Patterns: Broker Interactions for Intra- and Inter-enterprise

150 Broker Interactions for Intra- and Inter-enterprise

8.1 Business scenario

In this scenario, ITSO Electronics consists of multiple Retail stores and

Wholesale departments. The Retail stores get their supplies from the Wholesale

departments and have a need to request the delivery dates of those supplies.

Currently there is no integration of the Retail and Wholesale applications. All

interactions between the two are done over the phone or by mail. In this

scenario, a solution must be found to allow the Retail stores to request delivery

dates from the Wholesale departments.

The solution requires the following elements:

򐂰 A central access point for all services inside the enterprise.

򐂰 Decoupling Retail store functions from the Wholesale department functions

so that changes made to the Wholesale department systems or their location

do nor require a change to the Retail store systems.

򐂰 A central security control point that controls access to the Wholesale

department services.

򐂰 Protocol conversion between the Retail store systems and the Wholesale

department service providers to accommodate the addition of new services.

The transition of protocols used between the Retail and Wholesale systems

must be transparent.

ITSO Electronics is planning to implement the solution in three stages:

򐂰 Stage 1: Basic integration:

The Retail system requests either the service of Wholesale1 or the service of

Wholesale2, therefore the Retail system has to know which Wholesale holds

the part it needs.

򐂰 Stage 2: Enhanced integration:

ITSO Electronics enhances this solution, so that the Retail system no longer

needs to know where the part is.

򐂰 Stage 3: Extended enterprise:

ITSO Electronics wants to allow external Retail systems to get delivery dates

from the Wholesale departments and to plan for allowing internal Retail

systems to get delivery dates from external Wholesale suppliers.