Chapter 11. Business Object Integration

Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness .

”Chinese proverb

SRF, the RSS corporatewide architecture, mandates the development of business objects that communicate asynchronously using XML messaging. The XML messages deliver OAGIS business object documents (BODs). The business objects are implemented using Enterprise JavaBeans and other J2EE technologies. The rationale for mandating this approach is to evolve from a collection of isolated systems to an environment in which collections of business objects cooperate to provide required capabilities. Each business object becomes the steward for a particular data collection, and other business objects requiring access to this data go through the appropriate steward. The objective is to eliminate not only the need for redundant, and hence inconsistent, data collection and storage but also redundant functionality.

There are, however, some practical concerns on how to apply the SRF to the RSS modernization effort. RSS is a transactional system that distributes functionality across many business objects. If all of them are implemented on the same platform, is it necessary to restrict their communication to asynchronous message passing of large-grained BODs, or can the Enterprise JavaBeans used to implement these business objects communicate with one another using method invocation? How will intersystem and intrasystem communication affect the overall performance of the system? We need to evaluate each integration approach in more detail to understand how and when each approach should be applied in the RSS modernization effort. We also need to look at the competing architectures for distribution and communication inherent in each approach.