Use WebSphere Adapters nodes to communicate
with Enterprise Information Systems (EIS).
SAP, Siebel, and PeopleSoft adapters are supported by the following nodes
in
WebSphere Message Broker:
- SAPInput node
- SAPRequest node
- SiebelInput node
- SiebelRequest node
- PeopleSoftInput node
- PeopleSoftRequest node
The
TwineBallInput and
TwineBallRequest nodes are sample nodes
with their own sample EIS. You can use the TwineBall nodes to see how adapters
nodes work. You cannot use the TwineBall nodes to connect to the external
SAP, Siebel, and PeopleSoft EIS systems.
The following terms are associated with WebSphere Adapters:
- EIS
- Enterprise Information Systems. This term is used to describe systems
such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Customer Relationship Management
(CRM).
- EMD
- Enterprise Metadata Discovery. A specification that you can use to examine
an EIS and get details of business object data
structures and APIs. An EMD stores the definitions as XML schemas by default,
and builds components that can access the EIS. In WebSphere Message Broker you
use the Adapter Connection wizard to examine an EIS. EMD can
also be known as ESD (Enterprise Service Discovery) or ODA (Object Discovery
Agent).
- Business object
- A data structure from an EIS.
The WebSphere Adapters support two modes of communication:
- Inbound: An event is generated on the EIS and the adapter responds to
the event by sending a message to the message broker. The WebSphere Adapters
input nodes support inbound communication. When the EIS sends an event to
the adapter, a message is propagated from the WebSphere Adapters input node.
- Outbound: The message broker uses the adapter to send a request to the
EIS. The WebSphere Adapters request nodes support outbound communication.
When a message is propagated to the WebSphere Adapters request node, the adapter
sends a request to the EIS.
The WebSphere Adapters nodes need an adapter component in order to access
the EIS. The input nodes need an inbound adapter component, which allows the
EIS to invoke the message flow when an event occurs. The request nodes need
an outbound adapter component, which is used by the message flow to invoke
a service in the EIS.
The WebSphere Adapters nodes also need a message set to ensure that the WebSphere Message Broker messages that are propagated to and
from the nodes reflect the logical structure of the data in the EIS.
The following topics provide more information about the WebSphere Adapters: