6.3 Inter-enterprise scenarios

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In the second phase of the implementation, ABC Electronics wishes to enable their external resellers to place orders to the wholesale group. Currently, the resellers fill out an order form and mail it to the wholesale organization. Difficulties arise when orders cannot be filled because of latency in the manual process and outdated inventory.

Selecting a Business/Integration pattern

In 4.1.1, "Business and IT drivers" on page 71, the following drivers are listed for selecting the Extended Enterprise business pattern:

The business processes need to be integrated with existing business systems and information.
The business processes need to integrate with processes and information that exist at partner organizations.

Both drivers apply to ABC Electronics. The business processes of the reseller partners and the wholesale department need to be integrated by integrating the existing partner systems with the existing wholesale business system. The pattern would integrate the wholesale inventory information with processes and information that exist at partner organizations.

The Extended Enterprise business pattern can be applied in our inter-enterprise scenarios, as shown in Figure 6-6.

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Figure 6-6: ABC Electronics— Stage III and IV architecture overview diagram

6.3.1 Stage III: External ordering on demand

With the success of the internal retail and wholesale systems, ABC Electronics has now decided to integrate their external reseller business partners. The goal of the third stage of implementation is to integrate the external partner systems with the internal wholesale system. As with the internal retail system, orders placed by the external partner systems will need to update the wholesale inventory system.

For Stage III of our business scenario, we can identify an additional actor:

The partner system or systems

We also need to provide the Partner System actor with access to the Update Inventory use case.

Actors

Table 6-5 provides details on the partner system actor.

Table 6-5: Retail system actor details
Actor name	Partner system
Brief description	The partner system implements the partner ordering business process
Status	Primary
Relationships	001 Update Inventory, 002 Get Delivery Date
Associations to use cases
Notes

The Stage III use case model is shown in Figure 6-7.

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Figure 6-7: Stage III use case model

Selecting an Application pattern

In Table 4-3 on page 75 and Table 4-4 on page 76, the following drivers are listed for selecting the Message variation of the Extended Enterprise::Exposed Direct Connection application pattern:

Improve the organizational efficiency
Reduce the latency of business events
Support a structured exchange with business partners
Support real-time one-way message flows to partner processes
Leverage existing skills
Leverage the legacy investment
Enable back-end application integration
Minimize application complexity

These drivers are a good match for the Stage III scenario. If we were undertaking large-scale integration between numerous business partners, the Exposed Broker or Exposed Serial Process application pattern might be a better choice. In this example, we are only concerned with point-to-point integration between ABC Electronics and its partners, so the Exposed Direct Connection application pattern is a reasonable choice.

The Message variation of the Extended Enterprise::Exposed Direct Connection application pattern can be applied in our Stage III scenario. See the following Extended Enterprise scenarios for our sample implementations:

Chapter 14, "Using inter-enterprise Web services" on page 299
Chapter 15, "Using WebSphere Data Interchange" on page 315

6.3.2 Stage IV: External on demand ordering with delivery date

The final stage of the scenario addresses out of stock situations with external resellers. As with the internal retail system, the external resellers require an immediate notice on any out of stock situations and a delivery date when the order can be filled.

For the Stage IV scenario, we need to provide the Partner System actor with access to the Get Delivery Date use case.

The Stage IV use case model is shown in Figure 6-8.

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Figure 6-8: Stage IV use case model

Selecting an Application pattern

In Table 4-3 on page 75 and Table 4-4 on page 76, the following drivers are listed for selecting the Call variation of the Extended Enterprise::Exposed Direct Connection application pattern:

Improve the organizational efficiency
Reduce the latency of business events
Support a structured exchange with business partners
Support real-time request/reply message flows to partner processes
Leverage existing skills
Leverage the legacy investment
Enable back-end application integration
Minimize application complexity

All drivers apply to the Stage IV scenario. In this scenario, the business process requires that a delivery date be returned to the partner application in real time, so support for real-time calls between applications is a key driver.

The Call variation of the Extended Enterprise::Exposed Direct Connection application pattern can be applied in our Stage IV scenario. See the following Extended Enterprise scenarios for our sample implementations:

Chapter 14, "Using inter-enterprise Web services" on page 299

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