8.1 Business scenario

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As described in 6.2.1, "Stage I: Internal ordering on demand" on page 116, ABC Electronics plans to integrate their retail and wholesale departments. Both departments have existing IT infrastructures, but currently there is no connectivity between their applications.

The retail order information is to be integrated with the wholesale inventory system, eliminating the lag that occurs with the current manual process and providing up-to-date inventory information.

The Application Integration pattern applies to this situation. This pattern can be applied for intra-enterprise integration activities. This use of the Application Integration pattern will provide a number of benefits to ABC Electronics. Not only does it provide a means to integrate existing business processes, information and systems, but it also improves organizational efficiency and reduces the latency of business events. Integrating existing systems will leverage existing skills in the organization and maximize the investment already made in the legacy systems.

When the retail department needs to notify the wholesale department that a part must be ordered, the Message variation of Direct Connection application pattern can be applied. This Application pattern is suitable because the retail department will be notifying the wholesale department that a part must be ordered, but the retail department does not require any response as part of this process.

When the retail department needs to know the expected delivery date for a part on order, the Call variation of the Direct Connection application pattern can be applied. In this instance, the retail department requires a response from the wholesale department, advising them of the expected delivery date for the part in question.

The RPC style Web service can be applied to both processes. It provides a relatively simple development effort in integrating the existing systems in the retail and wholesale departments. It has the advantages of providing heterogeneous platform support and loose-coupling between the two systems.

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