 above

the Business patterns. However, Composite patterns are made up of a number of

individual Business patterns, and at least one Integration pattern. In this section,

we discuss how to use the layered structure of Patterns for e-business assets.

1.2.1 Select a Business, Integration, or Composite pattern, or a

Custom design

When faced with the challenge of designing a solution for a business problem,

the first step is to get a high-level view of the goals you are trying to achieve. A

proposed business scenario should be described and each element should be

matched to an appropriate IBM Pattern for e-business. You may find, for

example, that the total solution requires multiple Business and Integration

patterns, or that it fits into a Composite pattern or Custom design.

For example, suppose an insurance company wants to reduce the amount of

time and money spent on call centers that handle customer inquiries. By allowing

customers to view their policy information and request changes online, the

company will be able to cut back significantly on the resources spent handling

this by phone. The objective is to allow policy holders to view their policy

information stored in legacy databases.

The Self-Service business pattern fits this scenario perfectly. It is meant to be

used in situations where users need direct access to business applications and

data. Let’s take a look at the available Business patterns.

Business patterns

A Business pattern describes the relationship between the users, the business

organizations or applications, and the data to be accessed.

Chapter 1. Introduction to Patterns for e-business 7

There are four primary Business patterns, explained in Table 1-1.

Table 1-1 The four primary Business patterns

It would be very convenient if all problems fit nicely into these four slots, but

reality says that things will often be more complicated. The patterns assume that

most problems, when broken down into their basic components, will fit more than

one of these patterns. When a problem requires multiple Business patterns, the

Patterns for e-business provide additional patterns in the form of Integration

patterns.

Integration patterns

Integration patterns allow us to tie together multiple Business patterns to solve a

business problem. The Integration patterns are outlined in Table 1-2.

Business Patterns Description Examples

Self-Service

(User-to-Business)

Applications where users

interact with a business

via the Internet or

intranet

Simple Web site

applications

Information Aggregation

(User-to-Data)

Applications where users

can extract useful

information from large

volumes of data, text,

images, etc.

Business intelligence,

knowledge management,

Web crawlers

Collaboration

(User-to-User)

Applications where the

Internet supports

collaborative work

between users

E-mail, community, chat,

video conferencing, etc.

Extended Enterprise

(Business-to-Business)

Applications that link two

or more business

processes across

separate enterprises

EDI, supply chain

management, etc.

8 Broker Interactions for Intra- and Inter-enterprise

Table 1-2 Integration patterns

These Business and Integration patterns can be combined to implement

installation-specific business solutions. We call this a Custom design.

Custom design

We can illustrate the use of a Custom design to address a business problem

through an iconic representation as shown in Figure 1-2.

Figure 1-2 Patterns representing a Custom design

Integration Patterns Description Examples

Access Integration

Integration of a number

of services through a

common entry point

Portals

Application Integration

Integration of multiple

applications and data

sources without the user

directly invoking them

Message brokers,

workflow managers

Access Integration

Self-Service

Collaboration

Information Aggregation

Extended Enterprise

Application Integration

Chapter 1. Introduction to Patterns for e-business 9

If any of the Business or Integration patterns are not used in a Custom design,

we can show the unused patterns as lighter blocks than those that are used. For

example, Figure 1-3 shows a Custom design that does not have a Collaboration

business pattern or an Extended Enterprise business pattern for a business

problem.

Figure 1-3 Custom design with Self-Service, Information Aggregation, Access Integration

and Application Integration

A Custom design may also be a Composite pattern if it recurs many times across

domains with similar business problems. For example, the iconic view of a

Custom design in Figure 1-3 can also describe a Sell-Side Hub composite

pattern.

Composite patterns

Several common uses of Business and Integration patterns have been identified

and formalized into Composite patterns. The identified Composite patterns are

shown in Table 1-3.

Access Integration

Self-Service

Collaboration

Information Aggregation

Extended Enterprise

Application Integration