NonStop Systems Introduction for H-Series RVUs

Introduction
NonStop Systems Introduction for H-Series RVUs—540083-001
1-9
The ZLE Framework
solution integrates these systems, so that the customer representative can obtain the
necessary information through a single interface.
The enterprise application integration (EAI) environment includes all the services
that enable the business applications running on the operational systems to
communicate with each other and with the data store. It is in this layer that a request is
received and evaluated, business intelligence is applied to the request, the response is
formulated and sent to the user, and, if necessary, new information is pushed out to
other operational systems.
For example, if a customer address changes in a particular business application, the
change is routed to the real-time hub. The EAI software components on the hub then
route the change to all the other business applications that need to know about the
change. All communications between the operational systems passes through the EAI
environment.
The EAI components can be hosted on the Integrity NonStop server or on a separate
and entirely different platform (such as Windows or HP-UX) called an integration
server, which communicates with the Integrity NonStop server through standard
messaging products. The EAI software is generally provided by third-party vendors.
Services provided by EAI include:
•
Data conversion. A major challenge of a real-time solution is handling the data
conversion tasks needed to enable all of a corporation’s diverse business systems
to communicate with the real-time hub. As shown in Figure 1-3 on page 1-7, this
role is fulfilled by programs called adapters. Adapters are programs that translate
data and transaction requests from the native format of the sending application to
the format required by the real-time hub and vice versa, thus enabling the
operational systems to communicate with the applications and services residing on
the hub.
For example, suppose a local business runs its operations on a Tuxedo platform
and wants to be integrated into a real-time solution that uses a platform based on
Java. The business would use a Tuxedo adapter to convert Tuxedo calls to Java
calls, thus enabling the Tuxedo applications to interface to the Java framework.
Although adapters can be used to connect the various business applications to a
platform of a different base, the greatest benefit of a platform is provided to
applications written using that platform’s API. (For example, applications based on
Tuxedo work best in a NonStop Tuxedo integration platform).
Adapters are hosted on the operational systems, not on the Integrity NonStop
server, and are usually supplied by third-party vendors.
•
Data transformation. Different applications often represent data items in different
ways. For example, an application might represent dates using the day/month/year
format, while another application might use the month/day/year format. Data
transformation services perform the necessary translation.