Patterns: Broker Interactions for Intra- and Inter-enterprise

Chapter 6. Business scenarios used in this book 113

򐂰 Standards compliance:

– Appropriate standards are identified and applied.

– Compatibility with existing internal systems and partners is considered.

It is beyond the scope of this redbook to define such requirements in real,

measurable terms for our sample scenarios. Of course you would do so in a

real-world implementation to ensure that the delivered solution meets the

demands of the organization.

6.2 Intra-enterprise scenarios

In the first phase of implementation, ITSO Electronics wants to integrate their

retail and wholesale departments. Currently, both organizations have proven IT

infrastructures but have no interconnectivity. The first process ITSO Electronics

wants to focus on is the inventory and order replenishment process. Currently,

the items sold are tallied at the end of the month by the retail ordering process

and delivered to the wholesale organization by internal mail. This creates a lag in

the inventory replenishment process and causes many out of stock situations. A

primary business goal is to minimize the loss of sales due to items being out of

stock.

Selecting a Business/Integration pattern

In 3.2.1, “Business and IT drivers” on page 35, the following drivers are listed for

selecting the Application Integration pattern:

򐂰 The business processes need to be integrated with existing business systems

and information.

򐂰 The business activity needs to aggregate, organize and present information

from various sources within the organization.

Both drivers apply to ITSO Electronics. The business processes of the retail

department and the wholesale department need to be integrated by integrating

the existing retail business system with the existing wholesale business system.

The pattern would integrate the retail order information with the wholesale

inventory information, eliminating the lag and providing an up-to-date inventory.

The Application Integration pattern can be applied in our intra-enterprise

scenarios, as shown in Figure 6-3.

114 Broker Interactions for Intra- and Inter-enterprise

Figure 6-3 ITSO Electronics: Stage I and II architecture overview diagram

6.2.1 Stage I: Internal delivery date on demand

In the first stage of the internal implementation, ITSO Electronics wants to

integrate the Retail system and the Wholesale system.

The Retail departments currently keep commonly requested replacement parts

in stock. To replenish this stock when it gets low, the Retail department must

determine which Wholesale departments carry the needed parts and which of

these can supply the part the quickest, then order the part via phone or fax.

In this stage of integrating the Retail and Wholesale departments, the goal is to

automate the process of determining which Wholesale department can supply a

part the quickest.

For Stage I of our business scenario, we can identify two

actors:

򐂰 The retail system

򐂰 The wholesale system

We can also identify a

use case:

򐂰 Get delivery date

Actors

Table 6-1 provides details on the retail system actor, and Table 6-2 provides

details on the wholesale system actor.

Application

Integration

Retail

Ordering

System

Organization boundary

Wholesale

Inventory

System

Reseller

Partner

Infrastructure

Reseller

Partner

Infrastructure

Reseller

Partner

Infrastructure

Chapter 6. Business scenarios used in this book 115

Table 6-1 Retail system actor details

Table 6-2 Wholesale system actor details

Use case 001: Get delivery date

Table 6-3 provides details on the update inventory use case.

Table 6-3 Use case 001: Update inventory

Actor name Retail system

Brief description The retail system implements the retail ordering

business process

Status Primary

Relationships 001 Get Delivery Date

Associations to use cases

Actor name Wholesale system

Brief description The wholesale system implements the wholesale

inventory management business process

Status Primary

Relationships

Associations to use cases

Use case name 001 Get delivery date.

Subject area Wholesale ordering.

Business event A Wholesale supplier and delivery date for an item out of

stock with the retail division needs to be obtained from the

wholesale system.

Actors Retail system, Wholesale system.

Use case overview The Retail system requests a delivery date for a part. A

router determines which Wholesale system supplies the

part and forwards the request to it. The Wholesale system

returns the delivery date.

Preconditions The Retail system supplies a part number for the item to be

ordered.

Termination outcome 1 The Wholesale system returns the delivery date of the part.